Cruise Lines’ Booking Practices in a Pandemic Are ‘Astonishing’: CDC Official

Since the start of July, the major cruise lines have ramped up their public-facing efforts to safely resume sailing. Norwegian Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean have co-founded a Healthy Sail Panel with experts across the medical, public health, and epidemiological fields. Carnival has teamed up with the World Travel and Tourism Council for a July 28 summit that will explore "the latest scientific knowledge and evidence-based best practices related to prevention, detection, treatment and mitigation of Covid-19." In Europe, MSC has also created a similar panel of experts. You'd be forgiven for thinking: Wait, haven't the cruise lines been doing that all along? After all, since they stopped sailing in mid-March, cruise lines have announced (and then pushed back) imminent dates when they would resume sailing, many of which were well before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's No Sail order was to expire on July 24. (The order was extended last week to expire on September