MSC Cruises Ship Welcomed in Corfu Amid Coronavirus Fears

   March 6, 2020 ,   Accidents

MSC Opera visited Corfu Island (Greece) on Thursday, March 5, after a former passenger from the ship had been diagnosed with Coronavirus in his home country of Austria two days earlier.

However, after a review of the cruise ship's records, health officials at Corfu port gave the ship the all-clear. MSC Opera's 1,579 cruise passengers were allowed to disembark without additional public health measures.

In a statement, MSC Cruises said that all passengers had been allowed to disembark as planned. Crew or passengers had never been quarantined and everyone could make free use of the onboard restaurants and facilities before leaving Piraeus for Corfu.

On March 3, the former MSC Opera passenger had been diagnosed with the coronavirus after returning to Austria. The affected traveler had been aboard MSC Opera last week and had disembarked at Genoa on Friday, February 28. 

MSC Opera cruise ship

The MSC Opera ship was notified on Wednesday, March 4, and all of her passengers and crew were asked to remain onboard at Piraeus port while health officials checked the cruise ship. Later the same day the authorities in Piraeus cleared Opera to depart.

For other MSC Opera accidents and incidents see at the ship's CruiseMinus page.

For Coronavirus updates on cruise ship quarantines (infected passengers and crew) and top-pandemic countries (COVID-19 cases and deaths, daily updated statistics) see at CruiseMapper's Norovirus page.