Fully Vaccinated Carnival Cruise Passenger Dies Of COVID-19

KEY POINTS

The woman was a retired Sunday school teacher
She was transferred to a Belize hospital after testing positive for COVID-19
The elderly woman was flown in an air ambulance to Oklahoma where she later passed away

A passenger on a cruise ship who recently disembarked in Belize died of COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated against the disease.

Marilyn Tackett, 77, was a retired Sunday school teacher who died on Aug. 14 following her return to the U.S. The elderly woman and her family embarked on a Carnival Vista cruise trip on July 31 from Galveston, Texas.

According to her family’s accounts, Tackett had experienced difficulty breathing while aboard the cruise ship. On-ship medical personnel later diagnosed her with COVID-19 and said that she had to be put on a ventilator to help her breathe.

Tackett was later transferred to a hospital in Belize City, one of the cruise ship’s stops. However, the private hospital demanded that the family pay $5,000 before admitting the patient. The family raised the funds through a crowd-funding initiative, which allowed Tackett to be admitted into an intensive care unit in Belize and placed on a ventilator.

The family also launched a Go Fund Me page to raise $30,000 for Tackett to be medically flown to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“Hi, I’m Tara, one of Marilyn’s grandkids. On behalf of my family I’ve started a Go Fund Me to help with Memaw’s medical costs,” Tackett’s grandchild wrote on the crowdfunding page. “We’re working on getting together with ICU Air Evacuation to bring her back to Tulsa so she can receive the best care possible.”

She was later flown back in an air ambulance and placed on a ventilator where she died of COVID-19, according to Amandala.

Tackett was one of the many passengers of the Carnival Vista cruise ship who had tested positive for COVID-19. At least 26 other passengers were diagnosed with the novel coronavirus over two weeks in late July and early August.

The figures were the highest number of cases recorded aboard a ship since cruise trips resumed in the Caribbean and the United States in June. Tackett was also the first known death.

Most of the people infected with COVID-19 were crew members who had experienced mild symptoms or were asymptomatic. According to the Belize tourism board, at least 96% of the ship’s passengers had been vaccinated. Among the ship’s personnel, only one had not yet been fully vaccinated, as reported by The New York Times.