Goa: 2,000 Passengers Stuck on Cruise After Crew Tests Positive
Cruise ship were not allowed to disembark after a crew member was found positive for coronavirus.
A crew member of the Cordelia Cruise ship headed to Goa from Mumbai tested positive for coronavirus.
A port trust official said that the ship doctor had tested a crew member who had a fever for a day. Notably, only the crew member has tested positive in an antigen test and so all others are being tested as a precautionary measure. There are over 2,000 people on board the cruise. Now all the passengers and crew members are now being tested for Covid-19. The Covid infected crew member is under isolation on the ship. A medical team in PPE kits went on board to conduct the RT-PCR test of passengers and crew members. Their test results are awaited. Pathologist Dr Eugene D’Souza, a consultant at Victor Hospital, a private hospital doing the tests, told Times of India on Sunday that the process started around 9.30 pm. Until 11.30pm, around 500 samples had been collected and it was to continue overnight.
Officials have instructed that no one should disembark from the ship before the result of the RT-PCR test has been declared. The cruise is currently near Mormugao Port cruise terminal. Health Minister Rane said that international flights with 4,000 passengers land in Goa every day and that every flight has Covid positive passengers. “We have to be strict about the Covid protocol.”Rane also said Goa will set up a genome sequencing machine in the next 15 days to avoid delay in the testing of suspected Omicron variant samples, which are currently sent to the Pune-based NIV. He said Chief Minister Pramod Sawant will hold a meeting in which certain measures are likely to be announced to curb the spread of coronavirus infections. On Saturday 1st January 310 people tested positive for Covid-19 in Goa.
