The latest released indicators about crew change maybe a good news to seafarers. The data shows that the number of seafarers has been reached the lowest level since May, 2021, and this will be a good trend.

Of the 90000 crew members from 10 leading ship management companies, only about 3.7% are still working on board after the expiration of the contract, and only 0.4% of the crew members have been on board for more than 11 months as stipulated in the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC).

  Although this is good news, it does not necessarily mean that the shipping industry can completely forget the crew shift crisis. The above newly released indicators are based on the data on December 15 and do not reflect the impact of the latest variant Omicron of COVID-19 with high dissemination. Relevant ship managers pointed out that Omicron has led many countries to redesignate and implement restrictive measures for the prevention and control of COVID-19, resulting in the re-emergence of crew change challenges. In addition, with the rise of infection rate, many coastal countries in Asia and Europe have readjusted the prevention and control regulations of COVID.

  "While the figures in January seem to indicate an improvement, we must remain cautious as the COVID outbreak is not yet over and therefore the improvement in the figures does not reveal the full impact of the new variant of Omicron. To avoid reigniting the crew change crisis that has reversed these recent positive trends, it is vital that the industry and governments make every effort to ensure that Omicron affects crew change as little as possible", said Kasper Sogaard, Managing Director, Head of Institutional Strategy and Development, Global Maritime Forum.

  Vaccination rates for seafarers are also on the rise. Between December last year and January this year, the proportion of seafarers vaccinated rose by 10 percentage points to a total of around 60%. This is a significant improvement compared to August last year, when only 15% of seafarers were fully vaccinated.

  However, relevant ship managers report that seafarers of some nationalities are still hesitant to be vaccinated, particularly Eastern European and Russian crews. At the same time, there are still problems with vaccine availability in some areas and shortages of vaccine booster shots have been reported.

  For seafarers, vaccination alone is not enough to ensure freedom of movement. COVID has been with us for 2 years now, but there is still no globally accepted standard for vaccination, and different countries have different rules about which vaccinations to administer. Some countries have also set time limits on the effectiveness of the vaccination process, restricting access to seafarers who have been vaccinated for more than six months.