JeffB

I think you could still book tours but make sure the agency you're booking with has a cancelation policy you can live with.

The port restrictions for Cozumel and Costa Maya were last minute changes. When we got to our cabin aboard Equinox, there was a letter on the bed with the port restrictions limiting entry to cruise ship sponsored tours only. To my knowledge, this is a Mexican Public Health Department outcome. Quintana Roo had been yellow coded up until April when it moved to orange in May and then Red sometime in June. That restricted the ports of Cozumel and Costa Maya. My take is that Celebrity waited until the last minute hoping for those restrictions to be dropped. Didn't happen. I've posted elsewhere that itineraries and port openings and closings are changing almost on a weekly basis. All Caribbean ports have some type of COVID protocol in place, e.g., restricted shore excursions, masking indoors and outdoors. Most of them require vaccination to enter even for ship's tours. You're advised to carry your vax card and at Nassau, ships' security checked your vax card before letting you off the ship for your ship's sponsored tours. Under 12s and unvaxed have to go on ship's tours. If vaccinated, adults can go on their own in some ports. Caribbean governments and the Mexican government are being very tough on travelers. The reason for that is that in Mexico, vax rates are low and viral prevalence is high. In the Caribbean, vax rates are also low but viral prevalence is low too and these governments want to keep it that way. That is because their health care systems would be easily overwhelmed with a surge of new cases. All I can tell you is be prepared for changes to your itineraries based on the COVID situation in each port. you may be visiting. Celebrity has done a great job keeping guests informed but at times, last minute changes happen. We had one of those at St. Lucia. We were expecting only tours from the ship but at the last minute everyone could explore on their own. The link below will take you to itinerary changes on Celebrity ships. You can explore these or, if RCL's web site has a similar section, look for that. https://www.celebritycruises.com/travel-alert/itinerary-modifications

Just there to both ports last week sailing Western Caribbean itinerary on Celebrity Equinox. Right now you can't tour independently at either port. Only way to leave the ship in Cozumel was with a ship's excursion. Costa Maya has a large shopping area adjacent to the pier. You can go there but not outside .... not much outside anyway. Quintana Roo is in condition red based on viral prevalence. Nothing will reopen in these two ports until that changes. Recommend you follow Mexico's public health web site for updates. Don't book private tours until the COVID status changes. Ship's tours are reasonably priced and a safe way to tour either port.

I think your hope will be reality. Earlier today and for a sports blog I post on, I looked at the question of masking K-12 in the public schools. I found a web site that publishes excess mortality secondary to the pandemic. Schools being congregate settings I think you can draw the same conclusions from this analysis for cruise ships. Here's what I found. I'm always looking for clean data. It is that kind of data that should guide SARS2 public health policy at the federal, state and local level. It's been a while since I have visited this chart - excess mortality. From the link I provided below: Excess mortality is a term used in epidemiology and public health that refers to the number of deaths from all causes during a crisis above and beyond what we would have expected to see under ‘normal’ conditions.1 In this case, we’re interested in how the number of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic compares to the deaths we would have expected had the pandemic not occurred — a crucial quantity that cannot be known but can be estimated in several ways. Excess mortality is a more comprehensive measure of the total impact of the pandemic on deaths than the confirmed COVID-19 death count alone. It captures not only the confirmed deaths, but also COVID-19 deaths that were not correctly diagnosed and reported2 as well as deaths from other causes that are attributable to the overall crisis conditions. While the raw number of deaths helps give us a rough sense of scale, this measure has its limitations, including being less comparable across countries due to large differences in populations. A measure that is more comparable across countries is the P-score, which calculates excess mortality as the percentage difference between the number of deaths in 2020–2021 and the average number of deaths in the same period — week or month — over the years 2015–2019I cant cut and paste the chart here on the lap-top I have available to me on the cruise ship. The link below should take you directly to the chart of P-Scores. It's in interactive chart. I set the chart up to display the P-Scores for the US, Israel, UK and Sweden. I've created a table to show excess mortality defined by P Scores (a P-Score of 100% is double the period 2015-19) April 2020 January 21 April 21 UK 76% US 52% US 4% Sweden 47% Sweden 30% IS 3% US 45% UK 25% Sweden -8% Israel 5% Israel 17% UK -18% The dates I chose are for obvious comparative reasons - height of the pandemic, Introduction of vaccines, one year later. The chart goes out to August 18th and excess mortality has remained with the country ranges for April getting no worse or no better. The important point here is that vaccines drove excess mortality in the right direction to exceedingly low numbers of excess deaths compared to the peak of the pandemic.A conclusion I can draw from the P-Scores is that management of COVID either in early intervention of care and in hospitalized COVID patients is very effective. A P-Score analysis renders looking at new case numbers a pretty much useless undertaking. Nevertheless, it appears in the US anyway, that it is new case numbers erroneously driving public health policy and the re imposition of various mitigation measures without any significant PH benefits. The mask mandate debate for K-12 ..... the side that is demanding them - is an example of the illogical reasoning behind the demands for masking kids in classrooms. I believe this logic applies to Carnival's mask mandate, something IMO is unnecessary. Carnival's consideration for a mask mandate is admittedly probably based on the potential for liability. That takes us right back to the idiocy of the CDC's recommendations on masks indoors regardless of vax status that put Carnival in a difficult position. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid** the link may take you to the excess mortality section but won't retain my country selections I used on the chart. You may have to redo those. The visuals in this chart are stunning wrt the conclusions that can be drawn from them.

