Tourism

Health Authorities in Florida Sue CDC to Restart Cruise Travel

Florida health officials on Thursday filed suit against U.S. health authorities in a bid to force the restart of cruise travel, as the industry — Florida being a major cruise hub and the largest in the U.S. — has laid dormant for over a year even as travel restrictions for other industries have been eased. The pressure comes as a mixed group of private and public sector supporters of cruise travel have in recent times called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ease what they say is the CDC's stringent and reckless stance against the industry. The agency has not cleared restart even as major cruise ship operators have updated their criteria for voyages, among them mandatory vaccination for both crew and passengers. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla., against the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services, their leaders and the U.S. government, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We don’t believe the federal government ha...