Ship Blocked From Jamaica and Cayman Islands Allowed to Dock in Mexico

In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, MSC said that the crew member and all passengers on the ship passed mandatory health screenings in Miami before embarking on the cruise on Sunday.

The MSC ship arrived in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, from Miami on Tuesday morning. After the ship’s command reported one case of influenza onboard, Jamaican authorities, concerned that the man might have the coronavirus, said no one could disembark. The ship left Ocho Rios for its next port of call, Georgetown, Cayman Islands, after waiting to be cleared for nearly four hours.

The ship was supposed to dock in Georgetown on Wednesday morning, but the Caymanian Ministry of Health and Public Health Department said on Tuesday night that it could not do so.

“In an abundance of caution, in order to provide protection to the health and safety of the residents of the Cayman Islands, the government has denied permission for the cruise ship to call on Grand Cayman as previously scheduled,” Dwayne Seymour, health minister for the Cayman Islands, said in a statement.

The incident came on the same day that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States said that Americans should brace for the likelihood that the coronavirus will spread to communities domestically.