Disagree. Fundamentally and in accordance with the CSO, you've laid out the procedure. Let's ask this. What happens if they dump the family in the designated quarantine hotel and schedule a limo and air-ambulance back to wherever this family lives. All the time the guest is asking about his car. He's told Royal won't accommodate that? The guest, now, let's say 500 miles from home, calls RCL and asks about his car and they say "not our problem." Guests talks to CNN about RCL's approach to COVID mitigation that includes stranding guests miles from their homes and/or vehicles so as to arrange that "it's not our problem." When RCL is asked by CNN to comment, they don't. CNN then writes a story that blows this up and RCL is caught flat footed trying to defend their actions as indefensible as they are in CNN's and the public's eye. Not going to happen. RCL corporate is smarter than that. They'll take care of his car one way or the other. Chicken feed to do that compared to the soft costs of responding to CNN's hit piece.

I'm also an android user using the Celebrity App. I'm assuming that app and RCL's app are fundamentally the same. With the Celebrity app, the only things that work when you're not aboard and connected to the ship's wifi is some boiler plate safety and health information and the check-in process. The check-in is going to be ship and port specific wrt what you need to do to get through check-in and board. I'm not confident recommending the check-in on the app is as up to date as it should be. The web site information you're looking for is going to be the best source of information. It's hard to find this stuff on Celebrity's web site but it is findable if not with an undue amount of effort considering how important it is to be in compliance with ever changing healthy sail rules and protocols. I posted a link to Celebrity's single source .pdf file that has ships and their home ports across the top row and the list of things you need to know in the far left column. You find your ship/home port then move down the column for information on vaccine and testing requirements for departure port, ports that will be visited, masking rules and so forth. The best way to read the file's incredibly small print is to download it and read it in a .pdf file reader, enlarging areas you're interested in. It's not perfect but it got updated a lot and was current when I boarded Equinox out of PEV three weeks ago. Royal may have one of these too if you can find it. Anyways, the apps aren't perfect. On Equinox yesterday, IT changed over to a new program that supported the app, internet, TV, phones and a whole lot of non-critical system functions. It took a long time for the new system to boot. No surprise. These kinds of updates never go without a glitch. It's working now but during the changeover, all my account information was lost (later restored) and the app crashed. I had to uninstall it on my android phone and download the app again (it's free to access it at google play). Voi la, it started working again and all the events I had scheduled on it were still there. It's basically a good app with a lot of functionality to do things on it without human interface. When it's working. I like it and use it extensively. TBH, rules are changing daily if not hourly. I'm currently on the last leg of a B3B sailing a S Caribbean itinerary. It was changed once 2w before departure and again a day before. St. Kitts and Barbados were dropped and Curacao and Aruba were added. Caribbean governments are implementing new COVID rules often these changes based on current country and port town viral prevalence. Today, we arrived in Castries St. Lucia. At the announcement the ship had been cleared by local authorities, the rules were that the only way you could leave the port area shops was by cruise excursion. We knew this after a letter we received in our cabin on the first day of the cruise stated as much. 30 minutes later the announcer cheerily advised that if vaccinated, you could explore independently. Not vaxed, e.g., kids under 12, you could still get off the ship but only on a cruise ship sponsored tour. Cruising during COVID is a fast movingball game. If you want to cruise aboard the safest congregate setting on the planet despite what the CDC thinks, be flexible, expect change and do the best you can to stay informed - not easy. My view is that RCL and Celebrity will do what they can to accommodate guests testing needs in the face of last minute changes. Vaccination rules? If you are not in compliance with the latest information on requirements, your responsibility to know them - even last minute - there won't be exceptions and the lines are well within their legal right to be hard-asses on this.

