There were 51 positive cases on board on Wednesday morning, according to Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth, Curacao’s national epidemiologist.
“The day before yesterday, 18 crew members were positive, yesterday 36 and this morning there were 51. In addition, several crew members have not been quarantined, so there is a good chance that passengers have also been infected,” said Gerstenbluth.
“With these numbers of infections, that percentage has been exceeded and we are therefore not eager to receive these people on the island, especially not with the current figures on the island,” Gerstenbluth told the Chronicle.
It’s unclear whether the highly infectious Omicron variant, which is currently spreading rapidly around the world, was responsible for the cases detected on either cruise.
Crew members are also required to be fully vaccinated and test “at least once a week.”
CNN’s Andy Rose, Francesca Street and Lechelle Benken contributed to this report.