Cruise industry salty over CDC plan to keep travelers safe from COVID at sea:
The cruise industry is rather salty about the latest federal guidance for safe pandemic sailing, calling it "burdensome" and "unworkable. "
The new guidance is an updated phase of the Framework for Conditional Sailing Order (CSO), released April 2 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While it does not mandate vaccinations for all staff and cruisegoers, it does recommend the shots and requires added layers of health measures to try giving any onboard COVID-19 outbreaks the heave-ho—which is exceedingly difficult to do on the tightly packed, highly social vessels.
Among several changes, the guidance requires cruise operators to increase how frequently they report the number of COVID-19 cases onboard, upping reporting from weekly to daily. It also requires cruise lines to implement new routine testing for crew members. Additionally, the guidance requires that cruise lines have agreements set up with port authorities and local health authorities to ensure that, in the event of an outbreak, there will be coordination and infrastructure necessary to safely quarantine, isolate, and treat passengers and crew on land.
Once those requirements are met, cruise operators can run mock cruises with volunteer passengers and, if all goes well, apply for a "Conditional Sailing Certificate."
In a statement released Monday, the prominent industry trade group Cruise Lines International Association released a statement calling the new guidance "unduly burdensome, largely unworkable."
The CLIA claims the health guidance "deprives US workers from participating in the economic recovery" and provides "no discernable path forward or timeframe for resumption" of cruises originating in the country. The group ended its statement by urging the Biden administration to "consider the ample evidence that supports lifting the CSO this month to allow for the planning of a controlled return to service this summer."
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @12:19AM (17 children)
Cruise passengers tend to be lard-ass Americans mainly interested in three all-you-can-eat buffets every day. Since COVID is known to affect the obese this could be very dangerous.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:04AM (4 children)
Agreed. People from Topeka, who have never seen the ocean, much less sailed on it, simply cannot comprehend how closely packed people are. My experience is on warships, but a cruise liner isn't going to be a lot better. Even if they are sailing with 1/2 capacity, you will never get your nose out of your neighbor's breathing/farting space.
It's probably alright, if everyone who sails with the ship has been in strict quarantine for 3 weeks ahead of time. Except, in the US "strict quarantine" isn't all that strict. It only takes one damned fool to break quarantine, and bring the virus aboard.
Once it's aboard, there's no escaping it. Shipboard ventilation isn't set up to isolate individual cabins. Guy on the next deck up coughs out some sputum, the ventilation system picks it up, and sprays it out into your cabin. I certainly don't want to be trapped inside a steel (or aluminum, or even wood) hull with a bunch of sick people.
Of course, I've never, ever, felt the urge to sail on a cruise ship anyway. First thing that would happen is, I'd get in trouble for touring the engine spaces, wandering about the steering gear, and haunting the radio shack.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @03:25AM
Ebenezer Cruise?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:04PM (1 child)
What is your data source for the claim about how closely packed people are?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 08 2021, @09:20PM
I was going by simple experience and sorta extrapolating from Navy ship to cruise ship. The most luxurious accomodations aboard a Navy ship (Captain's cabin) might equate to a first class cabin aboard a cruise ship. And, it's much to small to cram a couple into, twenty or fifty times per ship. Away from the luxury cabins, it's gonna really suck for social distancing - there simply isn't room.
I did find some information for you to look at:
https://www.travelweekly.com/Richard-Turen/Space-is-a-many-Splendored-thing [travelweekly.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:11PM
Once everyone who wants to be vaccinated has had a chance to do so, there's a part of me that just says drop all the restrictions and let the unvaccinated contribute to the improvement of the species in finest Darwinian fashion. Preferably without the rest of us having to foot their medical bills.
Of course, there will be some few for who the vaccine is ineffective that will suffer as well. That's unfortunate, but once vaccinated the odds of developing serious problems really do appear to be less than for a mild flu.
The real problem is that the resulting voluntary pandemic won't just cause misery to a bunch of people who should have known better, it'll also provide a fertile breeding ground for new mutated variants that could be more dangerous and more contagious, that the vaccine will be ineffective against. Then we're right back at square one with something even worse than before.
Unfortunately, short of requiring mandatory vaccination for all (which brings up some really serious issues of bodily autonomy), I don't see that there's any way to avoid that outcome anyway. It's looking like between the anti-vaxxers and the ever-Trumpers (and other such groups in other nations), we're not going to get enough people vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, so this will just keep circulating and mutating in perpetuity. Just like most every other disease really, except that this one started out contagious, dangerous, and unstable enough to be worrisome.