Are you driving to the cruise port from an airport or from your home? If from your home, I would think they will debark you with an escort to your car in the parking garage. Once your in it, your appropriately quarantined and no longer RCL's problem. But this is unique and a question others will probably be interested in. If you call an RCL CSR in Miami, I doubt they will know details to this level. While corporate has written health protocols that get forwarded to ships, the captain of the ship has wide latitude in the way he complies with them. IOW, how your unique situation is handled aboard the ship you're sailing compared with others may vary. If the captain has questions of how he should handle you, he'll call the operations department who will consult their health and safety department then advise the captain how to proceed. My recommendation is that you proceed with confidence and sail knowing that how you might be handled IF YOU GET INFECTED (and that is unlikely) will work out. RCL won't leave your car stranded in the parking garage.

There are two possibilities that are behind this announcement. 1. The CDC is in possession of information not released to the public. This may include trend data assembled from the myriad reports on infectious disease the cruise lines are required to report both within the scope of the CSO and outside of it. Confidential infectious disease data from other countries or agencies. 2. A continuation of their usually baseless hyper-conservative approach. I favor the former with a touch of the later. IOW, the announcement is probably not without basis - I do believe the estimated R(0) or how many people can one infected person infect and the unavoidable exponential growth attendant to Delta is higher than first expected. It's a precautionary measure consistent with the CDC's tendency to be hyper-cautious. I'm on day 20 of a B3B sailing W, E and S Caribbean itineraries. We have experienced 4 COVID positives - none of them acquired aboard ship. One fully vaxed. If Celebrity Equinox, the ship I'm on, reflects cruise ship wide COVID experience - and I have no doubt that it does - unless something else the public isn't privy to is going on and it could be, this is the kind of public pressure/ media push to "do something" I've warned this group about. The pregnant question is what are line CEOs going to do with this latest CDC position in the way of PR damage control? The lines seem to have a good working relationship with the CDC. As much as I'd like them to slam the CDC. I think they'll let it slide figuring the news cycle will pass in its usual 4 days. The lines have enough to worry about than to open wounds with the CDC.

@Ray, a few weeks ago we were on Celebrity Apex sailing out of Pireaus (Athens). It was announced that an unvaccinated child had tested positive on day 3 (just before our first port call), was quarantined, close contacts quarantined and after testing negative released. The captain also announced that the infected child and his/her family would be debarked at the upcoming port and all flown home to the US. Can't confirm that actually happened but seems to me that protocol remains in place. TBH, I think the numbers are low and as ships go to all vaxed. The numbers will get lower.

TBC, I have no problem with getting boosters WHEN AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO ADMINISTER THEM TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS DETERMINED. IMO, unless the CDC is in possession of study details not released to the public, if they relied on only the Israeli experience, the announcement that boosters will start to be administered In September, is irresponsibly premature. That's because it will encourage people to conclude the vaccines aren't working so, I'm not getting them. Posters have implied that profiting by Moderna and Pfizer is behind this. That's possible but I suspect that what is available to the CDC and not the public is proprietary study results from one of these companies. Those should go through a non-biased review committee and I'm not sure that's happened. In any event the announcement is poorly timed for the reasons above. Just another example of bad pandemic messaging from the Biden administration.

