Passengers on Arctic cruise ship quarantined in Norway

A COVID-19 outbreak has hit an Arctic cruise ship, forcing hundreds of passengers into quarantine.

Thirty-six crew members of the ship, which is operated by Hurtigruten, the first firm to resume international cruises in the wake of the pandemic, have tested positive for coronavirus.

Arriving at the northern Norwegian port of Tromsø from the archipelago of Svalbard, the crew of the MS Roald Amundsen were quarantined on board the ship on Friday after four staff members tested positive for the virus and were admitted to hospital.

Of the 158 crew members on board, 36 are infected, Pal Jakobsen, media officer for the city of Tromsø said.

Some 400 passengers from two cruises to Svalbard in July now face going into quarantine, while the company scrambled to contact 20 passengers they were not immediately able to reach, reports say.

Hurtigruten had earlier indicated 33 positive tests. The infected crew were all Filipino, apart from three from France, Norway and Germany. The company said on Friday that four crew members “were isolated several days ago because of other disease symptoms, with no symptoms of Covid-19. There was no reason to suspect Covid-19 when the ship docked in Tromsø based on the symptoms they were showing.”

The ship had nearly 180 passengers on board since departing on July 25.

None of the passengers reported symptoms related to coronavirus during

‘There was no reason to suspect Covid-19... based on the symptoms they were showing’

the voyage, Hurtigruten said. All passengers disembarked the ship on Friday but about 60 people have since been quarantined in Tromsø, the cruise line said yesterday. The crew members are the first coronavirus cases the Tromsø hospital has seen since early June.

By Friday, Norway had 9,208 confirmed cases of coronavirus. One person died of the virus on Friday night, bringing the country’s death toll to 256.