Dr Scott Gottlieb, who advised cruise lines on Covid protocols, told CNBC on Friday he believes a safe environment can be created on the ships.
Gottlieb’s comments come one day after Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state has sued the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and demanded that the Public Health Agency allow cruise lines to depart from U.S. ports immediately. can sail.
Gottlieb, who co-chaired an advisory panel for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean, told Squawk Box that the companies had put in place sensible policies in preparation for when they could start work after a lengthy Covid break. lasted as a year.
“They have committed themselves to things like mandatory passenger testing. Norwegian Cruise Line recently came out and said they should vaccinate all their passengers,” said Gottlieb, who served as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 2017 to 2019. . Trump administration.
Gottlieb also noted that social distance on the ships would be possible, saying “these voyages are not going to function at full capacity.”
“As you begin to implement all of these public health recommendations … you begin to create an environment that can be reasonably safe,” he argued. “I believe you can create a safe bubble around the experience, especially when you compare it to other holiday experiences where you can not control the environment,” he added.
Cruise ships were an important site for Covid outbreaks last year in the early days of the global health crisis, prompting the CDC to issue a non-sail order by mid-March 2020. While the CDC has issued some guidelines for cruise lines under its conditional sailing order, the agency needs to specify another date for operations to resume from U.S. ports.
In response to CNBC’s request for comment on Gottlieb’s comments, the CDC said in an email that it was “committed to working with the cruise industry and port partners to sail again according to the phased approach set out in the This is in line with the desire to resume passenger operations in the United States, voiced by many major cruise ship operators and travelers, hopefully by mid-summer. ‘
However, the cruise industry is getting impatient, after companies incurred billions in debt and issued new inventory to finance operations while sailing revenues were dry. Late last month, a trading group called on the CDC to allow a phased restart in early July. Operators said they have a big booking question, suggesting people are starting to feel comfortable going back to sailing.
In a CNBC interview on Wednesday, Carnival CEO Arnold Donald pointed out the differences between restrictions in America and other countries around the world, where cruising has resumed in some places.
“A person today can fly from the US to another country. Get on a cruise ship and then come back to the US whether they have been vaccinated or not,” Donald said of “Closing Bell.” “But here in the US, even if you’ve been vaccinated, you can not board a cruise ship at this stage.”
Donald praised the Biden government for its work in spreading vaccination against Covid in the US, where about 20% of the population is fully vaccinated. He said he believes the cruise industry and CDC will jointly be able to reach an agreement on sailing.
“The government has made great progress with vaccinations and the order on this thing,” Donald said. “We are confident that we can work together and come up with something that can be a workable solution, and hopefully we still have sailing from the US this summer.”
Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain told CBS This Morning on Thursday that he would like the cruise industry to be treated ‘in a very similar way to the airlines’, which have been allowed to fly. However, Fain is optimistic about the possible resumption of US shipping in the second half of this year, citing President Joe Biden’s goal that society will return to normal by July 4.
– CNBC’s Katie Tsai contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a contributor to CNBC and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, drafting genetic tests Tempus, the healthcare company Aetion Inc. and the biotechnology company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean’s Healthy Sail Panel.