All passengers allowed to disembark Cordelia after two days

Mumbai: Two days after Cordelia cruise ship anchored at Mumbai, 1,820 passengers and crew members, including 132 Covid positive were allowed to disembark and go home in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday.

“All the positive patients except seven were asymptomatic and didn’t have any serious co-morbidity so they were allowed home isolation. Seven patients were shifted to hotels and quarantine centres. They were residents from outside Mumbai,” Shivdas Gurav, assistant municipal commissioner from A Ward, where the ship was anchored, said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) found 139 passengers positive after testing samples collected from 1,827 passengers on board the luxury cruise ship. On January 1, 66 passengers were found to be positive when the ship was docked in Goa. While six of them were allowed to disembark in Goa, the remaining positive patients returned on board the ship to Mumbai.

Over Tuesday and Wednesday, as many as 40 positive passengers with mild symptoms were moved to healthcare facilities or private hotels in Mumbai (one person, with serious symptoms was admitted to St George’s hospital), while 19, who were asymptomatic, were allowed to isolate on board the ship itself. Late Wednesday night, seven patients were moved to isolation centres as the rest of the passengers disembarked.

After the ship arrived Mumbai on January 4, the BMC carried out RT-PCR tests of 1,827 passengers — the swab samples were collected till 5.30 am on Wednesday morning — and said that they would be allowed to disembark after the reports arrive.

According to the details shared by BMC officials, out of the 139 positive patients, 67 were from outside Mumbai including areas like Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, 63 were crew members, and nine patients were Mumbai residents.

Gurav said that passengers allowed to go home would have to undergo mandatory home isolation for seven days, and BMC officials have stamped their hands.

“After the reports came up late at Wednesday night, the passengers and crew members were allowed to disembark in a phased manner. Before that medical tests were carried out on them to check if they had any severe co-morbidities,” Gurav had said.

Earlier this week, Jurgen Bailom CEO and President of Waterways Tourism Private Limited that manages the cruise ship said that all passengers and crew members on board were fully vaccinated and had tested negative before coming on board the cruise-ship.

“The guests that boarded the cruise last Sunday had all tested negative in their RT-PCR at the time of boarding. They were also fully vaccinated. It is only when one crew member and, that too someone who works at the back of the house, showed mild symptoms on board last Sunday and was immediately isolated, that all guests and crew had to undergo tests again. The results of which showed that a few guests and one crew member on board have tested positive,” Bailom’s statement read.

The cruise ship that left from Mumbai on December 31 and was meant to stop at Goa, Kochi and Lakshadweep islands before sailing back to Mumbai. However the ship returned to Mumbai on Tuesday (January 4) after 66 members on-board including six members were tested positive during the journey.