shares of royal caribbean group rcl jumped 17 in morning trading thursday after the cruise operator looked to play down the impact of the omicron variant of the coronavirus on cruises saying the impact on bookings has been less than what was experienced with the delta variant the company said nearterm results will be impacted by omicron but that out of 331 destination calls it has only cancelled or significantly modified 16 or 48 and since cruising was restarted in the us in june 2021 the company said it has carried 11 million guests with only 1745 people or 002 testing positive for covid19 while only 41 people needed to be hospitalized the company said none of the omicron cases have been severe or required hospitalizations we expect omicron factors to have a negative impact in the short term but are optimistic they will lead us to a more pervasive but less severe health environment said chief executive richard fain taken together this should enable us to produce a strong transitional year in 2022 and a very strong 2023