RCL is probably the same but here is how Celebrity handles testing for B2B cruisers. I'm on a B3B so, I can attest by personal experience to how Celebrity does it. You will receive an envelope with a letter in your cabin two days before your ship arrives back at its home port. The envelope will contain a transfer pass. The letter will tell you in detail how the check-out, testing, debarkation and re-boarding process will work. It will tell you that there will be a meeting, a day before debarkation, usually in the morning, for all B2B'ers. You'll do two things at this meeting: talked through the process, get your antigen test. You'll be advised only of a positive antigen test result. You'll have the option of walking off the ship and returning later or walking off and returning immediately to the ship. On the day of debarkation you'll assemble in a meeting place aboard the ship for B2B'ers around 7;30am. If you're walking off and returning later, you'll get a new Sea Pass card and tracelett, complete the health questionnaire and have a new picture taken at the meeting. You can walk off when the ship has been cleared by the port authority. You'll pass through Customs and Boarder Patrol (CBP). The CBP uses facial recognition to clear at Port Everglades and I suspect elsewhere. It's a quick walk-through process. Otherwise, you go as a group around 9am and pass through CBP, do the facial recognition thing, then wait in a waiting area to re-board the ship. You'll receive your new Sea Pass and traclett here. When the ship has been readied to re-board guests, you walk back on. The whole process takes about an hour. If you start at 9am, you'll be back aboard by 10am.....and have the whole ship to yourself and the other B2B'ers. We had 75 between first and second legs and 41 between 2nd and 3rd legs.

Crazy. In the last week I've read two excellent articles criticizing government's national approach to border entry and exit. The myriad rules and confusion is choking global travel creating unnecessary road blocks to a continuing economic recovery. Much of the push behind this unnecessary nationalism involving boarders is misinformation and overreaction to Delta. I don't see an end to it until the "Delta Surge" peaks and predictably steeply declines in the regions driving country new case numbers counts. When that happens, maybe by early September, boarder crossing hassels will ease ..... only to be followed by rising cases again and reimposition of border closures. That ends when vax rates in most places reach 70% or more.

....... if RCL wants to operate in the Caribbean, they're going to have to switch gears and require everyone to be vaxed. I hold that what's going on throughout the Caribbean is hyper-conservative but completely understandable given limited health services. These islands cannot afford an outbreak and all it takes with Delta is one 12 yo getting infected in route to a cruise, passing antigen screening during the incubation period, going on a tour, spreading virions at high concentration levels and infecting unvaxed islanders.....1 to 5, 5 to 25, 25 to, you get the point. While the risk of that occurring remains low, it's a risk that governments protecting a vulnerable population and vulnerable health care systems are unwilling to take.

I'm clearly in the get vaccinated if you want to play crowd - my qualifiers on choice and medical contraindications not withstanding. As harsh as it sounds, you WILL deal with COVID should you choose to not get vaxed because the unvaxed are going to fall I'll from it at some point. The only question for the unvaxed is how ill will I get? It's a craps shoot. You can play the numbers, you may not get sick at all or you could die. I prefer the odds with getting vaccinated. Not everyone does and can tell you the math supporting their choice. I'm fine with it. But, I said it earlier today. Stop haranguing those that have thought this through and made a reasonable decision to not get the shots. Instead focus on the crowd that doesn't know about the shot - and believe it or not there are such people - can't get off work, get relief with child care, lack the capacity to get to places administering vaccines. Focus on that group that is convinceable and we'll get to an 80-99% vax rate in the US. Unfortunately, for us cruisers that's not the case in some Caribbean nations. Ported today in St. John's Antigua. Toured on a ship's tour - the only way you could leave the ship. I asked our small group guide in a private conversation after the tour about labor unrest. Pre-COVID, that was a big deal in the West Indies/Lesser Antilles. Especially in Barbados where violent protests occurred Her response? That's quieted down with expanded social programs. What's causing protests now is vaccinations. She said 50% or more are resisting them. Mostly out of fear. They are fully available now in Antigua down to age 12 ..... but the folks don't want them. Of course that causes the government to restrict mobility and busnesses to keep heath care services from being overwhelmed. These kinds of headwinds are going to impact the travel and leisure economy of the Caribbean nations. They are going to affect cruising everywhere. Clearly the devastating impact can already be seen. The St. St. John's port area had undergone extensive improvements Pre-COVID when the economy was ticking. Now beautifully renovated shops are either boarded up or empty of customers. Forlorn sales staff inside empty stores. Sad.

