Coronavirus Sickened Cruise Customer on Carnival’s Princess Line
Coronavirus Sickened Cruise Customer on Carnival’s Princess Line
(Bloomberg) -- Carnival Corp.’s Princess Cruises said a recent passenger in Asia tested positive for coronavirus, prompting Japanese health officials to delay the ship he’d been on while they conduct a review of all guests and crew.
Princess said in an emailed statement Monday that the passenger embarked in Yokohama, Japan, on Jan. 20 and disembarked in Hong Kong on Jan. 25. The ship, Diamond Princess, then continued its round-trip journey to ultimately take other passengers back to Yokohama, which is near Tokyo.
On Saturday, the passenger, who was from Hong Kong, tested positive for coronavirus at a local hospital there, according to Princess.
Carnival shares fell as much as 3.3% to $42.10, the lowest intraday level since October. They are poised for their eighth drop in 10 trading days and have fallen 17% since their recent high on Jan. 17, when coronavirus cases were starting to mount in Wuhan, China.
The delay in Yokohama will last 24 hours, according to Princess. The company said there are currently 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew onboard.
The episode comes just days after a ship from Carnival’s Costa Crociere unit was put on lockdown at a port near Rome over concerns that passengers might have had coronavirus. The passengers were allowed to disembark last week after tests showed the two passengers actually had A/H1N1 flu.
Still, concerns that the virus is weighing on consumer appetite for ocean travel have prompted analysts to revise their earnings estimates downward.
The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak has risen past 360, and the number of total confirmed cases has reached almost 17,400.
“The review of the arriving guests and crew, by Japanese health authorities, is standard practice after a guest tested positive for coronavirus and we are working closely with the local authorities to provide detailed records to facilitate their review,” Princess said in the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Levin in Miami at jlevin20@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, John J. Edwards III, Nick Turner
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