The Centre for Disease Control & Prevention has announced that the ‘no sail’ order for cruises operating in the US waters will expire. Instead of this order, the government body has released a conditional framework of new rules and regulations that cruises have to follow once they resume operations. 

The first phase of this relaunch will focus on crew members

These members will be allowed to disembark from the cruise ships in the territorial waters of the US. This applies to cruise ships that carry over 250 passengers. 

In the meantime, cruise ship operators will build lab capacity for testing crew members and passengers that arrive in the future. All companies have to follow testing procedures, social distancing and quarantining requirements whenever applicable. 

The phases at the later stage will involve ‘mock voyages’. These voyages will have volunteers play the role of managers to test virus mitigation strategies on the cruise ships. Once these ships meet the requirements, they will be certified to resume operations with real passengers. 

Robert Redfield, Director, CDC, said, “This framework provides a pathway to resume safe and responsible sailing. It will mitigate the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks on ships and prevent passengers and crew from seeding outbreaks at ports and in the communities where they live.”

See the full framework here.

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