By now, everyone’s heard of how Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas had to turn back on day 3 of a 4-day voyage to nowhere, after an 83-year-old Singaporean male passenger tested positive for Covid-19 on board the ship when he reported to the on-board medical centre with diarrhoea.
But just hours after he disembarked, he tested negative in two further tests – both his original sample and a fresh one were tested. Today, the there would be a third test to confirm if he indeed does have the virus.
As you can imagine, this caused confusion for all passengers and crew, with close contacts of the patient isolated for 14 days for observation. All passengers on board wore a ‘Tracelet’ – a wristband that uses the Trace Together app similar to the token.
Upon leaving the ship, all passengers took a rapid Covid-19 test, and will be tested again two weeks later.
The case for PCR
All cruise ships require their passengers to test negative before boarding – but both cruises have different methods of testing. Royal Caribbean uses the more accurate Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), tests, which takes a few days to process. Dream Cruises uses the less accurate Antigen Rapid Tests on the date of departure which produces results in about an hour.
Even if PCR is accurate, it doesn’t detect a Covid-19 infection that’s still in its incubation phase – it takes about 5 days on average. PCR doesn’t distinguish between an old or new infection either, so someone could have had it but is not contagious. Of course, there’s always the chance of a false positive because no test is 100% accurate.
Here are the types of tests we currently have in Singapore:
Moving forward
This case has prompted Royal Caribbean to cancel its 4-night cruise that’s set to depart today (Thursday 10 Dec), but sailings will resume on Dec 14. Genting Cruise Line’s World Dream proceeded with their cruise on schedule on Wednesday night.
Cruise ships have a history of being Covid-19 hotspots ever since the beginning of the pandemic, so it’s no surprise that Singaporeans have mixed feelings about travelling on one. An online poll of more than 1,000 Straits Times readers on Thursday (Oct 8) showed that 49% gave cruises the thumbs down.
Would you go on a cruise, considering all other forms of travel are not really feasible?
