A Carnival ship that set sail from Texas had 27 COVID-19 positive people aboard Wednesday, the highest number of reported cases on a US ship since the cruise industry opened back up this summer.
The Carnival Vista arrived in Belize City with 26 infected crew members and one infected guest, according to the Belize Tourism Board.
Officials noted that there were more than 4,000 people on the ship, and 99.98 percent of the crew was vaccinated, along with the vast majority of the passengers.
The infected crew members are now in isolation, but “most are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms,” Belize officials said.
Crew members are now wearing N95 masks and employee social areas are closed. All guests will need a negative rapid test to leave the ship at the next port, even if they are vaccinated, according to the release.
“The team at Carnival noted that all positive cases have been isolated and contact tracing has ended with no additional positive cases found, and that the infected crew and passenger do not pose a threat to guests, crew or frontline workers in Belize,” the statement read.
Carnival Vista, the first Carnival ship to set sail this year, on July 3, arrived in Cozumel, Mexico on Thursday, according to The Washington Post.
A company spokesman told the newspaper it had already disclosed there were positive cases last week, but Carnival reportedly only said it was “managing a small number of positive cases on board.”
In the wake of the outbreak, the company issued new guidelines requiring all guests to wear masks in some indoor areas.
The CDC assigned Carnival Vista a “yellow” status, and said it “has investigated and [the] ship remains under observation,” according to its website.
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