Cruise ships lined up at Ogden Point in 2019. The centre ship, the Star Princess, is the sister ship to Grand Princess, which was recently quarantined off the California coast due to a COVID-19 outbreak aboard (Credit: Anne Catherine for The Capital).

Cruise ships lined up at Ogden Point in 2019. The centre ship, the Star Princess, is the sister ship to Grand Princess, which was recently quarantined off the California coast due to a COVID-19 outbreak aboard (Credit: Anne Catherine for The Capital).

For any community trying to insulate itself against COVID-19, an arriving cruise ship is an epidemiological nightmare

The world is in the midst of an economic freefall sparked by COVID-19, and one of the hardest hit sectors happens to the same one pumping an estimated $100 million into the Greater Victoria economy every year: The cruise industry.

“This is just shocking and unfortunate; the cruise business was doing so well, particularly in the Alaskan cruise market,” Ivan Feinseth, a cruise industry analyst with New York’s Tigress Financial Partners, told The Capital. Most notably, the ship scheduled to be 2020’s first arrival in Victoria, the Grand Princess, remains moored off California due to a COVID-19 outbreak aboard ship which required the quarantine and testing of all 3,500 passengers.

The Greater Victoria Harbour Authority is still preparing for business as usual. However, The Capital looked into all the factors increasingly conspiring against Victoria’s 2020 plans to host the largest cruise season in its history.

At the best of times, cruise ships are breeding grounds for disease

A 2016 study in the journal Scientific Reports referred to the average cruise ship as an “incubator for infectious diseases.” During one of the last major global disease outbreaks – the 2009 spread of H1N1 – nearly 3,000 people who contracted the virus caught it aboard a cruise ship. Even when the world isn’t being swept by a new disease, cruise ships are known to rack up a reliable tithe of gastrointestinal outbreaks. In an average year, 27 cruises will be hit by norovirus.

Already, many Canadian cases of COVID-19 have occurred because the patient was exposed to the virus while on a cruise ship. BC’s 36th case of COVID-19 was a man in his 90s who caught the virus aboard the Grand Princess. Alberta’s first COVID-19 patient is believed to have caught the virus from a travel companion who was also aboard the Grand Princess.

Kari Kolstoe is desperate. She has stage 4 cancer, (weakened immune system) & is onboard the Grand Princess Cruise-ship with 21 coronavirus patients. The ship is off the N. Calif. coast. Kari has no symptoms but needs to get off to receive chemo. Cc: @kevincramer @gavinnewsom pic.twitter.com/2OvUiAMtuO — David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) March 7, 2020

A cruise is basically a cocktail of everything that infectious disease experts recommend avoiding: Thousands of people from are around the world are grouped together for days at a time in relatively close proximity, they’re isolated from conventional medical care, they’re making daily visits to new ports and they’re moving around an environment utterly littered with handrails. On top of everything, they’re probably weakening their immune system by hitting the bar too hard.

Health authorities are singling out cruise ships as vectors for COVID-19

Airlines, hotels, theme parks and professional sports are all feeling the pinch of a world that is increasingly deciding to stay home, but cruise ships are unique as one of the only industries that has been explicitly singled out by health authorities.

“U.S. citizens, particularly travelers with underlying health conditions, should not travel by cruise ship,” wrote the US State Department in a Sunday travel alert. The US-based Centres for Disease Control “recommends travelers, particularly those with underlying health issues, defer all cruise ship travel worldwide.” In Canada, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam has recommended that “Canadians avoid all cruise ship travel.” BC’s top doctor, Bonnie Henry, has officially called for the cruise season to be delayed.

U.S. citizens, especially with underlying conditions, should not travel by cruise ship. #CDC notes increased risk of #COVID19 on cruises. Many countries have implemented screening procedures, denied port entry rights to ships and prevented disembarking. https://t.co/jh93gZTkpC pic.twitter.com/jI6S0UceVg — Travel - State Dept (@TravelGov) March 8, 2020

The Cruise Lines International Association has responded by adopting a suite of new measures designed to fortify their ships against the spread of COVID-19. This includes careful disinfecting of ships and terminals, as well as turning away any passenger who has recently returned from China, Korea, Italy or Iran – or who is even just showing a fever. However, it remains to be seen if the measures will be enough for health authorities increasingly overwhelmed by the outbreak.

The Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, for its part, isn’t adopting any special measures without a directive from provincial health authorities. “We will adopt regulations and policies under direction of health officials including province and federal authorities,” authority spokesperson Brian Cant wrote in a statement to The Capital. “What is done in port will be our responsibility under government guidelines.”

Most Victoria-bound cruises are set to visit Seattle, the US epicentre of the disease

Less than six weeks after Washington State recorded the first case of COVID-19 in the United States, the Seattle area has exploded with new diagnoses. In King County alone, there were 190 cases as of Tuesday, including 22 deaths. Most worrying of all, COVID-19 has been confirmed in at least 10 long-term care facilities for the elderly.

Health officials in the region have effectively lost any control over the virus, which is now spreading through the community with increasing speed, leading state authorities to estimate this week that the cases will eventually reach in the “tens of thousands.” In response, Washington State is enacting increasingly strict measures on “social distancing.” This has included closed schools and an effective lockdown on senior’s care homes. Then, on Tuesday, Washington State governor Jay Inslee announced a planned ban on gatherings larger than 250 people.

Archival photo of cruise vessels moored at the Port of Seattle (Port of Seattle).

Of the 283 cruise ships expected to visit Victoria in 2020, 213 are scheduled to begin or end their voyage in Seattle. In May alone, Victoria is set to see more than 10,000 visitors disembarking from ships that set out from Seattle.

If Washington State is already prepared to ban any gathering larger than an average wedding, it wouldn’t be too much of a leap for state authorities to ban the boarding of vessels designed to hold thousands – particularly if those vessels are going to be drawing thousands of outsiders into the COVID-19-stricken Seattle area.

