A federal judge has temporarily blocked a law out of Florida preventing cruise lines from requiring passengers to prove that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, saying the law appears unconstitutional and likely will not hold up in court.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the "vaccine passport" ban into law in May. The state's attorney, Pete Patterson, previously noted that the law's aim is to prevent invasions of privacy and discrimination against passengers who don't get vaccinated.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams wrote that the "vaccine passport" ban fails to protect medical privacy or prevent discrimination against unvaccinated people, and appears to violate the First Amendment rights of Norwegian Cruise Lines.
The judge said that the state failed to "provide a valid evidentiary, factual, or legal predicate" for banning requirements for passengers to prove that they have been vaccinated.
The cruise line has shown that suspending the requirement will put public health in jeopardy, and potentially cause "super-spreader" events in the locations where the passengers disembark from the ship.
Florida has filed suit against the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seeking to block federal cruise ship vaccination requirements, and the CDC lost on appeal. The CDC responded by making its guidelines non-binding. According to the decision, all of the cruise lines in Florida have agreed to follow the CDC's instructions on a voluntary basis.
Effective until November 1, 2021, the CDC's current guidelines say that cruise lines can once again set sail if they can confirm that at least 95% of passengers and crew have been vaccinated.
A DeSantis spokesperson said that the state will appeal the ruling. The statement also said that "[a] prohibition on vaccine passport does not even implicate, let alone violate, anyone's speech rights, and it furthers the substantial, local interest of preventing discrimination among customers based on private health information."
The judge noted that each canceled seven-day voyage would cost the company another $4 million.
Cruise lines were some of the first to file suits in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic due to business interruption losses as a result of government-mandated closures.