Portugal Cruise ship cancels new year trip after 4,000 passengers test COVID positive

A large number of people who were travelling on a cruise ship were forced to cut short their holiday as a COVID outbreak was reported during the New Year holiday trip. According to a report by Anadolu News Agency, around 4,000 people tested positive for the Coronavirus on a cruise ship in Lisbon on Monday.

The media report said that the AIDAnova ship, carrying passengers from Germany, had been held up since December 29 at the Lisbon port. At first, 52 crew members tested positive for the novel coronavirus between Wednesday and Friday. However, the figure reached 120 after 68 more people including some passengers tested positive for the highly-infectious virus. 

According to the statement released by the cruise ship, the ship took off from Hamburg on December 22 last year and was decked out as a winter wonderland for the holiday season. It said that the passengers were boarded in the penultimate week of December in order to visit the Portuguese island of Madeira.

As per the plan, passengers would first enjoy the New Year’s celebrations and then take a halt in-between the journey. Later, they were set to reach Spain’s Canary Islands. However, all the planning got ruined as more than 4,000 people were infected with the virus. According to Portuguese news agency Lusa, those who were infected with the deadly virus had mild to no symptoms and were taken to hotels in Lisbon to isolate them.

The COVID variant is yet to be identified

Earlier, the cruise ship had announced the rest passenger would remain on the vessel and could continue their journey. However, after mounting pressure from the government, AIDAnova ship announced to cancel the entire trip. According to the information updated on the website of the cruise, travellers need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and must produce a negative test before boarding. However, the recent incident sparked a debate whether the passengers were infected with the Omicron variant or the Delta variant. It is worth mentioning this was not the first incident when the cruise ship has to cancel the trip. In July last year, the ship had cancelled the trip after six of the passengers tested positive for the COVID-19. 

Image: Twitter/AIDA Cruises/Shutterstock