Norovirus on Oasis of the Seas Brings It Home a Day Early

We haven't been reporting cases of norovirus lately because cruise lines have been able to deal with it so effectively that it seldom reaches the threshold any longer that the CDC classifies as an “outbreak” (3%). In all of 2018, there were only 11 “outbreaks” that they tracked, according to the CDC website, and it's highly unusual these days for a cruise line to ever miss a port or need to return early because of it.

We now have the first outbreak of 2019 necessary report to the CDC, and it has caused the ship to be barred from landing passengers in one port, and caused the cruise line to return the ship early for extra sanitation.

The ship is Oasis of the Seas, and the latest figures reported on the CDC website this afternoon are 385 passengers out of 6,285 (6.12%), and 17 crew members out of 2,169 (0.78%). Some media reports put the total this afternoon at 475.

The complete story appeared in the January 11 issue of Cruise News Daily.