US judge sides with Norwegian cruise company, blocks Florida from fining them over ban on unvaccinated passengers

In a preliminary ruling, Miami Judge Kathleen Williams said that the vaccine passport ban for cruise ships was unconstitutional and infringed on Norwegian Cruise Line’s rights. Williams also blocked DeSantis from fining Norwegian Cruise Line $5,000 for each passenger that it denies service to over their vaccination status.

Norwegian Cruise Line Executive Vice President Daniel S. Farkas celebrated the news, saying in a statement that the company was “pleased that Judge Williams saw the facts, the law and the science as we did and granted the Company’s motion for preliminary injunction.”

Farkas concluded that the decision will allow the cruise company to “operate cruises from Florida with 100% vaccinated guests and crew” – banning anyone from its cruises who has not been fully vaccinated against the virus.

In May, DeSantis signed a bill prohibiting businesses in Florida from denying service or entry to customers based on their Covid-19 vaccine status.

“In Florida, your personal choice regarding vaccinations will be protected and no business or government entity will be able to deny you services based on your decision,” the governor declared at the time.

In June, Florida also won a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease and Control (CDC), after the health agency tried to make cruise operations conditional on having at least 98% of employees and 95% of passengers vaccinated, along with other requirements which DeSantis condemned as overly “bureaucratic.”

DeSantis – whose other recent measures have included pardoning Floridians who broke Covid-19 restrictions and making masks for school children optional – publicly took on President Joe Biden last week, calling the president’s coronavirus policies “insane” and criticizing the government’s failure to stop illegal immigration during the pandemic.

“Why don’t you do your job? Why don’t you get this border secure? And until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about Covid from you,” DeSantis declared.

Despite DeSantis’ attempts to prohibit vaccine passports in the state, some events have worked around the rule. In May, a punk concert in St. Petersburg, Florida, announced it would be giving vaccinated attendees a 98.2% ‘discount’ on its $999.99 tickets – a loophole which charged unvaccinated people 55 times more than vaccinated people, whose ‘discounted’ tickets came to the more reasonable price of $18.

According to the New York Times, Florida currently has the highest number of daily average Covid-19 cases, and hospitalizations there are roughly equal to their previous peak from last summer. The CDC reported 23,903 new cases in the state on Friday.

Norwegian is set to begin cruises again this month for the first time since the global coronavirus pandemic disrupted services in March 2020, with its first trip scheduled for August 15.

DeSantis has not yet publicly responded to the judge’s decision.

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