CCL Stock: Covid-19 Still Very Real on Carnivals Cruise Ships

Table Of Content

• Other port segments
• Royal Caribbean shares tumble as 6 Covid cases discovered on board a ship, cruise line expands U.S. testing policy
• CDC warns older adults, travelers in COVID high-risk groups not to take cruises, even if they're vaccinated
• More from InvestorPlace
• As cruise ship passengers and crew contract COVID-19, cruise lines upgrade their protocols
• Relying on a negative Covid test is also a flawed strategy

He said the port will continue reduced spending levels for promotions, advertising, travel, sponsorships and consultants. Poole said, with cruising resuming, the port will have increases in various other expenses, including for service contracts, utilities and public safety. Additionally, there will be 630 half-day sailings of the Victory 1 gambling ship. The money will help cover its losses stemming from a 16½-month shutdown of the cruise industry locally because of COVID-19. Carnival said it also has a process in place to randomly test a large percentage of its crew on a rotating basis multiple days per week, even though all are vaccinated.

Other port segments

Two of the passengers were children who did not have the COVID-19 vaccine, and the third was a vaccinated parent of one of the children, according to Port Canaveral officials. "Even with the vast majority of our onboard population highly vaccinated we are seeing more covid positive cases with vaccinated guests," Bayley said, in the post. "The Delta variant is now spreading rapidly with over 92,000 new infections yesterday alone in the USA and in Florida one of the industry's major markets there were over 17,000 cases yesterday." As of Saturday, all guests will be required to show proof of a negative Covid test, regardless of their vaccination status, Carnival said. “[P]arents of unvaccinated children under 12 years of age say that there is ‘nothing for the kids to do at all, besides the pool’ and that kids couldn’t get off the ship when it visited ports,” Smith wrote on Aug. 19.

Royal Caribbean shares tumble as 6 Covid cases discovered on board a ship, cruise line expands U.S. testing policy

Even on a good day outside of the pandemic, cruises are challenging environments from an infection-control standpoint, Ostrosky says. "Each guest and their immediate travel parties are disembarking in Freeport, The Bahamas today, and separately traveling home via private transportation," the cruise operator said. Will Ashworth has written about investments full-time since 2008. Publications where he’s appeared include InvestorPlace, The Motley Fool Canada, Investopedia, Kiplinger, and several others in both the U.S. and Canada. He particularly enjoys creating model portfolios that stand the test of time.

CDC warns older adults, travelers in COVID high-risk groups not to take cruises, even if they're vaccinated

According to The Washington Post, Carnival said it announced last week that there were positive cases on board but did not disclose how many cases there were at that time. The change comes as the U.S. faces its fourth wave of COVID-19, driven by the delta variant. As of Friday, the country has reported 987,417 new cases and 6,037 virus-related deaths in the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Sailing on the Carnival Vista to several ports in the Caribbean, Marilyn Tackett became ill while on a port visit in Belize. The ship doctor gave the retired Sunday school teacher a Covid-19 test. Eventually, she was sent by air ambulance to Oklahoma, where she died while on a ventilator on Aug. 14.

Three passengers tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of the recent inaugural seven-night sailing from Port Canaveral of Carnival Cruise Line’s newest and largest ship, the Mardi Gras. Cruises are even particularly risky when compared to other types of travel, like driving or flying, because they present more opportunities for prolonged exposure. "Frankly, the risk on a two-hour flight where everyone is masked and airflow is good is [lower] than being on a cruise ship for five days straight," says Dr. Preeti Malani, chief health officer at the University of Michigan. Only one of the positive cases was a passenger; the remaining 26 were crew members. All 27 people were vaccinated and are experiencing mild or no symptoms, the country's tourism board said.

At the time of this writing Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. “[C]ome the end of July, the cruise operator’s new ship, Mardi Gras, will sail from Port Canaveral on a seven-day Caribbean cruise,” I wrote on June 28. After hearing the presentation, Port Authority Chairman Wayne Justice noted that there is excitement about the return of cruising at the port — which is expected to lead to a return to profits in the coming budget year. He is using estimates of passenger counts that are much lower than the port has historically seen. Poole said he was conservative in his projections for port revenue from cruise operations.

