Τhe Centers for Disease Control (CDC) filed an appeal in federal court seeking to overturn the district court’s ruling and blocking the lower court’s injunction against the conditional sailing order regarding the restart of cruising.
Namely, the lower court gave the CDC until the beginning of July to recommend narrow restrictions while ordering the two sides to mediate the case.
Now, the CDC contends that the restrictions on cruises from U.S. ports are vital to continuing efforts to prevent the spread of the new variants of COVID-19 in the US. CDC also believes that the court’s actions were unnecessary, considering the fact that the CDC has already provided the framework for the restoration of cruising.
Recently, the U.S. cruise industry has begun to resume operation, with many companies restarting their cruises. More specifically, Celebrity Cruises started the first revenue cruises from Port Everglades in June, while Royal Caribbean International became the first cruise line to complete the trials to begin commercial cruises without neccessity for 95% of passengers to be vaccinated.
As for CDC, it also believes that cruise ships are a unique situation because of the prolonged time passengers and crew remain in close proximity.
What is more, Florida had previously filed a lawsuit claiming that it was suffering immediate harm from the loss of revenues and unemployment due to the CDC’s orders. In fact, the state said that the CDC was overstepping its authority in regulating cruises.
Finally, the CDC is arguing that the cruise industry is now continuing with a prudent restart after its framework, noting that there is no evidence that if the injunction were to apply, cruises would restart quicker.
