(NEW YORK) — Old Navy is championing size inclusion with the launch of the brand’s latest “Bodequality” campaign.
More than a campaign, the fashion retailer announced it would be fully revamping the company’s size offerings to feature every women’s style in every size ranging from 0-30 and XS-4X, along with no price differences.
The brand also confirmed Wednesday that these changes will start rolling out in stores and online starting Aug. 20.
The store’s entire shopping experience surrounding size inclusion, store visuals and more are getting a full-on upgrade, the company said.
In 2016, a study published by the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology, and Education revealed that the average size of an American woman is between 16 to 18.
At the top of this year, the CDC published 2015-2018 data revealing that the average weight of American women is 170.8 pounds and 5 feet 3 inches. In most U.S. stores, these measurements equate to a pants size of 16 and up or large to extra large.
However, GMA previously reported that only about 2,000 stores cater to women above size 12 compared to more than 60,000 stores that cater to traditional straight sizes, 00 to 12, according to Torrid’s CEO Liz Muñoz.
Old Navy’s president and CEO Nancy Green noticed an opportunity to change the women’s shopping experience by making it more inclusive regardless of size, and she essentially ran with it.
“Bodqueality is not a one-time campaign, but a full transformation of our business in service to our customers based on years of working closely with them to research their needs,” Green said. “I’m proud of the collaboration across our Old Navy teams to evolve the retail experience for women.”
With efforts to provide updated sizing that felt true to a variety of body types, Old Navy said it administered 389 body scans to create digital avatars based on real women’s bodies.
Fit clinics with models that wear sizes 20-28 were also ran to build fresh fit blocks based on each of their unique proportions.
Old Navy also said it partnered with full-time fit models in sizes 8 – 20 to review the brand’s updated styles.
Similar to other big-name stores such as Nike and most recently Victoria’s Secret, the company said it will feature mannequins in a variety of sizes such as four, 12 and 18.
Online, shoppers can also use a new toggle feature that allows them to select their preferred default model display.
Prior to the launch of Bodequality, Old Navy offered sizes 0-14 as part of its Women’s collection and sizes 16-30 as part of its Women’s Plus collection. With its new initiative, all women’s sizes will be integrated where all customers can participate in the same brand experience with the same access to product.
Several other retailers have a designated area for plus sizes, but Old Navy is also doing away with separate sections and creating space where everything will be displayed in one place in-store and online.
Pricing will now also be the same throughout sizing. Before Bodequality, there was a price difference between straight sizes and the plus collection.
“Traditionally, to create extended size garments it requires more fabric and a different production process,” an Old Navy spokesperson told GMA. “As we launch Bodequality, we’ve transformed our process so we’ve been able to create price parity for all.”
Old Navy employees are also participating in customer-focused training with an aim to create more of an environment where everyone feels they belong, the company said.
Old Navy initially debuted its first Plus line in 2004 and in 2018 launched dedicated Plus shops in 75 U.S. stores. The following year, the company transformed 30 of those locations into size-integrated concept stores.
“Developing Bodequality allowed us to rethink the way we serve women in the retail industry,” Alison Partridge Stickney, head of women’s and maternity merchandising at Old Navy, said in a statement.
“This launch is a transformative moment for our brand and the fashion industry,” Partridge said.
With a goal to introduce Bodequality to women everywhere, the retailers will premiere a TV spot starring Emmy-nominated actress and comedian Aidy Bryant dancing alongside a diverse group of women to “I Am 100%” by Jarina De Marco.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a new warning about the dangers of high-powered magnetic balls and cubes.
The agency announced a mandatory recall on Tuesday of 10 million products from Zen Magnets LLC — Zen and Neoballs — due to an ingestion hazard and risk of death.
Most recalls are done voluntarily, with companies and the CPSC working together to get dangerous products out of consumers’ hands, but the agency said that since “Zen did not agree to a voluntary recall, CPSC sued the company to effect a mandatory recall.”
