• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Library
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » Finally, Weary Seafarers Are Coming Ashore for Covid Vaccines

Finally, Weary Seafarers Are Coming Ashore for Covid Vaccines

Seafarers
Crew transfer at Tanjong Pagar Terminal in Singapore. Photo: Bloomberg.
June 3, 2021
Bloomberg

Ports around the U.S. are rolling out vaccines for seafarers, extending a lifeline to thousands of mostly foreign workers who’ve spent the pandemic isolated aboard ships ensuring goods kept trading across a battered global economy.

From Boston to Houston and Los Angeles, and even in smaller trade gateways like Gulfport, Mississippi, local health officials and nonprofits are boarding container ships, tankers and other cargo carriers to administer COVID-19 shots or, when possible, shuttling crews to nearby pharmacies and clinics.

The preferred vaccine for maritime workers: the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot because they’re often docked for just a day or two.

In Los Angeles and nearby Long Beach, California, home of the nation’s largest port complex, a vaccination program that began in mid-May has reached about 500 visiting sailors on 11 container ships as of late last week, city spokeswoman Chelsey Magallon said.

Similar efforts are getting under way at nearly 50 U.S. seaports, according to a list maintained by the North American Maritime Ministry Association.

Throughout the pandemic, seafarers have suffered a doubly harsh form of cabin fever. Travel restrictions prevented crew changes, forcing many to stay aboard beyond their original contracts and the 11-month limit set by maritime law. They’ve also been banned from disembarking in port for fear of spreading Covid or putting their vessel into quarantine for a week or more at the expense of millions of dollars.

“That’s a very big deal for sailors because they are essentially stranded aboard ships,” said Dick McKenna, president of the International Seafarers Center of Long Beach-Los Angeles, a hospitality club that offers logistics on land like Wifi, shopping or health-care services. “Some of these guys have been out there for like a year — the suicide worry is high. The shots are a really big boost.”

Many of the world’s 1.6 million seafarers hail from poor countries like India and the Philippines that have struggled to inoculate citizens as quickly as the U.S., where vaccines remain abundant.

“It’s a huge welcome relief for these ships because all these foreign countries are having a hard time giving vaccines,” said Tom Jacobsen, who runs a pilot service at the Port of Long Beach.

About 400 miles (644 kilometers) north on the California coast, Oakland’s port is averaging vaccines for about 80 seafarers a day and offering them either on the ship or in a clinic, said John Claassen, chairman of Oakland’s International Maritime Center. Some recipients view their vaccine certificates “like a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” he said.

In the Philadelphia area, some 22 crews totaling 258 seamen had been vaccinated as of Saturday, courtesy of rides to local pharmacies, said Helene Pierson, executive director of the Seamen’s Church Institute of Philadelphia and South Jersey. “I’m averaging about 20 crew a day and about 10 ships a week,” she said.

Some sailors are stepping foot on land for the first time in nine months or longer.

“We are on a continuous rotation between six ports in the USA and six ports in Brazil and one in Argentina and Uruguay — a vaccination would help us a lot,” Ingmar Koal, the master on board the container carrier the Northern Majestic, wrote in an email to Pierson on May 18 as the ship approached Philadelphia.

Complicating the local efforts to deliver the vaccines are safety rules that require at least half the crew to remain aboard the ships — so the shuttles often have to make two or three trips between the port and drugstore. Other potential snags: many workers’ visas have expired, which prevents them from leaving the ship, or face U.S. Customs and Border Protection rules against the arrival citizens of certain countries.

Despite coordination efforts that are “still extremely challenging,” 130 seafarers were vaccinated in 10 days in Delaware, according to Christine Lassiter, executive director of the Seamen’s Center of Wilmington.

For crews who might come from Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia, there’s an economic incentive to get a vaccination card.

“That card and paperwork are going to make them very marketable,” said Stefan Mueller-Dombois, an inspector with the International Transport Workers’ Federation in Long Beach. “Their company will want them back or they can find another ship to work on really easily.”

More on seafarers crisis during the pandemic:
World’s Biggest Brands Adopt Checklist to Rescue Stuck Seafarers

Commodity Giants, Shippers Can’t Agree on Seafarer Rescue

Rogue Captain’s Mid-Ocean Detour Tips Investors to Crisis at Sea

What Happens When Tycoons Abandon Their Giant Cargo Ships

In other parts of the world, more Covid outbreaks have stricken crew on ships and once again closed off some ports, particularly vessels carrying Indian crews or having recently traveled to India.

