The optimism on display just two months ago when Singapore Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung pledged to reopen the economy has taken a beating after a possible local coronavirus patient was found aboard a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship, Quantum of the Seas.

It was the second blow in as many months after a highly anticipated air travel bubble with Hong Kong was axed before it even started, Bloomberg reports.

“Even in the early days of the pandemic, cruise ships posed a high risk of outbreaks, and these in turn can spill over into communities,” said Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “The pandemic today is far, far worse than it was in May, when cruising stopped. This means the risk of an infected passenger boarding or an infected staff member being on board is higher now.”

Singapore’s ill-fated attempts to enliven tourism underscore the difficulties of getting any sort of travel up and running even in a nation where community cases have been close to zero for several weeks.

Stringent protocols to permit the pilot sea voyages had been established, including extensive testing of crew and passengers. The cruises, including another that’s being run by Genting’s World Dream, were also required to sail at a reduced passenger capacity of 50 percent.

All 2,828 people on Quantum of the Seas had tested negative when the ship departed December 7, according to a statement from the Singapore Tourism Board. There was also increased sanitization and improved fresh air circulation.

Ultimately, those measures plus others may have proven insufficient.

Scares like this incident and previous outbreaks on ships that stranded thousands of passengers have affected sentiment for consumers who have never cruised before.

New York-based SpringOwl Asset Management has done surveys that show 80 percent of respondents who have never cruised say they would avoid getting on a cruise.

“There’s reputational damage for the industry,” SpringOwl Chief Executive Officer Jason Ader said. “People don’t want to get stuck out on a ship and not be able to get off. That memory of people stuck on a ship because of an outbreak is still fresh and it’s going to take time to fade.”

Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said the case onboard was “not unexpected,” according to a ChannelNewsAsia report, and that the government was prepared for such a situation. The public can be assured that such incidents can be managed properly with the protocols that have been put in place, he said.

A few cruise companies that have restarted operations have run into problems with infections on board.

SeaDream Yacht Club, a Norway-based company, canceled its remaining cruises scheduled to sail in 2020 after a cluster of coronavirus infections were found on board a vessel sailing in the Carribean in November, despite passenger testing before boarding. In August, Hurtigruten Group AS, another Norwegian cruise ship operator, was forced to apologize and cancel upcoming cruises after a coronavirus outbreak on one of its ships.

“There’s always a chance of catching a virus on a cruise. You can have a negative test at the moment, but if the transmission occurred in the last few days, they could be infected and not yet show signs of the virus,” Ben Cowling, head of the epidemiology division at the University of Hong Kong, said.

Cowling said vaccinations will be critical in assuring safety on cruise ships. “Once the elderly and most vulnerable have been vaccinated, then the virus won’t be a huge concern for cruise ships anymore.”

Singapore isn’t alone in stumbling.

As the coronavirus resurges in Japan, politicians and experts are growing more divided on the impact that a subsidy program encouraging people to travel is having on the spread of infections.

A popular “Go To Travel” campaign, which discounts trips to boost regions hit hardest by a lack of tourists, is one of the government’s most prized projects for spurring the economy, and has been heavily backed by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

In Bali, a plan to reopen to foreign visitors in September was scrapped due to a resurgence in cases while Thailand, another popular tourist destination in Southeast Asia, is taking baby steps, allowing just 1,000 international tourists in October versus the some 3.1 million it hosted the same period last year.

Escalating virus numbers in Hong Kong have meant the air travel bubble with Singapore won’t start until 2021. The arrangement, initially set for November 22, will be reviewed between Christmas and New Year.

In a sign of how desperate residents of Singapore are to go somewhere beyond the island’s tiny confines, escapes including luxury overnight camping at Changi Airport and daycations at beach hotels at Sentosa, an enclave off the south coast, are booked solid.

“It’s obviously disappointing, disappointing for those that had travel to Hong Kong planned, and disappointing for those on the cruise,” said Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases physician at Singapore’s National University Hospital who also chairs the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. “But there needs to be an expectation that things can change because we’re trying to do it safely. This isn’t going to have a fairytale ending and we wake up one day and it’s all over.”-Photo: CNA

Passengers on the Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Sea on December 9, 2020 at Marina Bay Cruise Centre Singapore.

Virus continues to trip up cruise ship, air travel revival attempts