Just two hours prior to the expiration of the no-sail order that expired on September 30, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the no-sail order for the U.S. cruise industry has been extended through October 31, 2020.
The original order went into effect mid-March and extensions were issued in April and again in July.
As we reported earlier this week, the CDC’s original request was that the order gets extended to February 15, 2021. They reportedly came to a compromise with the White House Task Force to extend it just until October 31st, only “four days before the November 3rd election, a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly told USA TODAY Tuesday.”
Bari Golin-Blaugrund, vice president of strategic communications for Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the leading industry organization, told USA TODAY upon news of the extension Wednesday night:
We look forward to engaging in a thoughtful and productive dialogue with our partners and regulators in the United States to return to cruising in the region.
According to the data from Johns Hopkins University, U.S. COVID-19 daily cases have gone down since July but they continue to exceed those of most other countries around the world. The U.S. has logged nearly 7 million cases of COVID-19 and over 200,000 deaths due to the global pandemic.
The November 1st restart date is not set in stone and comes with caveats. CLIA stated that it be constantly evaluating the situation and would announce whether any adjustments might be necessary. If conditions in the U.S. should change and allow shorter, modified sailings, an earlier restart could be taken into consideration.
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