The cruise required vaccination, and approximately 96% of all 4,336 passengers and crew were reportedly vaccinated, but nobody was required to present a negative Covid test before boarding. After four days on the water, the ship reported a 27-person Covid outbreak spanning both passengers and crew. One of the passengers, the 77-year-old, died 10 days later ⁠— the first such reported death since cruises restarted in the United States in June. In July, four vaccinated adults and two unvaccinated children tested positive for COVID-19 on a Royal Caribbean ship that had required passengers 16 and older to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and all passengers to receive a negative test before boarding. Last week, 27 people – 26 of whom were crew members – tested positive for COVID-19 on Carnival Cruise Line's Carnival Vista ship. More than 99% of crew members were vaccinated on the ship and 96.5% of passengers were vaccinated, according to the Belize Tourism Board.

vaccinated people test positive for Covid on a Carnival cruise ship

Port Canaveral Secretary/Treasurer Robyn Hattaway expressed some frustration during Wednesday's Canaveral Port Authority meeting about how long it was taking for the port to get its ARPA money. Even with the ARPA money, Port Canaveral expects to report losses of $39.48 million during the current budget year. "We can try to do cruises as safely as possible, but we are going to have breakthrough cases," says Ostrosky. You eat and drink indoors at buffet restaurants with large communal tables, attend shows in theaters and touch all kinds of surfaces, from railings to casino games. If an outbreak happens at sea, you're restricted to the boat, which can make the outbreak harder to contain and treat.

Relying on a negative Covid test is also a flawed strategy

In the Mardi Gras incident, three Carnival Cruise Line passengers had COVID-19 on the inaugural sailing of the ship from Port Canaveral on July 31. Some of the cruise companies are fighting another battle, too ⁠— against state governments that have passed laws or executive orders aimed at stopping vaccine mandates. On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott passed an executive order banning any state or local mandates requiring Covid vaccination. In Florida, home to multiple popular cruise departure ports, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order in May prohibiting vaccine passports statewide.

CDC protocol says at least 95% of passengers and crew must show proof of vaccination to board a cruise ship. The port said it lost an estimated $113.6 million in cruise ship and cruise-related parking revenue during the shutdown, which began in March 2020. Pre-pandemic, about 80% of the port's revenue came from various fees it charged cruise ships and from cruise passenger parking. The appearance of COVID-19 on the Mardi Gras as cruising returned to Port Canaveral is a sign of just how precarious the restart of cruising can be. Due to the rapidly spreading delta coronavirus variant, the cruise line will be expanding its test procedures for cruises departing from the U.S. that are five nights or longer.

So far, Carnival and other cruise lines have dealt with the cases without disrupting their ship schedules. "We look forward to a future when more people are vaccinated and the numbers are lower, perhaps we're over the delta variant," Ostrosky says. Several cruise companies, including Disney Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line, are cracking down on vaccine requirements.

A recent story appeared in Jim Walker’s Cruise Law News detailing the death of a 77-year-old woman who took a Carnival cruise with her family, leaving Galveston, Texas on July 31. During the pandemic, the port reduced its staff by 43% — from 268 positions to 153. That was done through a combination of 68 permanent layoffs, 17 unpaid furloughs, and not filling 30 positions that were left vacant because of retirement or employees taking jobs elsewhere. But that's still less than the port's pre-pandemic staffing level.

That's an onerous process, and difficult to organize and pull off, especially in the middle of a passenger's vacation. Norwegian Cruise Line sued Florida's top health official in July, requesting a preliminary injunction to let the company implement its vaccine mandate for all passengers and crew. District Judge Kathleen Williams writing that Norwegian "demonstrated that public health will be jeopardized if it is required to suspend its vaccination requirement."

Carnival added that "our protocols are designed to manage and mitigate COVID amongst guests and crew." That's why it's common to see outbreaks of other contagious respiratory or gastrointestinal viruses, like norovirus, aboard cruises. Shares are up nearly 3% since the start of the year, bringing the company's market value to $19.57 billion. Let’s assume for a second that Carnival was able to ensure that no one on its ships could be infected with Covid-19. But, of course, it’s impossible to make this guarantee but play along.

The six guests were immediately quarantined and their close contacts were identified and tested. Three of the four fully-vaccinated passengers had no symptoms and the fourth passenger had mild symptoms, Royal Caribbean said in a statement. The two unvaccinated guests are minors traveling in the same party and are asymptomatic. "Carnival is managing a small number of positive COVID cases on Carnival Vista sailing out of Galveston. This despite all of our crew and almost all of our guests being vaccinated," a spokesperson for Carnival Cruises said in a statement. For example, he is projecting that ships sailing from Port Canaveral will operate at 50% of their double-occupancy capacity from October through December 2021.

COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported on cruise ships in recent months, despite various testing and vaccination requirements among cruise lines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance for travelers who are at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 to recommend they avoid cruise ships, regardless of vaccination status. Every little action on cruise ships will be under a microscope in the weeks and months ahead. The fact that they don’t pay U.S. taxes will encourage health authorities in this country to apply very stringent rules on cruise ships. Poole noted that Port Canaveral-based cruise ships historically have sailed at 110% to 115% of their double-occupancy capacities, with three or more people occupying many cabins, typically parents and their children. "We have managed the situation utilizing stringent health protocols which included placing those who tested positive in isolation and close contacts in quarantine."