An outbreak of COVID-19 onboard Hurtigruten’s expedition cruise ship Roald Amundsen last week could have been avoided if protocols to combat the virus had been followed, said Daniel Skjeldam, CEO of the company.

“I shall begin by being completely honest. We have betrayed. We have failed. We have made mistakes. What we see now is not what Hurtigruten should represent or what it will be. We apologise this deeply,” Skjeldam said at a press conference on Monday that was webcast in Norwegian media.

He said it would be too early to go into every detail, but it had become clear that quarantine rules and a number of other procedures had not been followed, which had resulted in the outbreak of the virus. “Had we followed the procedures, we would not have had an outbreak onboard,” Skjeldam said in the webcast.

On Tuesday morning, the number of persons that had contacted the virus on Roald Amundsen rose to 40 as a passenger had treated positive, the Norwegian broadcasting company NRK reports on its website.

A local health authority had on Wednesday last week informed FHI, the Norwegian national health authority, that a person had fallen ill with the virus two days after disembarking Roald Amundsen.

“We had a meeting with Hurtigruten in which we explained that they should inform passengers on the current cruise and they confirmed to us that they would do this,” FHI department head Line Vold was quoted by NRK as saying.

“We were not informed that Hurtigruten after this had decided to change its standpoint and not to inform the passengers. It was only on Friday we understood that Hurtigruten had broken the agreement made at the meeting and decided not to inform the passengers,” she was quoted as saying.