A thousand passengers on board Royal Caribbean's cruise ship Spectrum of the Seas have to disembark on Thursday after a crewman tested positive of Covid-19.

Passengers waited the whole afternoon on board the ship at Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, only to be told that the four-day “cruise-to-nowhere” trip has to be canceled last minute. They left the ship in batches in the evening.

Speaking on a radio program, University of Hong Kong microbiologist Dr Ho Pak-leung, said if the crewman is confirmed to be a re-positive case, the infectious risk will be low given all the other crewmen were fully vaccinated.

He said the cruise company could make better arrangements for their cruise trip in the future, not to allow passengers on board before the crewmen have their new round of Covid test results.

In view of the case, the government issued a mandatory testing notice, requiring any person who had been on board the cruise ship for more than 2 hours from September 30 to October 21 to undergo testing by Saturday (October 23).

Meanwhile, the health expert suggested that the government’s booster jab arrangement to be rolled out in the near future could also include crewmen, to provide them with better protection against the virus.