The scare is over, but as it turns out, there was no reason to be scared in the first place.
The Carnival Magic cruise carrying a Dallas lab supervisor who had handled an Ebola patient’s blood samples returned to port on Sunday, where health officials confirmed that the hospital worker had tested negative for Ebola.
The hospital worker’s movements were not restricted by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention when she boarded the ship, but since then, the CDC put her and other health care workers on a more active watch regimen, and on Wednesday, federal officials asked that the cruise line’s medical team monitor the woman.
The healthcare worker and her husband chose to voluntarily quarantine themselves in their stateroom, away from other vessel parts, for the duration of the cruise, and were regularly monitoring themselves for fever or symptoms of the disease.
However, as word spread of the potential of Ebola onboard, passengers used hand sanitizer, avoided touching cruise vessel parts and equipment, and tapped elbows instead of shaking hands. But for the most part, passengers on this vessel for a non-singles cruise went about business as usual, packing the dining room and hanging out on deck chairs by the pool.
Unfortunately, there were a few drawbacks to having an Ebola scare onboard. Mexico declined to let the passengers make a day trip to Cozumel, out of concern for spreading the disease. However, Carnival compensated the passengers, with half off their next cruise, and gave each person a $200 credit.
There’s no need to put this cruise vessel for sale, either. There is no fear of the ship being contaminated, and health officials said the ship did not need any special cleaning. However, Carnival said it would give all the vessel parts a “very comprehensive and aggressive cleaning and sanitizing” with specialized parts and equipment.
The passengers themselves seemed surprisingly unaffected by the ordeal.
“It’s not chaotic at all,” said passenger Eric Lupher in an interview on Saturday afternoon. “There might be some people hiding in their room, but about 95 percent of the people are still drinking and partying.”
“I never saw anybody crying or panicking,” Victor Baras said as he carried his luggage away from the ship. “It was pretty normal.” Read more.
