Responding to pressure from the industry and political stakeholders, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be open to lifting or modifying its Conditional Sailing Order (CSO) as soon as this summer, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday afternoon.
The report cites a CDC spokesperson that said the agency’s “goal aligns with the desire to resume passenger operations in the United States expressed by many major cruise ship operators and travelers; hopefully, by mid-summer with restricted revenue sailings.”
It was unclear what will come next, but many in the industry expect the CDC to now issue new guidelines covering ship capacity restrictions, quarantine regulations and onboard protocols.