‘Cruise To Nowhere’ Ends Prematurely After Passenger’s COVID Scare

An 83-year-old passenger onboard an ill-fated “cruise to nowhere” from Singapore has tested negative for the coronavirus twice after an initial positive result erupted in a scare, forcing the ship to prematurely return to port. 

The health ministry shared results of the elderly man’s test late on Wednesday, hours after he returned to Singapore. Officials previously confirmed that he had tested positive for the virus while at sea. 

Royal Caribbean said in a statement that all guests and crew members who had close contact with the man were identified, isolated and subsequently tested negative for the virus. But in an “overabundance of caution”, the company decided to cancel the next cruise which was scheduled for Thursday. 

In the early hours of Wednesday, nearly 2,000 passengers were awoken by a public system announcement from the captain, who said that a guest had tested positive for the virus after reporting to the ship’s medical centre with diarrhoea. The captain asked for passengers to stay in their cabins and remain calm. 

“I am terribly sorry that the cruise ended a day early and ended this way,” he added.  

Emergency response plans were then activated. All passengers were quarantined in their cabins while contact tracing and deep cleaning were carried out. One panicked passenger told Reuters that “the worst fear had happened”. 

The four-day cruise, part of Singapore’s efforts to revive its badly-hit tourism industry,  departed the Marina Bay Cruise Centre on Monday and was expected to return on Thursday. It follows an eagerly-awaited but ill-fated air travel bubble with Hong Kong that has since been delayed due to rising coronavirus infections in Hong Kong. 

But life is gradually returning to normal in the Southeast Asian city-state, which has kept the number of daily new cases under a dozen on most days since October. As of Thursday, it has reported almost 58,300 coronavirus cases and 29 deaths.