(Molly Walker/ MedPage Today) —Of passengers and crew on a Southern Hemisphere ocean cruise who tested positive for COVID-19, only about 20% ever developed symptoms, researchers found.
The vessel carried 217 passengers and crew, with 128 ultimately testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. Of these, only 24 were recorded as showing symptoms, reported Alvin Ing, MD, of Macquarie University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in Sydney, Australia, and two colleagues in a brief communication published in Thorax.
Moreover, 6% required medical evacuation, 3% were intubated and ventilated, and one person died, the authors noted.
Ing and colleagues detailed their experience of “the first instance of complete COVID-19 testing of passengers and crew on an isolated cruise ship.” Ing himself and another author were passengers on the vessel; the third author was the expedition physician. The cruise was intended to follow part of the famous Antarctic journey of Ernest Shackleton and his men in 1915-1917, with stops at Elephant Island, where the explorers spent one winter, and South Georgia, to which Shackleton and five others sailed in an open boat. (…)