@Atlantix2000, point taken on why the CDC thinks their data on reinfection is an unercount. But the quote above is critical to my point. The CDC is advancing the need for boosters based on what? Data they can't prove is accurate. This isn't science and fact based policy making. It's pulling stuff out their backside to look like they're doing good things.

I don't believe the outcome of this case means diddly to the cruise lines. Those operating from US ports have agreed to voluntarily comply with the CSO. OTH, if FL prevails, the outcome will be viewed as precedential for impeeding further actions from the executive branch of government that exceed powers given to an agency by congress. This is the bigger deal to me. The cruise industry will find full recovery a ways off given the continuation of unnecessary headwinds created by governmrnts world wide in the form of travel restrictions and vaccination complexity. But they'll be fine.

See my facts on the ground numbers on day 19 of my B3B wrt the infection rates on board Celebrity Equinox. Equinox is operating under similar COVID health protocol choices as Carnival .... the exception is no mask required on board Equinox. TBC, this is not an endorsement of a no-mask policy on board a cruise ship with nearly all vaccinated guests. Mask mandates on board are being implemented for other reasons that I elaborated on elsewhere. But, I take your point. I'll believe it when I see it but my hope is that Carnival and NCL have the same or a lower COVID infection rate than what is being experienced industry wide and that rate is already exceedingly low in almost every mix of layered mitigation measures.

As an example of what I'm talking about - perceptions v. reality and the manipulation, often intentional, of the former - there is this from the respected Economist that appeared in it's Expresso AM news feed of top stories: A new study by Oxford University found that the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine’s efficacy against symptomatic infections dropped to 75% after 90 days, compared with 85% two weeks after a second dose. The study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, also showed that the efficacy of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab declined by 7% over the same period. Sounds bad, right? You might conclude vaccines don't work which is exactly the concern I voiced yesterday about the irresponsible headline announcements yesterday that boosters will start to be administered in September. But these percentages are out of context. What are the actual numbers? I don't know them and I believe they are out there but not being disclosed publicly for political reasons. First, the terms efficacy (determined by controlled studies) and effectiveness (what's actually happening on the ground) are frequently conflated. We can't compare these two figures because they are not released side-by-side. Second, if the efficacy is reduced, in the case of the Pfizer vaccine, from 85% to 75% (a 10% reduction) what are the actual numbers in the study. Let's say 1000 people were in the study, all vaccinated, and the accepted percentage of vaccinated people that actually develop symptoms is around 2% (and that's a high benefit of the doubt number). Given that figure, 20 vaxed people developed COVID symptoms (not hospitalized or dead and that figure is less than 1%). The study demonstrated a 10% reduction in efficacy or 2 more people got symptoms. TWO!!! The bull-shit narrative emerging in the US, partly from misguided analysis of studies in Israel due to the same misleading errors, is that the vaccines aren't working that well and to contain the virus we need boosters. What? This is so horribly wrong that it defies credibility. Look, I think the study authors know this, the Israeli's know this. The US government's PH authorities? They know it but instead choose to encourage or at least allow without rebuttal the misleading press releases. The typical basis attributed to liberal governments like the Biden administration, is paternalism ...... the tendency to believe the government knows best and the details are two complex for Americans to understand. Bull-shit on that one too. I can only speculate the reasons but I suspect they involve convincing the public to not let their guard down. To get vaccinated. They've done just the opposite. The CDC, where this non-sense is coming from, has, for the most part become irrelevant - no one is listening to them despite the fact that there are honest, hard working people there who are probably being ignored.

