Cordelia cruise: Another 143 passengers contract Covid, infection tally at 209

Earlier, 66 passengers of a total 2,000 passengers on the luxury ship had tested positive for coronavirus.

As many as 143 new Covid-19 infections were detected on Wednesday among passengers of the Cordelia cruise ship that returned from Goa to Mumbai a day ago over the spread of the virus aboard the luxury ship.

A tourist bus at the International Cruise Terminal to pick up the passengers from the Covid-hit Cordelia cruise ship. (PTI)

Earlier, 66 passengers of a total 2,000 passengers on the ship had tested positive for coronavirus. This took the total count of infections on the ship to 209.

Earlier in the day, the city civic body of Mumbai said 41 of the infected passengers were shifted to institutional quarantine facilities. Some of the other passengers who had tested positive for the viral infection were still on the ship. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) conducted RT-PCR tests on 1,827 people on board the cruise on Tuesday night.

The civic body did not allow any other passenger, except the infected ones, to disembark from the ship after it reached Mumbai on Tuesday evening.

A seven-day home quarantine will be mandatory for the passengers whose RT-PCR test reports come out negative, a BMC official said.

Six crew members out of the total 66 who had tested positive were disembarked in Goa, he said. The cruise liner anchored at a passenger terminal in Ballard Pier in south Mumbai around 6.30 pm on Tuesday, and a team of the BMC and police personnel immediately reached the spot to facilitate disembarkment of infected people and coronavirus testing of other passengers.

(With inputs from bureau)