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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.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(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]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(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.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