Traveler

Some more good news , Moderna are going to apply the request for emergency FDA approval . The compile all the extended data and they for the 30000 people test the vaccine has successful rate of 94.1% to protect from C19 94.1 % and 100% from getting severe hilliness . On other words only 11 people out of 15000 who got the real vaccine got ill , noon of them developed any severe hilliness comparing to 185 from the placebo group who got the C19 and 30 of them became severely ill . https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/30/health/moderna-vaccine-fda-eua-application/index.html

Maybe they will still have V class or even one of the Q class to do the East Med

Another things to take into consideration is if you are doing real back2back on the same ship on the same day you will save around 200-250 Euro just to go to Rome and back to the ship (unless you want to take the train). No reason to stay near the port there , nothing really interesting (comparing to Rome) , one other option will be to rent a car after the first port and to travel around , but than again , if you have few days I would go to Rome , its almost a full day if you want to do the Vatican + the Vatican Museum, Another day to go to the important places and one more day just to enjoy other things.

Sorry , typed too fast , its Capri ... ? I have done this route around 4-5 times , I can tell you that every time we find something else to do over there. The main question is what your family wants to see ,

Good questions , Its all depends what you want to do and what you want to see. Yes , for the first cruise the ports can be very intensive but its just a matter of planning. Western Med cruise is different from the Greek island once , Here some points. Rome WM will disembark at Wednesday while Greek Island one will start at Friday or Saturday so you will have at least three days to be in Rome , and you want to go to Rome and not stay at the port ... Greek Island cruise can also be around 9 days from Rome so check it out. Ports : Barcelona - very near the port (you can even walk) lots to see. Palma - 15 minutes from ports - busses are alliable for 8 Euros , 5 minutes walk from the bus , This can be less intensive port , two /three hours you cover the city and the other option is to go to one of the beaches. Marchelle - 20 minutes from the port (buses are available including one free buses but you need to walk 0.8 miles to this bus) - can be half intensive port - if only the old port you need few hours , if you want to visit other small cities you need more time. La Spezia - Very intensive port if you decide to visit Florence as its 2 hours drive , I would skip the Pisa as there are many things to see and do in Florence. Rome - well you are going to be there anyway , I think you can spent 3 full days there (and more). Napoli - Many things to do , you need to decide if you will do Santorini (its a full day) or Pompeii/Sorento /Napoli , yes there are some tours that offer all the 3 , but I think its crazy to try and do everything in one day (Santorini - at least 6 hours including the boat ride , Pompeii - 1.5/2 hours , Sorento 2 hours , Napoli 2-3 hours) One Sea day ... The Greek main ports: Athens - 20 minutes from Port , need a full day there. Santorini - Tendring port , require full day with the Tendring time. Mykonos - Tendring port , half intensive port , 3-4 hours to go around the village and seat at one of the coffee shops. Croatia - full day , lots to see. Kotor - Tendring port , can be half intensive (if just staying near the old port and city) or it can be more intensive In other words , even if you will take just the W Med B2B it can still work for you without seeing the same things twice , something like : Barcelona - different parts of the cities Palma - Old city /Stay on boat Marchelle - Old port and city / touring the small villages near Marchelle. Ka Spezia - Florence/cinque terre Napoli - Santorini/ Pompeii Amalfi road.

And soon we should have news about Johnson and Johnson Vaccine.

I quite surprise we do not sea better deals. RCL needs the cache flow , anything we buy now its actually like a lone we give RCL from the time we do the purchase until the cruise happens or canceled , in the worse case scenario its becomes a zero interest loan or if the cruise happens its a profit.

Even if not approved in the US but just in Europe and other countries it means much more vaccine portions available around the world.

Some more good news . The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine showed successful results between 70% for people who got two full doses shots to 90% for people who got first 50% hot and then 100% dose for the second shots. This vaccine is more traditional vaccine and can be shipped in normal fridge temperature. The expected price is around 8$ comparing to 60$+ for the Moderna/Pfizer one.

When I take a flight the time that I really hate is between I get into the aircraft and the time it takes off - This time can take 5 minutes or few hours incase of weather issues or mechanical issues but the destination is not getting closer. Same here , I do not care if it is 5 testing cruises 15 testing cruises or 500 testing cruises , let them just start to do the first cruise so we can start the countdown.

When I searched for hotels over there I did not found any known chain so I can not recommend . For my cruise that cancelled we planned to stay at one of the airport hotel and take a ride to the cruise terminal ( around 70-80 minutes). If you are coming after long flight I would recommend to do the same. You will also decide to take the train to Rome if you will feel like.

