A MUN professor who specializes in the cruise ship industry is raising concerns about the mechanisms in place for reporting COVID cases on board.

According to the St. John’s Port Authority, there’s a 96-hour pre-arrival report that cruise ships must fill out prior to entering Canadian waters, which includes information about COVID cases on board. That information is then sent to federal public health, and the ship is assigned a category.

According to professor Ross Klein, that system is problematic.

He says if the check-in has to occur before entering Canadian waters if that ship is going to other provinces first that information could be 10 days old before getting to Newfoundland.

Klein believes data given should be more current, and that information should be reported to officials in the cities where the ships are docking rather than just the feds.

He says the first ship of the season visited Corner Brook the other day, and that ship is being investigated by the CDC for COVID-19. He says the people of Corner Brook were not made aware of that. He doesn’t believe displacing responsibility to the federal government protects the people where such boats are docking.