So maybe we're just stuck letting nature run its course once we've done what we realistically can, getting protection to all who want it.
Still, I wouldn't be opposed to requiring proof-of-vaccination before entering such voluntary hot-spots as aircraft, cruise ships, etc. Just to slow down the rate at which it spreads so we're not hopefully not hit by several dangerous new variants simultaneously.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bussdriver on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:39AM (10 children)
Cruise ships are extremely foolish. The whole time they should have been shutdown and now with a compromise of expert measures they still should be shutdown because it's impossible for them to maintain safety levels. Until they can be reasonably safe to an EXPERT they are grounded. If that takes another year and they go out of business. Too bad for them.
WTF do we have to bend to their needs at our own expense? Sucks to be them; if you feel bad then give them some $ to stop going broke but don't just bend the rules. The enemy doesn't care, it'll exploit the weaknesses you create. I can't imagine we could have won WW2 in this political climate. We'd have 49% refusing to ration their food and needed supplies -- both robbing from our war effort. We'd have super spreaders handing out Nazi propaganda, donating to pro-Nazi groups, downplaying the threat, and dismissing the "lying press" (the phrase used at the time... by ... guess who?)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:54AM (9 children)
This isn't World War II. More people died in World War two. There was actually an enemy in World War two. To use your analogy, if this was World War II, we'd have 51% of the population hiding in their homes with their head in the sand. We definitely wouldn't have won.
It is time for folks to deal with the reality that healthy people, under the age of 65, die at a rate no more than any other respiratory disease. It is a sad truth that a few extra over 65 lose some years. No one under 45 has died that was 100% healthy. The data just doesn't support the fear, especially when people have either already been exposed or are vaccinated.
And the rest of us? People need to make a decision for themselves. Either they are one of the ones that stays home and afraid, or they are one of the ones that accepts and continues to live with the risks of being a human. Regardless of who chooses what, both sides need to stop telling each other what to do.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday April 08 2021, @07:37AM
That doesn't seem to be quite true. There's this guy, for example:
https://www.ctinsider.com/local/newstimes/article/He-was-just-wonderful-family-remembers-15195661.php
However that seems to be more a function of a large population than a high fatality rate.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Booga1 on Thursday April 08 2021, @09:28AM (4 children)
Except this issue is that people are making decisions for their friends, their family, etc.. They could be carrying it and not know it because some of the COVID spreading around is from people who are asymptomatic at the time. They might think they're safe when getting off that ship, but it's a roll of the dice.
You know how many people just HAD to have Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas with the family. Thanks to that, we had another big surge of COVID here in the US.
Not only that, but we're STILL finding out about the long term effects:
I'd love it if we could all just "go back to normal" and we're getting closer, but restarting cruise lines too soon is just dumb.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Barenflimski on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:55PM (2 children)
Your premise is flawed. You presume that we aren't capable of determining our own exposure levels and our own risk levels. You presume that we aren't able to assess our own risk. Your presumptions are wrong.
Just to give you an idea, our sites are vaccinating 18,000 people a day within 50 miles of my house. That is on top of the people 50+ that have already been getting vaccinated for the last two months.
In my world, every person I know, friend and family, that is over 50 has been vaccinated, or has made a personal choice not to. My community is largely vaccinated. The people I know are ready to move on whether it kills them or not. According to the science, because they are vaccinated, they will not end up in the hospital.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Thursday April 08 2021, @03:36PM
People willfully ignore their exposure risks and obviously can't determine their exposure levels until it's too late. As it turns out, some people will not actually avoid the plague.
Study after study has shown that people are atrocious at assessing risk. We've just proven that with the aforementioned surge from Thanksgiving and Christmas. You place too much faith in people's judgement. Perhaps you live in place with a smarter population, but around here we're seeing a 30-50% rise in cases over the last two weeks. We're possibly going to have to go backward a step or two in our reopening phases. People feel safer now that the vaccines are getting distributed, but around here they're acting dumber. They're exhausted and they've let their guard down too early.
