This content was published on 02 October 2021 – 23:36
Rio de Janeiro, Oct 2 (EFE) .- Brazil, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic in the world and accumulating close to 600,000 deaths from covid, announced this Saturday the restart of tourist maritime cruises, suspended since March of last year due to the high number of infections they registered.
The restart of operations for the cruise season that traditionally begins in November, on the eve of the beginning of the austral summer, was announced this Saturday by the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism in a statement.
“The decree authorizing the return of cruise ships to the Brazilian coast will be published in the coming days and will give the green light to the 2021-2022 season,” reported the Ministry of Tourism.
The ministry clarified that the resumption of the activity was authorized by the ministries of Health, Justice, Infrastructure and Tourism, and that it occurs at a time when the pandemic continues to subside in Brazil and the averages of deaths and infections at their lowest levels in several months.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, despite accumulating about 598,000 deaths from covid and 21.5 million cases since the start of the pandemic, the average number of deaths fell this Saturday to 503 per day, one sixth of the average. which came to register at its worst, and that of contagions up to 16,545 per day, a fifth of the average that it came to measure at the height of the crisis.
The sharp fall in deaths and cases is attributed to the advance of vaccination, since 69.1% of the 213 million inhabitants of the country have already received the first dose of the vaccine and 43.6% have received the two doses or the single-dose vaccine.
According to the Ministry of Tourism, once the decree authorizing the return of cruise ships has been published, the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) will disclose the health protocols that operators will have to comply with in order to navigate the Brazilian coastline.
According to the portfolio, the expectation is that the new cruise season will exceed the pre-pandemic indexes, generate some 35,000 jobs and have an impact of 2,500 million reais (about 471.7 million dollars) on the economy, a value in a 11% higher than that registered in the 2019-2020 season.
The president of the Brazilian Association of Maritime Cruises, Marco Ferraz, affirmed that the restart of operations is the result of the work carried out by the operators themselves to define, together with doctors, scientists and specialists, demanding sanitary protocols that guarantee safe navigation .
According to the operators, for the 2021-2022 season in Brazil, the mobilization of seven vessels is planned, which will be able to offer 566,000 beds, an offer 7% higher than that of the 2019-2020 season and the largest in the last four years.
The seven ships will be able to make a total of 130 trips with 570 stopovers in some of the most touristic cities in Brazil such as Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Buzios, Cabo Frío, Balneario Camboriu, Fortaleza, Ilha Grande and Ilhabela.
The cruises were suspended in Brazil in March 2020 after numerous cases of covid were registered in the vessels, which forced the authorities to impose forty on them, retain the vessels in ports and promote the repatriation of passengers by air. EFE
cm/ics
© EFE 2021. The redistribution and redistribution of all or part of the content of EFE’s services is expressly prohibited, without the prior and express consent of Agencia EFE SA
–
