And switching gears, the CDC issued an advisory against cruise tourism today on the day that Belize saw its largest number of cruise ship visitors since 2019. We'll get to that part in a bit, but first, the CDC urged all travelers whether vaccinated or not to avoid cruise ship travel altogether.
The CDC said that COVID, quote, "spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high." They also upgraded that travel health notice from level 3 to level 4 since there's been an increase in Omicron cases being identified onboard cruise ships. 88 vessels are now either under investigation or observation, and four other vessels are being monitored as well.
Today we asked Dr Natalia Largaespada Beer, from the Ministry of Health and Wellness, about this clear and present danger in the face of the Omicron wave:
Jules Vasquez
"We have, I can see on the horizon 4 cruise ships in harbor today, over 10,000 cruise visitors. Obviously, some of them are vectors for the omicron, it's spreading. Is this something that you would encourage against this mass opening to cruise tourist because of the dangers associated with it?"
Dr. Natalia Beer - Technical Adviser, NHC Unit
"We know that the cruise ship has been taking their own public health measures for boarding passengers that have to be negative to board the ships and if there is any positive case and if there is any transmission ongoing, the relationship that the ministry has with these companies allow for the sharing of information if there is any person that was detected positive and for our team to implement the public health measures to contain if there any positive case on ships that arrive in Belize."
