Freezing cold weather in the East and Midwest had a lot of people ready to take off or cruise to warmer places to be during the winter, from Hawaii to the Caribbean.
But with the latest CDC travel advisories, some of those plans are off and some being delayed, not because some travelers don’t want to travel, but because they can’t with airlines cancelling flights and cruise lines cancelling cruises. There are even stories of some travelers having to rebook flights to a cruise port and then finding out on the way there that their cruise has been cancelled.
On December 30, the CDC increased the risk for cruise ship travel to Level 4 and said it should be avoided, regardless of vaccination status. More than 80 destinations were rated Level 4 as of January 10.
The situation is certainly not what we all expected it would be in January of 2022, almost two years after the pandemic was officially declared. But the super contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19, while less severe, has been spreading like wildfire as an infectious disease doctor in San Diego put it this week.
The good news is that Omicron is less severe, and the good news is that health experts are predicting it will peak by the end of the month and the good news is that most people are fully vaccinated.
But because there are still a lot of people who are unvaccinated the numbers have been surging more than even experts thought they would.
The pandemic remains a rough ride, but let’s all keep hoping and praying that the end of it is not too far off.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW IF PLANNING A CRUISE.
(Photo Getty Images)
,quality(10),blur(50))
Photo: Getty Images