After days of being stuck at sea, the government of Uruguay finally allowed a Coronavirus (COVID-19)-hit Australian cruise ship to dock in Port Montevideo Uruguay to evacuate all passengers and some staff-crew.
The Aurora Expeditions-operated ship Greg Mortimer faced difficult times after over 60% of all passengers and crew tested Coronavirus-positive.
The ship was carrying 200+ passengers and crew, with tourists mostly from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. 128 tested positive, 89 negative, and 6 critically ill passengers were hospitalized in Montevideo.
The ship was on a sailing to Antarctica and the British territory of South Georgia and left Port Ushuaia Argentina on March 15.
Greg Mortimer has been anchored off Montevideo port in Rio de la Plata since March 27, 2020.
The Uruguayan Navy intended to allow the cruise ship to dock in the capital Friday afternoon, April 10, then transfer the passengers and crew to a quarantine area at Carrasco International Airport.
The cruise company said they had been advised that American and European passengers that had tested positive had to wait until they had a negative test result after which the line would be able to organize their flights via Sao Paulo (Brazil).
Authorities will retest all cruise passengers every 2 or 3 days. Those who test negative will be repatriated. Another English-speaking doctor was sent to the cruise ship on April 7.
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.