Around 2,000 passengers in a Mumbai-Goa cruise ship were not allowed to disembark after a crew member was found positive for coronavirus. All the passengers and the crew are now being tested for Covid-19. Officials have instructed that no one should disembark from the ship, Cordelia Cruises’ Empress, before the result of RT-PCR test has been declared.
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Sunday that a cruise ship with 2,000 passengers on board was not allowed to dock at Goa port on Sunday. Operators of this cruise ship have been asked to conduct COVID-19 tests on all the passengers through the Vasco-based Salgaonkar Medical Research Centre (SMRC) Hospital before allowing them to alight.
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.
A port trust official said that all passengers will be tested before being allowed to disembark. “All the passengers are double-vaccinated. The ship doctor had tested a crew member who had a fever for a day. The vessel was kept outside the port limits while authorities were informed,” they said.
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 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 of Task Force on Monday in which certain measures are likely to be announced to curb the spread of coronavirus infections.
Goa’s Covid-19 tally touched 1,81,182 on Saturday after 310 cases were detected, while the death toll remained unchanged at 3,522, an official said.
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