Grenada turns away 5 cruise ships over COVID concerns

   January 7, 2022 ,   Accidents

Grenada's health and port authorities canceled 5 cruise ship calls over a 9-day period due to outbreaks of flu-like symptoms onboard ships.

The cruise ships that were turned away were scheduled to call at St George's between December 29, 2021, and Friday, January 7, 2022, according to Nikoyan Roberts, nautical development manager for Grenada Tourism Authority.

Under the Grenada Cruise Ship Protocol, cruise companies are mandated to immediately report outbreaks of acute respiratory illness/flu-like illness among guests/crew and any COVID-positive cases to the port health authority and local agents.

Roberts said the precautionary process was applied to all cruise ship calls expected into Grenada until May 2022 when the 2021-2022 season ends.

Grenada's 2021-2022 cruise season started in November and a little more than 200 liners had been scheduled to berth at the island's harbor. However, since the discovery of COVID's omicron variant, several cruise ships have either canceled scheduled calls to their ports or have been turned away due to outbreaks onboard.

Health Minister Nicholas Steele announced on Tuesday, January 4, during the post-Cabinet briefing there was a health protocol/an agreement with minimum requirements for cruise vessels and all other sailing ships to fulfil for them to be allowed to berth at any of the island's harbors.

The protocol mandates that permission would only be granted to a sailing ship in case less than 1% of the passengers onboard are infected with COVID or other infectious diseases.