I don't want to be dismissive of the dangers of SARS2 - it's a nasty virus, no question, and is among the worst the human race has encountered. But, early and retrospectively, global PH response to the virus has been a disaster.....the one highlight being operation Warp Speed using a public/private model to develop mRNA vaccines that will turn out to be akin in value to humanity to Salk's development of the polio vaccine. When the available data is viewed in the proper context and in its entirety, devoid of the shameful politics and media drumbeat of fear good things begin to appear. For nations that didn't impose draconian mitigation measures that we're devastating to, in particular, the travel and leisure sector of the global economy, so damaging to human interactions, what's now on the plates of these nations, in varying degree, is figuring out how to live with and manage this thing. Perceptions of risk are much greater than actual risks in the whole. It is those wrong headed perceptions of risk that are holding back moving forward not the actual risks of COVID.

You're welcome ...... it is near impossible to remain positive about an end to or reasonable control of the pandemic being bombarded with the fear and dire consequences media narrative. I posted elsewhere about this as related to what I consider an irresponsibly unnecessary announcement about the likely need for boosters by the Biden administration. COVID data, IMO, is uniformly unreliable for the purpose of both assessing and formulating PH policy when this is being done by amateurs at our level, including the media. Epidemiology and virology are immensely complicated fields where absolutes rarely exist. I do think the CDC has data and hard working people who interpret it. The problem is that policy formulation has been corrupted by a number of factors, one being politics. Another is incompetence in both interpreting what hard working people who do know stuff are telling the deciders and the decider incompetently turning that into policy and messaging.

NCL, without protocols and 100% vaxed, will have about the same number of on-board positive COVID cases as the lines that have them. Right now the infection rate is exceedingly low in all Vax, masking circumstances based on what we're hearing publicly. I'm aboard Equinox, day 19, of a B3B. We're sailing at 98% vaxed. No masks. We've had 4 COVID positive cases among around 4000 guests total on all 3 sailings - a small number are B2B'ers. That's a 0.01% rate of infection. These were cases that "reported" (I'll get to why I used quotes in a moment) to medical with symptoms. Each time some six close contacts were identified, quarantined, expeditiously tested negative within 1 hour and released. Yesterday on departure from St. Croix, USVGI the captain announced the first fully vaxed COVID positive. An adult. All the rest were kids under 12 with minor cold symptoms that were not eligible for vaccination. All of them were immediately removed from the ship per protocol. The fully vaccinated case was on day 5 and must have presented a negative antigen test to board. I assume he did not contract COVID aboard but rather in route while infection was incubating at the antigen test. On "reported".......We learned from an on-board shop employee, the liquor store, that crew are not to remind passengers to wear tracelets, wash hands, for kids to mask, distance, any of that. However when they observe COVID related suspect behaviors, e.g. no tracelett, not observing hand washing, or appears I'll, they notify security with a description and security may intervene discreetly. Interesting and probably effective. The baseline assumption for the bet is that all lines are cruising under the industry developed STS plan which does include some CDC recommendations.