That’s why a global vaccination program supported by a number of governments is key to resolving the crisis at sea, said Rene Kofod-Olsen, chief executive officer of ship and crew manager V.Group Ltd. The company recently completed its first vaccinations in the U.S. — 13 Indian seafarers aboard the Cabrera in Port Everglades, Florida, received jabs during a stop there.

“This crisis is not over yet and we all need to keep the gas up on this,” Kofod-Olsen said.

Captain Rajesh Unni, founder of Singapore-based ship manager Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., said the company expects crews on about 70 of its vessels bound for U.S. ports to be vaccinated this quarter — just about 10% of its total pool of seafarers. “In the short term, we need to get seafarers vaccinations in countries where there are established programs and sufficient supplies of vaccines, like in the United States,” he said.

4,000 Doses

What’s unique about the vaccine programs in the U.S. is the broad inclusion of foreign workers, said Jason Zuidema, general secretary of the International Christian Maritime Association, a U.K. organization that represents seafarer centers globally.

China and Russia have offered doses to their domestic maritime industries, and U.K. officials have offered them to British fishermen. The Netherlands is launching a program starting in mid-June, available to seafarers on vessels flying the Dutch flag. Australia has vaccinated a small number of foreign deckhands that transport gas between the nation’s ports on a ship that’s under charter to energy giant Origin Energy Ltd.

Zuidema estimated that 4,000 seafarers have been vaccinated around U.S. ports in recent weeks.

“This transforms their lives and we’ve seen that it has almost immediate effect,” Zuidema said. He added that a container ship calling on ports along the U.S. East Coast recently rewarded its fully vaccinated crew with something they haven’t had since the pandemic began: shore leave.

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Logistics Global Logistics Ocean Transportation HR & Labor Management
  • Related Articles

    Slow Vaccines for Seafarers Could Worsen Global Shipping Chaos

    Independent Pharmacies Are ‘Begging’ for Vaccines

    Fidelity Calls for Urgent Action to Help 400,000 Stranded Seafarers

Bloomberg

BioNTech Expands German Plant as Scholz Vows to Help Pharma

More from this author

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter!

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • DOCUMENTS BEARING THE INSIGNIA OF US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION LIE ON A TABLE

    New CBP Regs Call for Greater Diligence by Brokers in Reporting Security Breaches

    Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
  • A WORKER IN A WAREHOUSE, SUPERIMPOSED WITH GRAPHICS SHOWING SUPPLY NETWORK

    Enabling Intelligent Visibility With Supply Chain Analytics

    Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
  • A HAND TURNS A LARGE, LIGHTED DIAL WITH THE WORD RISK ON IT iStock-NicoElNino-1364371014.jpg

    Measuring KPIs and KRIs for Comprehensive Supplier Performance Management

    Technology
  • GSCMS-Promo.png

    Watch: Introducing the Global Supply Chain Marketing Summit

    Education & Professional Development
  • A COMPLEX SERIES OF ROADWAYS AND RAMPS, SEEN FROM HIGH ABOVE, IS PARTLY SHROUDED BY CLOUD

    Supply Chain Visibility Isn’t Just a Catchphrase; It’s an Imperative

    Logistics

Digital Edition

Scb nov 2022 sm

2022 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • New Revenue for Cloud-Based TMS that Embeds Orderful’s Modern EDI Platform

  • Convenience Store Client Maximizes Profit and Improves Customer Service

  • A Digitally Native Footwear Brand Finds Rapid Fulfillment

  • Expanding Apparel Brand Scales Seamlessly with E-Commerce Technology

  • How a Global LSP Scaled its Security Program and Won More Business

Visit Our Sponsors

Orderful Yang Ming Alithya
Barcoding Blue Yonder BNSF Logistics
CoEnterprise Data Capture Deposco
E2open GAINSystems Generix
Geodis GEP GreyOrange
Here Honeywell Intelligrated IFM
Infor Inmar Keelvar
Kinaxis Korber Lean Solutions Group 2H
Liberty SBF Locus Robotics Logility
LogistiVIEW Lucas Systems MCA Connect
MPO Nvidia Old Dominion
OpenText ORTEC Overhaul
Parsyl PMMI QIMA
Redwood Logistics Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash Saddle Creek Logistics
Schneider Dedicated Setlog Holding AG Ship4WD
Shipwell Tecsys TGW Systems
Thomson Reuters Tive Trailer Bridge
Vecna Robotics Verity
Verusen
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright ©2023 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing