Lux­u­ri­ous cruise ship Caribbean Princess which was sched­uled to dock in Port-of-Spain to­day has been de­barred from en­ter­ing our shores due to dozens of sick pas­sen­gers and crew on board the ves­sel.

The move was in­sti­tut­ed by the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.

This came hours af­ter Bar­ba­dos’ chief med­ical of­fi­cer Ken­neth George con­firmed that the ves­sel was de­nied clear­ance to dock at the Bridgetown Port yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing re­ports that sev­er­al pas­sen­gers had fall­en ill af­ter board­ing the ship.

A doc­u­ment which lo­cal health, im­mi­gra­tion and tourism work­ers re­ceived yes­ter­day was leaked to the T&T Guardian stat­ed that the chief med­ical of­fi­cer and chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer have giv­en “di­rec­tives” to de­ny the ar­rival and clear­ance of the Caribbean Princess at the Port of Port-of-Spain on Mon­day.

“This de­ci­sion was made in una­nim­i­ty due to cas­es of ill­ness such as acute gas­troen­teri­tis and in­fluen­za-like ill­ness cur­rent­ly af­fect­ing an un­usu­al amount of pas­sen­gers and crew on board. While there are no con­firmed cas­es of the nov­el Coro­n­avirus on board, our au­thor­i­ties have made this de­ci­sion as a pre­cau­tion giv­en the cir­cum­stances,” the doc­u­ment stat­ed.

Charles Car­val­ho, gen­er­al man­ag­er of St James-based Car­val­ho Agen­cies—the ship­ping agent for Caribbean Princess in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day con­firmed that the ship has been pre­vent­ed from dock­ing here.

“Based on the sit­u­a­tion not get­ting any bet­ter and see­ing oth­er ports tak­ing pre­cau­tions, the ho­tel and im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties here have de­nied ar­rival of the ship in Trinidad to­mor­row.”

Car­val­ho said 3,069 pas­sen­gers are on the ship which set sail from Fort Laud­erdale on Feb­ru­ary 2.

The ves­sel was list­ed to dock at five ports dur­ing the 14-day cruise—three of which were Bar­ba­dos, Trinidad and Aru­ba and sail back to its place of ori­gin at Fort Laud­erdale. Car­val­ho said the ves­sel docked on­ly at three ports. With­in one week-from Feb­ru­ary 2-9, Car­val­ho said 269 pas­sen­gers fell ill on the cruise.

“The num­ber has been chang­ing as the ma­jor­i­ty of them (pas­sen­gers) have been re­moved from iso­la­tion and just do not show symp­toms any more. The fig­ures have been fluc­tu­at­ing.”

Car­val­ho said this was the first time Trinidad au­thor­i­ties had to block a ves­sel from dock­ing here since the an­nounce­ment of the Coro­n­avirus.

The num­ber of con­firmed cas­es has risen to at least 27,100 in Chi­na’s Hubei province alone, with the glob­al num­ber of in­fect­ed now at more than 37,000.

He said it was bet­ter to be safe than sor­ry.

“Many ports around the world have re­stric­tions...they have been tak­ing ac­tion for cas­es like these. So, it is not some­thing that is cur­rent­ly af­fect­ing us and oth­er Caribbean is­lands but ports around the world with oth­er cruise ships.”

Car­val­ho said many cruise lin­ers have strict pro­ce­dures and pre­cau­tions in place for pas­sen­gers. Be­fore a pas­sen­ger boards a ves­sel they must fill out a ques­tion­naire, sub­ject them­selves to a ther­mal screen­ing at the port, while any­one who has trav­elled from Chi­na in the last 30 days will not be al­lowed to trav­el on a ship.

“There is a lot of new re­quire­ments by our au­thor­i­ties that we have to pro­vide when a ship comes here. So it is a whole process that we have to fol­low now just to safe­guard our coun­try.”

Car­val­ho said be­fore the end of this month, they ex­pect five more ships to ar­rive in T&T.

“We have two cruis­es here on Car­ni­val Mon­day...one in To­ba­go and one in Port-of-Spain.We would not be sur­prised in the com­ing days if stricter mea­sures are tak­en.”