“When high-powered magnets are swallowed, they can interact with each other or other metallic objects (material attracted to magnets) and become lodged in the digestive systems. This can result in perforations, twisting and/or blockage of the intestines, infection, blood poisoning, and death,” the CPSC warned in a press release. “These injuries can occur when infants, toddlers, and teens access and ingest the magnets, including, for example, when teens use the magnets to mimic mouth piercings and swallow them inadvertently.”
Founder Shihan Qu shared a statement in response to the recall Tuesday on the company’s website.
“Zen Magnets is honored to have been the leading voice of the majority of consumers who believe that adults should be able purchase recreational high powered magnets, in the CPSC’s continual and uncompromising War on Magnets,” he wrote. “We’ve been offering a voluntary recall since 2016 allowing customers to return magnets for a refund for any reason, including if they didn’t feel safe with them, didn’t think they could keep them from being swallowed, or was unable to understand why they are dangerous, or didn’t like the name Zen Magnets.”
The founder added that his was “the first company to petition the CPSC for safer standards for recreational magnet sets after their 2016 ban was overturned by a Judge, for not having properly considered alternatives. After much work with other companies, doctors, and human factors experts, the spirit of our petition for safer magnet standards lives in a new standard ASTM F3458 — 21 which requires recreational magnets to have warnings stronger than cigarettes and fireworks combined, and packaging that’s safer that laundry detergent pods and on par with pharmaceuticals.”
In order to help protect kids from the potential hidden hazard, CPSC issued violation notices to companies that market dangerous, high-powered magnetic balls and cubes as toys for children, insisting that those companies notify purchasers and warn of the dangers of use by children. CPSC also works with major online platforms to remove these products from their sites.
“When consumers see these products marketed for children on trusted e-commerce sites, many of these items sold by foreign firms, consumers assume they are safe,” acting Chairman Robert Adler said in a statement. “But the reality is, these magnets can cause lifelong injury, or worse, to kids. That’s why it’s so important that e-commerce sites not allow these products to be sold to kids and why kids are safest when these products are not in the home.”
The CPSC also worked with e-commerce sites to issue safety alert notices directly to purchasers in the cases when magnet firms were not responsive.
Adler added that “until we can get these products off the market entirely, we just have to be vigilant.”
The nearly 10 million magnets, manufactured in China, were sold individually for 6 to 10 cents as well as in magnet sets for anywhere between $12 and $264 per set. The magnets were sold online and at certain Colorado retailers starting in January 2009.
Zen Magnets and Neoballs are high-powered 5 mm spherical magnets. Zen Magnets were sold individually and in sets of 72, 216 with 6 spares, and 1,728 with 8 spares. Neoballs were sold individually and in sets in the following colors: silver, gold, red, orange, green, red, blue and purple. “Zen Magnets” or “Neoballs” is printed on the packaging.
Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled magnets and contact Zen Magnets LLC for a refund.
As of time of publication, the CPSC said Zen Magnets LLC was aware of two children who ingested Zen Magnets and required surgery to remove them along with parts of their intestines and bowels. It was also aware of other reports of children and teenagers ingesting high-powered magnets and requiring surgery. A 19-month-girl died after ingesting similar high-powered magnets.
(WASHINGTON) — Millions of Americans who struggle to get food on the table will soon receive new assistance thanks to a historic increase in funding.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a reevaluation to its Thrifty Food Plan, marking the first major update in over 45 years to reflect current cost realities for low-income families.
The plan estimates the price of a budget-conscious diet for a family of four and calculates the average need for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. The recalculations to the program, formerly referred to as food stamps, will go into effect Oct. 1. Each qualified recipient, on average, will see a rise from $121 to $157 per month.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called the modernized plan “an investment in our nation’s health, economy, and security” that will better provide healthy food to low-income families.
“Ensuring low-income families have access to a healthy diet helps prevent disease, supports children in the classroom, reduces health care costs,” he said. “The additional money families will spend on groceries helps grow the food economy, creating thousands of new jobs along the way.”
The historic increase approved by President Joe Biden’s administration will help food aid rise by more than 25% from pre-pandemic levels for all 42 million program beneficiaries.
