ASTA Critical of CDC Cruise Guidance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidance on cruising, raising its travel advisory from a Level 3 to Level 4, the highest level.

Many have been critical of this decision, noting that cruising with all its safety protocols—including vaccination and testing—is one of the safest ways to travel at the moment.

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Zane Kerby, ASTA president and CEO, noted this in a statement from the association calling on the administration to stop “crippling” the cruise sector.

“An increase in reported COVID cases on cruise ships should surprise no one given the worldwide spike driven by the highly-transmissible omicron variant,” said the statement. “The difference between enjoying a cruise vacation and visiting your local grocery store or restaurant, however, is the extraordinarily stringent anti-COVID measures put in place voluntarily by the cruise lines, in close consultation with the CDC. These measures include testing, vaccination, sanitation, mask-wearing and other science-backed measures, as well as protocols to respond to potential cases of COVID-19.

“If the average cruise ship were a U.S. state, it would be the safest in the country – by far. According to Royal Caribbean Group, since cruising restarted in the U.S. in June 2021, its ships have carried 1.1 million guests with 1,745 people testing positive – a positivity rate of 0.02 percent. Among U.S. states as of January 4, Alaska’s positivity rate is the lowest at 9.4 percent, with Georgia’s the highest at 38.7 percent.”

Kerby went on to note that cruising isn’t any more responsible for the spread of COVID-19 than travelers from South Africa.

“We continue to see knee-jerk reactions singling out travel for discriminatory treatment,” said Kerby. “Because the travel industry is regulated more heavily than other activities when COVID caseloads rise or new variants emerge, travel takes the hit. It brings to mind the old saying, ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ This pattern needs to stop.

“The Administration has shown flexibility on its anti-COVID measures of late, including the recent decision to lift the November 26 travel ban on eight countries in Southern Africa. We call on it to do the same here. At this stage in the pandemic, the tools exist to allow us to combat this virus without crippling an entire sector of the U.S. economy in the process. Let’s use them.”