81 Coronavirus passengers on cruise ship Greg Mortimer off Uruguay

   April 6, 2020 ,   Accidents

81 passengers on the cruise ship Greg Mortimer (stranded off Uruguay's coast for ~2 weeks) have tested positive for Coronavirus (COVID-19). In a statement, the Australian cruise company Aurora Expeditions said 2 crew and 1 passenger had been medevaced off the vessel which had been on an Antarctic cruise itinerary.

More than 120 other passengers and crew were tested for Coronavirus, with 81 cruisers testing positive and 45 negative. Another 90 results are expected to be processed over the next 24 hours.

Greg Mortimer cruise ship

In a statement, the cruise ship operator said that aside from the people who were stable and in hospital in Montevideo, the cruise passengers who had tested positive were asymptomatic, having been clinically assessed by the specialists and not found to be unhealthy or required health status monitoring at that stage.

Aurora Expeditions said they were continuing to work with Uruguayan authorities to have those who had tested negative removed from the liner and on chartered flights home as soon as possible. The advice from the authorities was that everyone who could leave had to leave. 

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.