According to the Agriculture Department, the retooled plan’s average monthly benefits, which were $121 per person per month before the pandemic, will rise by $36.24 under the new rules.
“The reevaluation concluded that the cost of a nutritious, practical, cost effective diet is 21% higher” than the current plan, according to the Agriculture Department.
This boost comes on the cusp of emergency SNAP benefits that are set to expire at the end of September. They were first put into place as a pandemic protection measure as part of the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion relief bill signed in March.
The USDA called SNAP “the most far-reaching, powerful tool available to ensure that all Americans, regardless of background, can afford healthy food.”
The program helps to feed 1 in 8 Americans each month with evidence showing that SNAP increases food security, including among households with children who have been disproportionately impacted by hunger during the COVID-19 pandemic.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. agency that oversees highway safety officially has launched a formal probe into Tesla’s Autopilot systems after identifying 11 separate crashes involving the feature over approximately four years.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told ABC News in a statement Monday that it is “opening a preliminary evaluation into Tesla Autopilot systems and the technologies and methods used to monitor, assist, and enforce the driver’s engagement with driving while Autopilot is in use.”
“A preliminary evaluation starts the agency’s fact-finding mission and allows additional information and data to be collected — in this case about Tesla Autopilot,” the statement added. “Specifically, this investigation stems from 11 separate crashes beginning in 2018, in which various Tesla models crashed where first responders were active, including some that crashed directly into the vehicles of first responders.”
In a separate document on the investigation posted to its website Monday, the agency said the probe will include 2014 through 2021 Tesla Model Y, Model X, Model S and Model 3 vehicles.
There were 17 injuries and one fatality associated with the 11 crashes, the document stated. The crashes took place in nine states, and most of the incidents took place after dark.
The NHTSA said that in all of these cases, the Tesla vehicles had either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control engaged just prior to the crashes.
Tesla did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment Monday.
The company, and its eccentric CEO Elon Musk, have long defended Autopilot systems as safe.
On its website, the company has released internal data that suggests vehicles with Autopilot turned on are involved in fewer accidents per mile than those without Autopilot engaged.
In its statement to ABC News, the NHTSA reminded the public that “no commercially available motor vehicles today are capable of driving themselves” and all vehicles require a human driver to be in control at all times.
(NEW YORK) — As mass vaccination rolled out in the late spring and COVID-19 cases began to decline precipitously, Americans and the companies they work for began to envision a return to normalcy.
Masking guidance was lifted for the vaccinated and plans were made for bringing employees who had the privilege of working from home through the crisis back into offices after more than a year of remote work — in many cases adopting a hybrid model that attempted to balance business needs, personal lives and safety.
But the rapid spread of the delta variant, largely among the unvaccinated, has overwhelmed hospital systems and cast uncertainty on those plans, halting many in their tracks.
In announcements that followed each other like dominoes, a slew of major U.S. corporations — from Amazon to McDonald’s — in recent weeks have pushed back their September office reopening targets.
In light of these mounting uncertainties, experts say organizational leaders are at a “pivotal” moment and must put workers at the center of their longer-term planning in order to build business resilience. The push to return to the status quo is no longer acceptable to many and an increase in choices, including the ability to work remotely, has upped the stakes for employers.
With a smooth return to “normal” after Labor Day no longer looking feasible, how organizations navigate recalling millions of workers still recouping from the collective anguish of a once-in-a-century pandemic could have a costly impact on retention at a time when job openings and quit rates are both at record highs.
“I would argue that for business leaders, it’s a pivotal moment for them, and they need to put their employees at the center of their workplace strategy,” Steven Hatfield, the head of Deloitte’s Global Future of Work team, which counsels some 90% of firms on the Fortune 500, told ABC News.
‘Permanently altered’ the employee-employer relationship
According to Hatfield, the pandemic has “permanently altered the nature of the employer-employee relationship.”