This is what will happen with the cruise lines: They will make mistakes. They will not follow procedures. They will have outbreaks, I guarantee it. That's why they don't want to do the testing and reporting. No tests, no cases, no bad publicity. Money first, screw the safety of the passengers and crew. There's always more to replace them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bussdriver on Thursday April 08 2021, @05:20PM
We can trust all drivers with our lives; drunk driving is a myth and traffic laws are just a big government mind game...
It really should be obvious that many people are NOT capable of determining a hell of a lot. In the USA, we can't even determine what a valid election is.
You do realize the bats, etc. don't all die of the diseases they spread? Your HPV still hasn't killed you; if you ever got a chance to spread it, you'd not be with your partner long enough to find out about what you gave them.
You can still get and spread a virus you are unharmed by; new strains you people are breeding will be beyond containment by the time they are discovered. Odds are low enough to resume many things if people take precautions.... but we still have assholes who LIE about being vaccinated just to not wear a mask. Yeah, I'm going to believe them... let them determine what risk I have to be exposed to. In my area school sports spiked it twice as parents and students LIED simply so they keep playing a pointless GAME! people died; unfortunately, not the guilty.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:41PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @11:29AM
You're too rational, as if the whole of 2020 hadn't happened. As if the enemy wasn't health Nazis, stoking up fear in third persons, wanting to control how you live.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:52PM (1 child)
You fail at analogies!
You fight a pandemic by staying at home; medicine is your weapon, wielded by medics. You can't shoot a virus to death so why would you drop the analogy? Playing the idiot or being the idiot; same result, maybe that works on your peers (at your level) but not the rest of us. The biggest break from the metaphor is that a virus runs and EVOLVES on your own people; it is completely 100% fueled by our own failure.
Your great leader, Don Got Ill, used the war metaphor then proceeded to help the threat he characterized "enemy."
The selfish are a bigger problem as you people seem to think selfishness is a virtue. Civil society curbs selfishness by it's collective power; or it's not so civil. Society says you have no right to be naked in public and that is an example of a harmless action...(jokes aside) while this is harmful and potentially catastrophic.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Thursday April 08 2021, @11:24PM
Sigh.... Personal attacks. Overbroad analogies. Fairly standard reply.
I live in a world where we trust our neighbors and give folks the benefit of the doubt. I live in a world where I don't watch talking heads. I live in a world where I look at data, I look around me, and I make decisions based on what happens in real life, right in front of my eyes.
Every single person I know that caught COVID did everything "right," was wearing a mask and survived just fine. I've known people from the age of 18 to the age of 85.
Call me an idiot all you like if that makes you feel better, but it doesn't change the reality of being a human on planet earth. I will fight to the death for your right to hide all you want in your basement, but quit pushing your beliefs on the rest of us. Please. Do it for society.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:22PM
Anonymous Cowards tend to be lard-ass Americans mainly interested in three short clips of hentai a day.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @12:20AM (2 children)
While the CLIA may be a lobbying organization with teeth that can make a difference, the government couldn't give a rats ass about the lines, who are invariably based outside of the US and have their ships built in foreign countries too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:59AM (1 child)
They're also almost completely crewed by non-Americans. Typically Norwegians for navigational/command crew and southeast Asians for the hotel accommodation/service jobs.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:09AM
Yes. I came in to post that, after reading "deprives US workers from participating in the economic recovery". The floating cesspool industry also, to the best of my knowledge, pays little or no US taxes.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:11AM (2 children)
They should be ignored.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:56AM (1 child)
Ignored?
How about defunded? They've proven themselves worse than useless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @05:20AM
You mean like how Trump pulled WHO funding? No need to go that far. All that is needed is for the CDC leadership to be replaced with competent people who will work for the public good instead of scoring political points. Biden appointed Dr. Rochelle Walensky as CDC head back in January and it looks like she's actually qualified for the position.
(Score: 1) by Adam on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:19AM
There are already cruises happening in Europe - this is a solved problem. Just follow that model rather than poorly reinventing the wheel.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:20AM (12 children)
I've so had it with the CDC trying to tell us all what is best for us. I was fine with masks inside. I was fine with "flatten the curve." This is now just absurd. This CDC crew won't stop until 0 people ever die from another respiratory disease. No amount of fear will ever rid planet earth of this disease. The patients are now running the asylum.
Over half of the U.S. is vaccinated. In 2 months, everyone that wants a vaccine will be vaccinated. COVID is with us forever. Its time to deal with it based on an individual level. The last thing I want on my tombstone is, "Was perfect in quarantine, but died of loneliness."
