Twelve crew members on the German cruise ship M/S Amera are now infected with COVID-19, according to an employee of the operator (Phoenix Resien) who wishes to remain anonymous. The German cruise ship remains in the port of Bremerhaven.

As we previously reported, five crew members tested positive for coronavirus on July 2oth.  The number increased on July 21, to nine, with the health department of Bremerhaven expecting additional positive cases.

The ship is still scheduled to cruise with passengers on August 3rd.

The source of the information is critical of the sanitation on the ship and the absence of health and safety protocols.  There are reportedly “dirty cups and plates in the crew corridors . . . crew members are playing table tennis on the ship without masks . . . the medical and water certificates expired since last year.”

Crew members of the Amera ship are in quarantine. There are forty-four crew members on a bus heading for Hannover. The Amera will then be disinfected. The plan, reportedly, is to bring crew members from the M/V Artania onboard the Amera.

The trend of coronavirus cases is significantly increasing in Bremen and Bremerhaven, notwithstanding  fact that the percentage of Germans vaccinated (over 60%) is higher than in the U.S. (less than 50%).

The M/S Amera previously sailed as the Prinsendam (photo, right) for Holland America Line (HAL) for nearly two decades.

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Image credits: Top – HenSti – CC BY-SA 4.0 commons / wikimedia; Bottom – Pjotr Mahhonin – CC BY-SA 3.0, commons / wikimedia.