Many companies that had required their employees to come in five days a week and now, after more than a year of remote work, the work week and other aspects of the relationship are on the table. Hybrid, permanent remote and flexible arrangements have become a regular part of the conversation.
“We believe that the secret for organizations today is they have to acknowledge the nature of the changing dynamics in terms of that relationship. They need to acknowledge that workers do have more choice and more power.”
That level of choice is manifesting itself in “skill shortages, the labor shortages, the way in which people are picking up and moving to different jurisdictions based on where their heart is,” he added.
“And other factors — ‘promote’ job postings on LinkedIn is up 5x,” he said, referring to companies paying extra to make sure their postings are seen.
As the nation begins to emerge from the pandemic, fresh data indicates that people are leaving their jobs at record levels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said earlier this week that the “quits rate” in June was 2.7% — tying with April 2021 for the highest rate since its record-keeping on it began. Moreover, the number of job openings hit a record high of 10.1 million in June, the BLS said in its latest release. The layoffs and discharge rate, meanwhile, was at a record low of 0.9% in both May and June.
Economists have attributed these trends to both competitive labor market conditions as employers vie for workers with increased flexibility offerings, as well as harder-to-quantify reasons as many people reassess their life and career goals following the shock of a global pandemic that left more than 600,000 Americans dead.
The pandemic also spurred droves of women to leave the workforce entirely, an alarming trend experts warned could undo years of hard-fought gains towards gender equity in the private sector. This mass exodus of women in the workforce has been linked to uneven caregiving responsibilities at home as schools and daycares sporadically shuttered throughout the course of the pandemic.
As delta now rages, many parents are also grappling with how to protect their unvaccinated children amid a push to reopen.
“What’s going on with the delta variant is basically just another data point telling us that returning to the status quo and going back to the office, expecting people to be there full time, everyday, face-to-face is just not going to cut it,” Mabel Abraham, a professor of management at Columbia Business School, told ABC News.
“I don’t think anyone would argue that we can replace face-to-face interactions wholly with being online, I’m certainly Zoomed-out,” she added. “There’s always going to be a place for that face-to-face dynamic, whether it looks the same as it did pre-pandemic is a different question. Do we necessarily need everybody to be in the office, every single day, for eight to ten hours a day? Probably not.”
‘Be adaptable’ and listen to employees
Abraham said this constantly-changing environment is demanding that employers — and employees — be nimble and adaptable to a degree that has not previously been demanded.
Organizational leaders “need to be thinking less about a formal plan, and more about how to be adaptable as the environment continues to change,” Abraham said.
Abraham said that simply giving people options can be a strategy for being adaptable. This starts by listening to employees who voice concerns — such as exposing family members to the virus or commuting difficulties — and setting up a workplace that offers flexible options.
Some 42% of current remote workers say if their current company does not continue to offer remote work options long term, they will look for a job at a company that does, according to Prudential’s Pulse of the American Worker Survey released earlier this year.
“Employers who aren’t listening are in some ways just being naive in thinking that their employees won’t move,” Abraham said. “In this current environment, for many people, the pandemic looms large and it really is a concerning factor where going back to the office might mean that that person is willing to forego their position, even if they’re getting the benefits and the pay and enjoying the work and liking their co-workers.”
“Employers just need to recognize that when employees voice these concerns, it probably takes a lot for them to speak up, so if they’re bringing it up it’s because they’re probably really concerned about it,” she added. “And making a decision to not offer options, not to offer flexibility, needs to come with the understanding that that person might actually leave.”
Her recent research also found that organizations with female leadership and which signal that they care about equity in the workplace are much more likely to attract women applicants at a time when many firms have had great difficulties retaining their female staff.
“With all of the dialogue around women exiting at an even higher rate than men during this time, really thinking about if we want to counter that force in any way, organizations need to think carefully about how this solution will also have this additional benefit of really retaining their top female talent,” she said.
Looking out for workers ‘good for business’
Deloitte’s Hatfield added that while many still think about productivity in “first-industrial-revolutionary terms,” looking out for your employees’ health and well-being is actually “good for business, too.”
