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Time to Rename the Diamond Princess

You will notice no one launched another ship named Titanic.

The cruise ship Diamond Princess held the headlines for several weeks due to passengers being sick with the cornonavirus COVID-19. Now they have reported that a total of six of the passengers who were quarantined on the ship have died.

The numbers look like this, "705 people from the ship containing 3,711 people have now contracted COVID-19, with it becoming increasingly apparent that the quarantine protocols on the ship were poorly enforced and wholly inadequate to protect passengers. The 705 cases are thought to stem from just one man from Hong Kong who was a passenger on the ship in late January and later tested positive for the virus after returning home."

The travel industry is going to take a major hit — especially cruise ships, just based on the experience of the Diamond Princess. I will not be surprised to see that the ship has a new name by 2021, if not before. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.