CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky says positive COVID tests on cruise-ships have soared THIRTY-FOLD in two weeks after her agency warned against cruise holidays

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Cruise ships have seen a 30-fold increase in COVID cases over the past two weeks, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced, with nearly 100 vessels carrying passengers in US waters currently under investigation.

Speaking at a Senate hearing Tuesday, the CDC head said that the increase can be attributed to the highly contagious - and more mild - Omicron variant.  

'Just over the last two weeks with Omicron, we've seen a 30-fold increase in cases on ships,' Walensky, 52, said during the four-hour meeting, where the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions addressed the surging cases.

The agency has since not offered an updated count of cases on cruise ships. 

The marked increase in infections comes after the agency warned against cruise ship travel on December 30 regardless of passengers' vaccination status, and nearly two years after the pandemic shut down the industry.

Cruise ships have seen a 30-fold increase in COVID cases over the past two weeks, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has announced, with nearly 100 vessels carrying passengers in US waters currently under investigation

In the first two weeks of December, 162 cases aboard cruise-liners were reported to the agency. However, as cases surged in the second half of the month due to holiday travel and the new variant, cruise lines reported a staggering increase in outbreaks.

According to Walensky, who addressed the spread along with the White House's Dr. Anthony Fauci, ships operating in US waters reported approximately 5,000 cases to the CDC from December 15 through December 29 - a 3,000 percent increase. 

As a result, thousands of passengers found themselves stranded at sea on ships forbidden to dock at foreign ports due to the positive cases, or embroiled in lengthy, onboard quarantines of up to two weeks before being allowed to return home. 

Meanwhile, dozens of routes have been canceled, with some ports in the Caribbean and South America turning away ships. 

'It wasn't the cruise we signed up for,' Palo Alto retiree Janet Silver Ghent told The Guardian on Wednesday, after being stuck aboard a South America cruise for eight days when ports in Chile and Argentina refused to let passengers disembark because of positive tests.

The influx in cases threatens to put a damper on the cruise industry's long-planned comeback, which started six months ago when companies resumed operations after closing their doors for more than a year due to the pandemic. 

The situation this time around, while concerning, seems much less dire, as there have been no reports of infected passengers or crew members suffering from serious illness or death in the recent surge, a likely result of the more mild nature of the heavily mutated Omicron variant.

Due to the influx of cases, thousands of passengers found themselves stranded at sea on ships forbidden to dock at foreign ports due to the positive cases, or embroiled in lengthy, onboard quarantines of up to two weeks before being allowed to return home

Cruise liners sit anchored off the Port of Miami on January 7 after their voyages were canceled

Carnival's Queen Mary cruise ship sits docked at at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal on December 20. Just over a wek later, the CDC would warn vacationers to not embark on cruise trips

What's more, the majority of cruise lines now require passengers to be fully vaccinated and tested for COVID before embarking, likely limiting the intensity of any outbreaks.

'Our case count has spiked, but the level of severity is significantly milder,' said Calvin Johnson, the chief medical officer of the world's second largest cruise-liner, Royal Caribbean, in a statement last month. 

At the time, the company reported that after cruising restarted in the US in June of last year, only 1,745 of its 1.1 million customers tested positive for COVID - a rate of 0.162 percent. Of those passengers, Johnson said, only 41 needed hospitalization.

However, the sudden rash of positive cases is still causing problems for cruise operators and passengers. 

According to Florida maritime attorney James Walker, thousands of cruise ship crew members are currently infected with the virus, with many quarantining out at sea on a fleet of ships that are now out of service due to COVID cases.

'Given the number of crew members who are ill, there are significant staffing problems,' Walker told The Guardian Tuesday. 'For the people who pay to go on a cruise, the service isn't there.'

Passengers stand stuck quarantining in their cabins on the the Royal Caribbean vessel ordered to stay docked in Hong Kong on January 5 after the cases were detected

However, despite these staffing issues and the CDC's stern warning last month, statistics offered by one of the biggest cruise ports in the world seem to suggest that the industry is bouncing back six months after restarting operations.

'We're seeing a million dollar increase month over month for the first three months of the year,' Port Canaveral CFO Bill Poole announced during aport commission meeting on Wednesday, citing soaring revenue numbers seen by the popular Florida cruise destination, which had seen its numbers wane during the pandemic.

The exec revealed that revenues driven by cruises at the port during the month of December topped more than $9.5 million to push its total haul for the first three months the new fiscal year to more than $25.5 million, with cruise and parking revenue from October-December in particular nearing $19 million.  

Spurred by a busy holiday season, the port has been swamped in recent weeks, its CEO added, hosting multiple ships daily at each of the port's six terminals, with two more slated in January.

'It's coming back. It's coming back strongly,' said Port CEO Capt. John Murray.

Poole added that since the industry's restart, passenger counts have steadily grown each month, from 94,000 in August up to more than 283,000 in December.

'Since the resumption of cruises, we've had almost a million passengers that have come through our terminals.' Poole said. 

Murray, meanwhile, agreed with his colleague. 

'Through the holidays, we were very strong,' Murray said. 'The average for all of the brands together through the holidays was about 70 percent.'

As of January, however, the port's budget model counts on 75 percent capacity to be profitable, meaning revenue could take a hit if there are fewer passengers in the coming months.

'Bookings are normally down this time of year,' Murray said. 'Now we've got omicron on top, so they've had some cancellations. It's hard to tell what's normal seasonal downtrend vs. what is COVID-related, but all of the lines are continuing to operate except the NCL standing down for two weeks.' 

With that said, despite the surge of cases seen last month and the CDC's subsequent warning, many holiday passengers already aboard ships for planned vacations when confronted with omicron and forced to quarantine for weeks on these cruises have opted to try and make the best of a precarious situation.

Utah resident Brett Williams, for instance, was forced to extend his initially 11-day cruise getaway by 12 days, when he and more than 50 other passengers and 48 crew members tested positive for COVID.

Forced off the small 342-passenger sailing ship to quarantine at a hotel in Barbados, he and his wife, who also tested positive, were told they couldn’t fly home until they each received a negative test result.

The pair, however, made the best of unexpected stay, eating complimentary room service meals and taking pictures of beautiful Barbados sunsets. 

The Royal Caribbean vessel 'Spectrum of the Seas' is berthed at Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong, China, on January 5. The ship was ordered back to Hong Kong earlier than scheduled after nine people on board were found to be infected by the Omicron variant