“We need to reshape our ideas around productivity to be akin to the marketplace that exists now, so your performance as a human, your well-being as a human, really matters,” Hatfield added, “and it matters to boost the productivity for the organization.”
For businesses, Hatfield said that, “It makes more sense for organizations to focus on up-skilling and re-skilling their workforce than trying to find workers.”
If organizational leaders are more attuned to the needs of their employees, and supportive of their career growth, this can help build a resilient workforce within an organization despite a myriad of external factors that leaders cannot control.
The present environment also presents a unique opportunity for employees to express what they need in order to do their work better and to more seamlessly support the work of an organization — whether it’s a stipend for a better home office setup, more flexibility options, or a better understanding of the purpose in the work they do.
“But, I think it’s incumbent on the workforce itself to be vocal about what some of those things might be in order to help the organizations they work with navigate change,” Hatfield said.
The more organizational leaders engage and pay attention to their workers, the more they can also avoid falling into a “trap” of attempting to appease by offering unrelated perks — like an office ping pong table “that’s going to gather dust,” Hatfield said.
“Do what’s going to be classic,” he said. “Do the things that are going to have enduring power, both for the organization and for the workforce — so things like focusing on the potential of their work, and focusing on how they develop, and ensuring that what their workforce is doing is really meaningful.”
(WASHINGTON) — Weekly unemployment claims dropped slightly last week, with 375,000 Americans applying for first-time benefits.
That figure dropped for the third consecutive week, according to the Department of Labor, a sign that employers are laying off fewer people amid an increase in consumer demand. That as some employers insist they are struggling to fill open jobs. Still, new claims are near the pandemic low of 368,000, set last month.
The job market and the broader economy are getting better despite the rise in coronavirus infections from the delta variant that are starting to crimp some economic activity. The latest jobs report showed 943-thousand jobs were created in July, the biggest increase in nearly a year.
Prior to the pandemic, weekly unemployment claims were at about 220,000 per week.
Still, consumers continue to see an increase in the costs of goods and services. In July, the consumer price index rose 0.5 percent. Still more price hikes are on the horizon, with 44 percent of small businesses surveyed this month saying they plan to raise prices.
(NEW YORK) — The first signs are emerging that the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus is dampening demand for air travel: cancellations are rising, while passenger loads and air fare are on the decline.
On Tuesday, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened 1.7 million people nationwide — the lowest number of passengers in nearly two months.
In its most recent financial filing, Southwest Airlines reported seeing a recent uptick in cancellations. The airline attributed them to the rise in COVID-19 cases as fears mount about the delta variant.
The airline projected the surge in cancelations to continue into September, a much more grim outlook than Southwest and most other major U.S. airlines had just three weeks ago.
Travel booking site Hopper has seen domestic demand flatline since July Fourth.
“What we saw was that mid-July was one of our best booking weeks ever,” Hopper economist Adit Damodarn said, “so the domestic bookings were really strong in mid July, but on the domestic front we have seen bookings be pretty flat since then.”
International bookings have been hit harder, Damodarn explained, hitting lower than projected rates.
“I think there’s a lot going on here that’s making people think twice about traveling,” Founder of crankyflier.com Brett Snyder told ABC News. “One of the big concerns for people going internationally is the chances of even if you’re vaccinated of getting an infection seem to be going up. It may not be severe, but it does mean that you might not be able to come back into the U.S. for some time just because of the testing requirement. So with that I think you’re scaring some people off. And then, of course, we have the just general concern about getting sick, going to places where there is more virus.”
Hopper noticed more fliers began to purchase cancel-for-any-reason flight insurance in July.
“It is up about 33% since early July,” Damodarn said. “So I think what we’re seeing here is a little bit of hesitancy, maybe, from users traveling.”
And the airlines’ prices are already starting to reflect the halt in demand recovery.
Average air travel booking prices, before fees, are currently down $76 from the end of June, according to travel itinerary app TripIt.