Regarding the numbers you are right and that is what I am showing in the diagram above considering half of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will go to the US. Regarding 3 years to get everyone protect , that is true but we should take into consideration that there are other vaccine already out there , the Chinese one which decided to give it to many people in their army and the Russian one which already producing it so not sure if Chania will ask for Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, I quite sure they will not and might be the same for the Russian. By the way Monderna contracted a swiss company to produce their vaccine in Europe. I do think that incase it will be proven only the mRna vaccine will be proven to be good it will be also given with some licenses to be produce in other places and other companies which will expedite the process. By the way I do think it will be better that not all the population will take the same kind of vaccine incase the slight chance there will be long term issues with one of them

Pfizer just announced on the final results of the stage 3 trails and the numbers are even better 95% (94% for the age of 65 +) . Best on the results they are going to ask for emergency FDA approval. I will not be surprised if now Moderna will come with final results of 95.5 ? Anyway good news. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/18/health/pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine-safety/index.html

Yes, I see it now also in the CNN article " Moderna's vaccine can be kept at minus 20 degrees Celsius. Other vaccines, such as the one against chickenpox, need to be kept at that temperature. That means Moderna's vaccine can be kept in "a readily available freezer that is available in most doctors' offices and pharmacies," Zacks said. "We leverage infrastructure that already exists for other" For some reason some other sites give different information

As far as I understand Moderna vaccine is based on the same method as Pfizer and will require to be ship under the same conditions more and less, but still a good news

Here are the numbers from Moderna test (from CNN) n Moderna's trial, 15,000 study participants were given a placebo, which is a shot of saline that has no effect. Over several months, 90 of them developed Covid-19, with 11 developing severe forms of the disease. Another 15,000 participants were given the vaccine, and only five of them developed Covid-19. None of the five became severely ill. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/16/health/moderna-vaccine-results-coronavirus/index.html

You are raising good points , that is why I estimated only 50% of the production will go to the US. Moderna just announced 94.5 success in their vaccine test , so Pfizer is not the only player now.

There's one factor missing here , it looks like for every symptomatic carrier you an unknown number which got the C19 but did not know about it.

By the way if Pfizer and Moderna will be the winners it will be a good time to invest in companies which support deep freeze warehouses and transportation ... Even in companies who produce dry ice

Make sense as long as the FDA will approve it by the end of the year. Most of the companies already took the risk and started to produce the vaccine getting ready to the time they will get the approval. The issue is that even if it's 90% success I would still like to take a cruise knowing the other got the vaccine also so incase I am in the 10% I will be still safe. Regarding the virus mutation , if the successful vaccine will be the mRNA time as Pfizer and Moderna it will be easier to change the vaccine and adjust it to the mutation. Regarding the effect time of the virus , since most of the phase two which includes enough people , started around July we will have much more information around May June.

I agree, The most complicate thing will be the -94f the vaccine need to be kept during shipment and for sure also how many people would agree to take the vaccine . i do hope to here good news from Moderna soon and even more from one of the companies their vaccine require only 1 shots and need to be kept in normal fridge temperature.

I am missing cruising , so I decided to try and check the numbers with the new vaccine news. Few things we already now : 1. Pfizer can produce up to 100 Million vaccine until the end of the year and around 1.2 B during 2021. 2. Each one require to get two portions of the vaccine in 28 days. 3. The Pfizer vaccine require to be kept in -94 f 4. Moderna vaccine is similar to the Pfizer one , both are based on RNA. Assumptions : 1. Moderna will announce soon on the test results its expected to be more and less like Pfizer. 2. Moderna will be able to produce more and less the same numbers of vaccine portions but their issue will be with shipments (Pfizer invested in special freezing systems) 3. Not all the vaccine portion will go to the US , I estimate 50% of it will go to other countries per agreements unless the US government will force them to first distribute it only in the US. 4. First only the first responders and medical workers will get the vaccine , later teachers , people with health risk and then the public population. 5. Some expert say you need to have 60% of the people vaccine to get the herd effect some says 90% I have created this graph which shows the ability to give vaccine to the US population with the assumption of 10% better production of the vaccine every month and 5% better ability to distribute it . On the graph you can see : 1. Pfizer only (50% to the US). 2. Pfizer and Moderna. 3. Pfizer Moderna and a non freeze vaccine (based on regular vaccine system). 4. All the 3 if the US decide to keep all vaccine portion in the US for the first year. I did not took the 90% success factor in but you can estimate it will have a one month effect I also added the 60 and 90 % of the US population so you can see when in theory the herd effect happens , when the horizontal lines cross with the other lines its the month we should have the herd effect. As you can see best case scenario is April 2021 (all three vaccine are available and kept in the US) worse case scenario Jan 2022 (Only Pfizer is available and only half is kept in the US) Sorry for the small graph , I failed to add the bigger picture for some reason by I had a BMP file with the same. vaccine predictions 53.bmp

I wonder if it's just for cruises that starts in the US ports or all ports ? Asking for a friend who wonders about the 8 nights GC cruise from the UK ? Although there it will be easy to cancel the overnight port they planned and make it a 7 day cruise

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/singapores-first-cruise-to-nowhere-sets-sail-with-safety-measures-in-place-to-prevent-coronavirus-outbreaks-2321753 All tickets were sold but it was limited to less than third of its capacity. The cruise will be a 3 day cruise, lets hope it will be a good experience and will pave the road for RCL cruises which suppose to start in Singapore next month.

For how many people , One of the option if it is up to 20 people is maybe to book the Chef table ...