Coronavirus: Royal Caribbean bans travellers with Chinese passports after 4 cruise-ship passengers are sent to New Jersey hospital to be tested for the disease
- The four were among 27 passengers on the Royal Caribbean vessel, the Anthem of the Seas, who had recently been in mainland China
- ‘Any guests holding a Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passport … will not be allowed to board our ships’ through February, Royal Caribbean says
After four passengers arriving on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that docked in a New Jersey port were sent to a hospital to be tested for the novel coronavirus Friday morning, the cruise line announced it was temporarily banning any travellers holding Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passports from boarding its ships.
The cruise line said that, because of coronavirus concerns, “any guests holding a Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passport, regardless of when they were there last, will not be allowed to board our ships” through the end of February.
Additionally, Royal Caribbean said “any guest or crewmen travelling from, to, or through mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau less than 15 days prior to their sailing will be unable to board any of our ships”.
The statement came hours after US health authorities sent four passengers arriving on the Anthem of the Seas, which had docked in Bayonne, New Jersey, just south of Manhattan, to the hospital for further tests for coronavirus.
The Miami-based company had already announced restrictions on travellers earlier this week, requiring passport holders of China, Hong Kong and Macau to go through a specialised screening process before boarding the ships.
The four people being tested were among 27 passengers who had been screened by staff from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the ship, according to a statement by the New Jersey state government. All of those screened had recently travelled to mainland China.