“We’re seeing a significant drop in domestic and international airfare,” Damodarn said. “It’s a little bit more than the seasonality that we have seen in prior years, and so that would suggest to us that there’s both the seasonal variation coming off the peak summer travel season, as well as the impact of the delta variant.”
(NEW YORK) — Consumer prices continued to climb in July, further stoking concerns over inflation as the economy rebounds from the COVID-19 shock.
The Consumer Price Index, often looked to as a measure of inflation, spiked 5.4% over the last 12 months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday. This is the same pace reported in June, tying for the highest 12-month increase since August 2008.
The index rose 0.5% in July alone, the BLS said, leveling off somewhat from the 0.9% increase seen in June.
“This month’s increases were comparatively tame relative to what we had seen the last few months, and that’s in large part because the low bar of a year-ago number is starting to drop out,” Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at Bankrate, told ABC News on Wednesday.
“What I mean by that is in the second quarter of last year, when the economy was on lockdown, price levels actually declined,” he added. “That exaggerated the increase on a year-over-year basis when we looked at it this year.”
McBride said there is no doubt prices are going up and inflation concerns are valid, adding that “there is more evidence that it could prove to be temporary.”
When compared to pre-pandemic data from two years ago, McBride said the annualized rate would fall to 3.1% versus the more concerning 5.4%.
“Think about a baseball player that usually hits 30 home runs a year, and then one year he hit 10 home runs, and then the next year he comes back and he hits 30 home runs again,” he said. “It’s going to look like he tripled his output — he didn’t. He just returned to normal.”
The so-called core index, which accounts for all items except the more volatile food and energy indexes, climbed 0.3% in July and 4.3% over the past 12 months, the latest data indicate. The food index, meanwhile, increased 0.7% in July and 3.4% over the last 12 months. The energy index climbed 1.6% last month, with the gasoline index alone rising by 2.4%.
The prices for used cars, which have been skyrocketing over the past few months amid a chip shortage, leveled off a bit in July. Used car prices increased by 0.2%, a significant reprieve from the 10.5% increase seen in June.
As consumer demand bounced back when the economy began to reopen all at once, many firms, spanning multiple industries, have reported supply chain bottlenecks and issues hiring back workers.
“Labor shortages and supply chain constraints have been a considerable factor in higher prices and underscores the transitory argument,” McBride said. “This debate of is it transitory or is it more sustained is one that’s going to continue through the balance of 2021.”
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell similarly downplayed inflation fears in a testimony before lawmakers in May.
“Inflation has increased notably in recent months,” Powell stated, according to his prepared remarks. “This reflects, in part, the very low readings from early in the pandemic falling out of the calculation; the pass-through of past increases in oil prices to consumer energy prices; the rebound in spending as the economy continues to reopen; and the exacerbating factor of supply bottlenecks, which have limited how quickly production in some sectors can respond in the near term.”
As these transitory factors abate, Powell said inflation is expected to drop back down again.
(WASHINGTON) — The Internal Revenue Service is warning taxpayers of ongoing scams related to the child tax credit — with some landing directly in Americans’ email or smartphone.
“Right now we’re seeing scammers trying to take advantage of the American public by attempting to gain information — using phone calls, emails, text messages, through social media — all attempting to target families eligible for this credit,” Jim Lee, chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division told ABC News.
The IRS said families who qualify for the child tax credit, which was expanded as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, would receive monthly payments without taking any further action. Initial eligibility was based on 2019 or 2020 tax returns.
“For tax year 2021, the child tax credit is increased from $2,000 per qualifying child to: $3,600 for children ages 5 and under at the end of 2021; and $3,000 for children ages 6 through 17 at the end of 2021,” according to the IRS.
But several scam e-mails and text messages obtained by ABC News, show what appear to be official documents.
“Economic Impact Payments Status Available Jul 26,” one scam e-mail reads and appears to be written on official letterhead.
Lee said that they are seeing scammers send “thousands of text messages and e-mails every day, hoping that they’ll get people to respond and fall prey to their scam.”
“Once you click on that link, you know, it usually directs you to a fake IRS website where then you’re prompted to enter all of your personal information to claim this child tax credit. And just like that, scammers have all your information,” he said.
