Cruise with Confidence

CDC drops COVID-19 risk alerts for cruise travelers

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday it’s dropping the Cruise Ship Travel Health Notice, which informed travelers of coronavirus risk levels connected to cruising, after months of strong objections from cruise industry leaders. The CDC had a four-tier risk assessment rating for cruise travel. Since cruising restarted in June 2021 after a pandemic hiatus, the U.S. agency has alternated between calling cruising a “high” risk or “very high” risk of passengers contracting COVID-19 due to surges in new coronavirus variants and recommending that travelers avoid cruises. The announcement comes the day after the CDC said that the Omicron subvariant, BA.2, is now the dominant version of the virus in the United States. While the strain has proven to be highly contagious, it has not shown to cause severe illness due to the prevalence of vaccines. Read more here.