In my view, the Biden administration's announcement regarding the need for a booster is continuation of the ultra-conservative, looking like we are doing something policies. The unintended consequence of this is that no one will hear the additional information provided in White House and CDC press briefings today that vaccines are still effective in preventing serious illness and death. What they will think, and this thinking will be augmented by the continuous fear narrative from the media, that vaccines don't work and ask, why should I take the shots. I wonder if the administration considered that in what I consider a premature recommendation for boosters in the same ordered priorities as the initial shots were delivered. Lets look at the facts: As of August 9th, 166M Americans were fully vaccinated. 49 states reported 8054 reinfections with COVID. That is a reinfection rate that caused serious illness or death of 0.0048%. Think about that for a moment and ask yourself does that reinfection rate warrant announcements that what will be seen by many as the vaccinations don't work, why should I take them? Worse, even the CDC doesn't like it's data and says so at their cumbersome web site. They then admit that they think the reported breakthrough cases are under counts. On what basis? The one thing I do agree with is their data sucks. I don't trust it, and for good reasons, yet this ultra conservative approach to the pandemic that the CDC is taking, with the requirement for boosters now being official as the latest, is going to precipitate untoward harm both economic and social. The current increase in new cases and concurrently but at a much lower rate of deaths and hospitalizations is both highly regional and strongly correlated with vaccination rates. If we want to contain this thing, the best thing to do is to get as many people as possible vaccinated - I say this notwithstanding a rational decision by many that can't or don't want to get vaccinated. I support that right to choose. Studies show there is a large pool of people eligible for vaccination that don't know about the shot, can't take time off from work, child care, any number of reasons to get one or don't have the means to get to a place where they are being administered. Focus on that pool. Doing that can easily push the number of vaccinated Americans to an 80-90% level! I worry less about COVID than I do about the people's perceptions of the real risks. I've made it clear hear that I don't think the media helps clarifying the actual risks and how to live with COVID and manage those risk preferring instead to pursue this constant fear narrative. I worry less about COVID than I do about governments and businesses caving to public pressure to "DO SOMETHING" and in that process fail to properly evaluate actual risks and evaluate costs of restrictions to mobility and social interaction with PH benefits. Instead, will get more closings and more restrictions. It pisses me off. With that background, the speculative answer to how will the cruise lines react to official announcements recommending boosters is that to be considered fully vaccinated and to board, in general, you'll need a booster. That will precipitate another round for the cruise lines of developing complicated algorithms depending on which vaccine you received to determine if you can board. More confusion entirely avoidable by federal PH officials recognizing that the available data makes it clear that the risk of reinfection precipitating serious disease is incredibly low with 1 shot of the J&J vaccine and two form the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The need for boosters correctly remains unknown for the majority of Americans. Given the known risks of reinfection the CDC's recommendations that boosters be administered to the general public is irresponsibly premature.

As in all COVID mitigation measures, considering benefit is frequently ignored on the assumption that doing something is better than doing nothing (the optics) ..... and in many cases the cost of a given measure is also ignored. Masks don't cost much other than being an inconvenience, but that's not the issue for me. There is only limited evidence that masks actually produce meaningful PH benefit. That position is debateable but I don't wish to debate it. Moving on from that is the larger issue of governments telling us what to do and not do. Right, the feds via the CDC aren't mandating masks or are they? Carnival is mandating masks, a lawful action, undertaken by a business to create a safe environment for employees and patrons. Do they really want to do this? I doubt it. Does carnival need to add additional layers of protection for a fully vaccinated vessel when it is already unpopular among the folks and might, just might reduce bookings? I doubt that it really needs to do that. Even considering the specious argument that they are effective in preventing the spread of SARS2, Carnival is being coerced by the threat of civil liability to mandate them. That is because the CDC - an agency with zero credibility at the moment - is "recommending" them. I have a problem with this, not on the basis of the argument that masks work or don't work, although that they don't in the case of SARS2 is a viable hypothesis, but rather on the basis that an executive agent of the federal government is, for all intent and purpose, telling Carnival their guests have to mask. I think we've already seen what two courts think about government telling us what to do - overreaching their Congressionally authorized authority - under the guise of a PHE.

Well, we have uniform driver's licensing but I take your point. I suspect you are referring to the state government's political stands on vaccine passports. Already a contentious political issue that should not be. Federalism is a thing but I think in the current circumstance a congressional mandate would solve that. Then again politics. Reasonableness is screwed.

Yep, although I have depended on Celebrity to provide both an extension cord and distilled water for my CPAP, the cords have been gorilla's. It's apparent that 100' heavy duty cords are cut to 20' lengths with male and female plugs wired in to both ends. They work fine. They're just bulky, a bit unwieldy and impossible to hide. Early on, I'd email in advance for a cord and distilled water. Now, I just ask my cabin attendant when she introduces her/himself on day one. It ways shows up and in short order. IOW, no need to bring one and potentially have it confiscated.