The Norwegian Getaway cruise ship arrives in France.
A suspected case of the omicron coronaviruses variant was reported on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship that was in New Orleans on Sunday. 17 people have tested positive for something.
The news raises concern that the outbreak could continue to grow and put people on land at greater risk of the variant. Cruise ships are notorious for being harbored. The coronaviruses were able to spread quickly at sea at the dawn of the Pandemic. The omicron variant is the most transmissible variant yet identified. The data from South Africa suggests it could spread more quickly than the already hyper transmissible variant.
State, local, and federal health officials worked with Norwegian Cruise Line to put disease-prevention protocols in place as people disembarked from the ship. Everyone who disembarks will be tested, according to a media statement by Norwegian Cruise Line. The cruise line said that guests who have tested positive for COVID-19 will travel by personal vehicle to their personal residence or self-isolate in accommodations provided by the company.
It's not clear how effective those protocols will be and how passengers will be tracked once on land. The passengers got off the ship and lined up for ground transportation, and reporters from WVUE Fox 8 in New Orleans spoke with them. Some had heard about it, while others didn't.
"We didn't hear of this until we heard you talking a second ago," Don Canole, a cruisegoer from North Carolina, said as he stood in line. It would have been nice to know that. We would have taken more precautions. The passenger in line said they were never told anyone was positive.
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All of the passengers and crew were required to have their vaccinations. They had to take a test to see if they were positive on the test. After leaving New Orleans on November 28, the vessel stopped in five countries before returning to New Orleans this weekend.
The omicron ship is on the water.
It is not clear how the coronaviruses got onto the ship. The Louisiana Department of Health reported that the cruise line had detected 10 cases of the disease among their passengers and crew. The health department reported an additional seven cases on Sunday. The crew member is not a Louisiana resident and did not leave the ship, but the health department did not release any additional information about that case or the others.
Ars asked the Louisiana health department for more information.
When officials in South Africa first raised international alarm about an omicron outbreak at sea, the cases aboard Breakaway showed that the variant was already being spread. The first case in the US was in a resident who had returned from South Africa. The second case was in a man from Minnesota who traveled to New York City to attend a convention of 53,000 people. He tested positive a few days later.
Peter McGinn, a 30-year-old health care analyst from Minneapolis, was identified in a New York Times article as the man. McGinn told the Times that while he doesn't know how he got the disease, he spent his trip at the convention chatting with strangers and singing with friends at night.
McGinn said he felt tired and had a cough after returning to Minneapolis. He learned that one of his friends from the convention had tested positive. Half of the people he remembers socializing with at the convention have tested positive for vaccine-related diseases, he told the Times.
At least 17 US states have reported detecting omicron cases. Louisiana reported its first probable case on December 3.
