Cunard Line is canceling five upcoming sailings aboard Queen Elizabeth after revealing that multiple crew members have tested positive for COVID-19.
The ship was previously scheduled to resume sailing on July 19, operating U.K. voyages out of Southampton, England. However, the ship's highly anticipated return has now been pushed back until August 13.
"We are not able to complete the final essential preparations or deliver the comprehensive training schedule to the full required contingent of crew prior to the first scheduled sailing," Cunard president Simon Palethorpe said in a statement, praising the Carnival Corp. subsidiary's enhanced health and safety protocols established in response to the pandemic.
"These protocols, of which we are very proud, have proven to be very effective and we had no cases of COVID-19 in over 5,000 crew members until last month when a small number of cases were identified amongst new crew boarding the ship."
It's unclear how many of Queen Elizabeth's crew members tested positive. The BBC reported that there were about 800 crew members on board at the time.
Despite the delay, Queen Elizabeth is still on schedule to be Cunard's first ship to return to service. Currently, Queen Mary 2 is slated to relaunch service from November 14 while Queen Victoria will remain out of service until late April 2022.
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