In another example, a scam text message purports to be from the secretary of the treasury and asks the recipient to complete an “eligibility form.”
Lee said the IRS never sends emails or text messages requesting them to fill out a form with personal information on it.
In addition to e-mails and text messages, Lee said they are also seeing scammers call people directly and in some cases threaten them with arrest if they don’t pay up.
“The IRS doesn’t leave prerecorded or urgent threatening messages or make aggressive phone calls warning to individuals about a lawsuit or arrests. These are fake. The IRS is not going to ask you for payment using a gift card or wire transfer or painting via a cryptocurrency. It’s another sign of a scheme. And the IRS is not going to call taxpayers asking them to provide or verify financial information so they can obtain the monthly child tax credit payments,” he explained.
For anyone who thinks they may have received a scam message or is a victim, Lee said to visit the IRS.gov website for more information.
(NEW YORK) — Norwegian Cruise Line can now require guests sailing out of Florida to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination, a federal judge ruled after the line sued the Sunshine State over its vaccine passport ban.
“We want to do everything we can to keep COVID off our ships,” Norwegian CEO Frank Del Rio said in an interview on Good Morning America Tuesday. “It’s the best thing to do, the safest way to travel.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said cruise lines would face a $5,000 fine per passenger if they defied the state’s law that prohibits companies from requiring customers and employees to provide documentation of COVID-19 vaccination status.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said Sunday that Norwegian would “suffer significant financial and reputational harms” if it was forced to abide by Florida’s law.
DeSantis’ office responded in a statement to the ruling, saying, “A prohibition on vaccine passports 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.”
Florida will now move to appeal the judge’s ruling. Del Rio called the response “disappointing.”
“Here’s a state that depends on tourism and apparently it’s not in their best interests to keep not only our residents safe but our visitors safe so it is very disappointing,” Del Rio said.
Norwegian’s win means it can set sail from Florida on Sunday with a fully vaccinated ship.
Norwegian is requiring all guests and crew to be fully vaccinated at least two weeks prior to departure. Each passenger will also be tested prior to boarding. Unlike other cruise lines that have made exceptions for children, Norwegian is not allowing any unvaccinated child under the age of 12 to board.
Richard Stieff, a travel agent and cruise enthusiast, praised the decision.
“The cruise lines have to do whatever they can to make sure we’re safe and they can’t go through another episode like they did last year when we had ships stuck out at sea with people with COVID on them,” he told ABC News.
Del Rio previously threatened to move the company’s ships out of Florida if it was not allowed to mandate vaccinations by guests.
“At the end of the day, cruise ships have motors, propellers and rudders, and God forbid we can’t operate in the state of Florida for whatever reason, then there are other states that we do operate from, and we can operate from the Caribbean for a ship that otherwise would have gone to Florida,” Del Rio said during an earnings call in May.
Other major cruise lines like Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Carnival told ABC News they are still trying to figure out how the Norwegian ruling affects them.
Last week, some lines announced they will now require pre-boarding testing and masks to be worn in certain indoor areas — even for vaccinated guests.
“We have seen a number of ships report some isolated cases of COVID,” Colleen McDaniel, the editor-in-chief of the website Cruise Critic, told ABC News. “And what we’ve seen is these have been mostly among vaccinated passengers, and certainly the delta variant seems to be having an effect on that.”
Despite at least 95% of guests and crew being vaccinated, Carnival Vista, which departed out of Galveston, Texas, reported a “small number of positive cases” last week — prompting the cruise line to change its policy.
Masks will now be required for sailings Aug. 7 through Oct. 31.
“These new requirements are being implemented to protect our guests and crew while on board, and to continue to provide confidence to our homeports and destinations that we are doing our part to support their efforts to protect public health and safety,” Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy said in a statement. “We expect these requirements will be temporary and appreciate the cooperation of our guests.”
Holland America and Princess Cruises, which are both owned by Carnival Corporation, announced the same new cruising requirements.