Give people the information. Let them choose what they want to do. If they want to hit up a cruise, so be it. Shutting down industry after industry in the hopes that no one will ever die from a respiratory disease is pure insanity. Welcome to life on earth.
I have simply had it with everyone else trying to be a super hero and save everyone else. Save yourself, but I'm sick and tired of being yelled at because I'm in my back yard 40 feet from anyone, and not wearing a mask. If you're too scared, then stay home and order from insta-cart for the rest of your lives and save us all by keeping your trap shut.
(Score: 4, Touché) by dwilson on Thursday April 08 2021, @05:52AM (5 children)
...Really?
Fucking really?
- D
(Score: 2) by dwilson on Thursday April 08 2021, @06:01AM
I'll just leave this here: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/28/960901166/how-is-the-covid-19-vaccination-campaign-going-in-your-state [npr.org]
- D
(Score: 2, Touché) by Barenflimski on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:43PM (2 children)
Yes, fucking really. Over 100 Million are vaccinated or have had their first shot. Out of that 331 million, only about 250 million are eligible for the vaccine. About 50 million don't want the vaccine. That leaves you with 200 million that will get it. Half of the people that are eligible and want the vaccine are vaccinated.
You going to try to save the people that don't want the vaccine too? Or you trying to save the kids that survive this with zero issues sans a few edge cases?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:18PM (1 child)
Misrepresenting reality undermines your own argument. Which is a silly thing to do when you actually have a strong argument to begin with.
"Half the people who are eligible and want it" is a very different concept than "half the people". Especially when a large portion have only gotten the first dose. Well under 1/3rd of the population are currently fully vaccinated, and a whole lot of those who aren't eligible are still at risk, especially of spreading it - we just haven't yet confirmed whether these new kinds of vaccines are actually safer for kids than getting the disease. Especially since kids are at much reduced (though hardly zero) risk from the disease.
Now, I'm leaning hard toward opening most things up once everyone who wants the vaccine has gotten their second dose, simply because it's not looking like we can realistically eliminate this enemy. Not without setting some really dangerous precedent for what the government can require us to do with our bodies.
But, I'd still seriously consider endorsing mandatory vaccinations for some particularly high-risk voluntary activities, like airline travel or cruise ships. Simply because the faster this thing spreads, the sooner we're likely to get a new seriously dangerous variant that the vaccines don't work against. And we could really use at least a couple years of recovery before that happens.
If we do completely lift all restrictions, we need to actually be prepared for death and hospitalization rates to surge dramatically, and possibly seriously consider just letting unvaccinated people die from COVID if those beds are needed for patients with involuntary problems. 31M Americans have caught COVID so far - if we just open things up, we need to expect those 50M unvaccinated will be joining them within a few months, maybe sooner, along with everyone for whom the vaccine was ineffective or too dangerous to be an option.
Which means we should expect an additional 900,000 deaths within a few months (50M *1.8%death rate)- a roughly 50% increase in the average annual death rate, crammed into maybe 4 months? So call it an average of 2.5x the normal number of bodies needing to be disposed of every week, probably considerably higher at the peak. Lots of places were already having trouble handling the backlog from the relatively small surges seen so far. And that's assuming everyone who needs hospitalization gets it.
The hospitalization though will be real problem. 14% of COVID cases, 7M out of our 50, will require hospitalization for an average of 22.4 days, that's 157M patient days in 4 months, or about 1.3M patient-days every day. So *averaging* about 10x the worst daily COVID peak so far. COVID alone would average almost 3x the average pre-COVID hospitalization rate of around 450K patient-days per day. And hospitals aren't built with a lot of excess capacity - that'd just be wasted money cutting into profits. So we could easily see COVID deaths increase many-fold due to lack of medical care. Meaning millions of preventable deaths.
That doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't do it - but we need to plan for the reality. Plan on mass graves, traveling crematoriums, or other temporary measures to handle the massive increase in body disposal - get the plans in motion now, before we lift the restrictions. And if you need COVID hospitalization during the surge, expect to be turned away with a wish of good luck and maybe a CPAP machine if you're lucky, unless the triage analysis determines you to be in the maybe 10 or 20% of cases where hospitalization will do the most good on a per-day basis.
By all means, let's open up - but lets do it with our eyes open.
