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Health officials fear the infection has spread from the ship to dozens of cities and settlements on Norway’s west coast.
Five passengers and 36 crew members on the cruise ship MS Roald Amundsen, who underwent a coronavirus test, were hospitalized at the University Hospital of Northern Norway in Tromsø, where the ship is currently moored. Tromsø is about 350 km north of the Arctic Circle.
“The preliminary evaluation shows that several of our internal procedures have not worked,” said Daniel Skjeldam, chief operator of the Hurtigruten ship.
He added that the company, which cruises along the picturesque Norwegian coast between the southern city of Bergen and Kirkenes in the north of the country, is halting operations and “is currently thoroughly reviewing all procedures and all aspects of order. internal”.
The company stated that the preliminary investigation had revealed deficiencies in various “internal procedures”, but did not specify how.
Hurtigruten contacted all passengers on the MS Roald Amundsen from Bergen on July 17-24 and July 25-31 to the Svalbard polar bear archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. During the first trip, 209 passengers sailed, during the second trip – 178.
Coronavirus tests were performed on all 158 MS Roald Amundsen crew members; The results of 122 tests were negative.
However, since this cruise travels between ports along Norway’s west coast and as a local ferry, it has probably not been able to prevent the virus from spreading further. Part of the passengers disembarked on the way, allowing the coronavirus to start spreading among members of local communities.
The municipality of Tromsø encourages all persons who have visited MS Roald Amundsen or who have had contact with persons who have been there to contact local health officials. Norwegian news agency NTB reported that a total of 69 Norwegian municipalities were affected.
How the outbreak started is unknown, as people from different parts of the world sailed the ship. The passenger list on the ship shows that most of them are Norwegian, but there are also people from Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Estonia and Latvia.
The NTB stated that 33 of the 36 crew members screened for coronaviruses came from the Philippines, the others from Norway, France and Germany.
Hurtigruten announced that three ships, MS Roald Amundsen, MS Fridtjof Nansen and MS Spitsbergen, had been suspended indefinitely.
Based in Tromsø, Hurtigruten was one of the first companies to resume sea travel. In June, a ship began sailing to Norway from the German port city of Hamburg, and in July it began sailing to the Svalbard archipelago, the media reports.
The cruises were suspended in mid-March, following several large-scale outbreaks of coronaviruses on ships.
More than 710 people, 13 of whom died, have been infected with the Coronavir Diamond Princess aboard the Carnival cruise ship, which was quarantined off the coast of Japan.
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