Customers booked with P&O Cruises will have to pass rigorous medical checks prior to boarding P&O's cruise ships once the company resumes services. The UK's biggest cruise company (part of Carnival Corporation) is developing plans to introduce “stringent measures” in order to ensure it obeyed international health guidelines issued due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Among the currently considered changes are also reducing the ships' max passenger capacity, abolishing the self-service buffet dining, implementing one-way systems onboard.
Paul Ludlow (P&O's President) said the company was working with British authorities (like Public Health England) in order to ensure voyages adhered to guidance “without compromising enjoyment and experience”. He added the new health safety measures which might, "no doubt, encompass rigorous pre-embarkation screening, changes to the onboard experience for guests and also working with our shore experience operators and ports of call," would be in place as soon as the passenger shipping services resume.
Last week P&O confirmed its operations are suspended until at least the end of July 2020.
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.