Alternately, now that we have a solution for those almost everyone who wants it - we could focus on actually flattening the curve. Adjust restrictions on a daily basis as we strive to infect as many people per day as possible without overloading the hospitals. That gets us through this as quickly as possible without dramatically increasing the final death toll.
Should we do that though? Should we all continue to suffer for the good of those who *choose* not to protect themselves? I'm inclined to say no - lets start digging the mass graves and get this over with. Maybe we'll get lucky, and the number of vaccinated will slow the spread enough that the hospitals don't get overloaded. If you're among the vulnerable who couldn't get vaccinated... hunker down hard for a few months and try to ride it out. Get your vaccinated friends or family to do all your shopping for you, and maintain social distancing even from them since the vaccine doesn't necessarily protect them from being contagious. Maybe stock up on a bunch of dried beans, etc. to help you ride through the worst of the surge with no outside contact.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Friday April 09 2021, @08:25PM
I'm not sure I am wrong. It actually looks like more than half of folks that want the vaccine have already had it.
America may be close to hitting a vaccine wall - https://www.axios.com/america-coronavirus-vaccines-republicans-rural-states-34755cbf-384e-4539-bb45-68a775581f6f.html [axios.com]
Otherwise I appreciate your points.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday April 08 2021, @03:53PM
The real number was 19% as of April 6, with a 7 day moving average of an additional 1% per day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @06:02AM
A member of the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, I see.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday April 08 2021, @12:51PM (1 child)
Kind of antisemitic given who those people invariably are. May as well just say you don't like pushy Jews, everyone else certainly feels the same way.
There seems to be a great sorting going on. People who insist everyone must wear the face-kippah are accumulating in more left wing areas and states and the more right wing states are business as usual.
The economic recovery from covid will not be even, not at all, and it will be skewed strongly against the face-kippah areas. Remember the illness is only like 99.9% survivable in the economically productive demographic groups, so the "free" areas are going to absolutely boom compared to the "unfree" areas.
Also a bit of an assumption to assume holier than thou people have a job or school to attend. Lots of NEET and welfare types in that crowd.
Its easy for me to live in a youthful suburb where the kids have been in school for seven months and nobody per the CDC is getting sick because we're all healthy (presumably still getting infected but asymtomatic?) vs the sick people in the cities locked down and dying at a higher rate. But for something at a large scale like cruise industry, it'll be weird.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @06:00PM
LOL
"Kinda anti-semitic... and I AGREE!"
Dumbest dog whistle of 2021. So far
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:03PM (2 children)
Your argument about giving people information is specious. Information is out there but there is an equal volume of ignorant misinformation being spread.
Taking a cruise and getting COVID-19 does not affect just you. It affects everyone you come into contact with after that. Whether you believe it or not, this disease is deadly. Over 500,000 dead from it in the United States alone. If the cruise industry has value someone will invest to keep it going. If the industry did not prepare for rainy days that is their own fault.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Barenflimski on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:15PM (1 child)
This seems to be a fairly typical response. This type of response it mostly regurgitated from the talking heads you hear that speak from the "I know better than you" crowd.
This is true, but that doesn't mean that most of us don't understand how to get the right information. Just because there is misinformation out there is not an excuse to continue to lock people down.
This is just simply not true. If I get COVID, it affects no one but myself. If I get COVID, I wear a mask and stay away from other people while I'm contagious. Your assumptions are flawed. You're imagining that we get COVID, are all "super spreaders" and we infect as many people as possible. This is fear based nonsense, especially considering the vaccination penetration and the already infected/cured penetration. Tack on the next 2 months that it would take to get people on cruises and your entire argument goes up in smoke as anyone vulnerable will have had plenty of time to get fully vaccinated by then.
You may not like the cruise industry, but that gives you no right to shut them down. I have never been on a cruise. We aren't talking about a rainy day slush fund here. We are talking about over a year of "rainy days." Very few industries and very few businesses have that kind of capital.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @08:27PM
And just how often do you get tested for COVID? Since one can spread the disease without showing any symptoms it seems that frequent testing would be the only way to know if one is contagious or not.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @12:35PM
They have to top the last time. Remember, the Diamond Princess still counts as a country on worldOmeters.
This time, maybe they can get a whole new variant of the virus named after them.
This seems a really bad idea, it is a trial by fire to see how good the vaccine is.
If they do succeed, then what is the lesson? That we can ignore what we have learned about being careful in the last year? Not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @02:35PM
Salt industry is cruisy.