No end in sight: 100,000 crew on cruise ships stranded at sea

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

While most cruise ship passengers have now made it back to land, another crisis has been growing – with no safe haven in sight.

Around the world, more than 100,000 crew workers are still trapped on cruise ships, at least 50 of which have Covid-19 infections, a Guardian investigation has found. They are shut out of ports and banned from air travel that would allow them to return to their homes.

Many of these crew are quarantined in tiny cabins, and some have had their pay cut off. They have effectively become a nation of floating castaways, marooned on boats from the Galapagos Islands to the port of Dubai.

Many of the crew have only minimal communication with the outside world, making their situations hard to scrutinise. But at least 17 cruise ship workers are confirmed to have died from suspected Covid-19, and dozens more have had to be medically evacuated off ships and hospitalized, the Guardian found.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/no-end-in-sight-100000-crew-on-cruise-ships-stranded-at-sea/ar-BB13pgFQ?ocid=NL_ENUS_D1_20200430_4_3

[mr_lebowski]

1. Sounds really sucky, but OTOH 50 out of 100,000 is pretty darn low infection rate ...

Esp. considering the close proximity.

Being isolated from the rest of the world might actually prove beneficial for them.

Hell, for all we know, in a year or two, those 100K will be the ones responsible for re-populating the planet.

[Mariana]

2. I think that sentence means 50 ships have Covid-19 infections

not 50 people. It's hard to be sure, with such shitty writing.

Edit: Later in the story it says,

Tens of thousands more are on ships in other parts of the world, according to the Guardian’s analysis, which used the ship tracking site CruiseMapper and media reports to identify more than 50 ships that have had Covid-19 infections or confirmed exposures aboard.

[Ms. Toad]

3. This strikes me as odd.

Many of these crew are quarantined in tiny cabins,

With no passengers, it would seem to me that the crew could have their choice of vacant cabins (perhaps setting one deck aside for those with COVID 19)

[msongs]

4. sail back to the country in which the ship is registered and get off the ship nt

[LonePirate]

5. Exactly. The cruise ship industry wants to sail under those foreign flags, go to those countries.