JeffB

....... and CLIA agrees. I was glad to see that CLIA rather nicely said to the CDC screw the idiodic technicals you released on Friday.

???? The difference between a cruise ship and a restaurant is that when you go to a restaurant (or the other venues that are not in the CDC's definition of a congregate setting) its a time limited event of at most 6-8h in a park. You're not living there in the sense that it means sleeping over-night in those but you are on a cruise ship. I hate defending the CDC but I think it is important among cruise fans here to understand that there is rationale behind what the CDC is doing (see my comparison of infection control procedures in a hospital to those on a cruise ship - they are a PITA but they have an important purpose. Most of us here, including me think that the technicals released on Friday are not bounded by appropriate risk/benefit analysis. Matt is right. The CDC is seeing the cruise industry through the lens of March 2020. Things have changed. The CDC hasn't.

I'll weigh in here on masks although I'm just not hard over on these like some are and that's fine, not criticizing but, you did hit one nail on the head. The science is not yet certain that vaccines prevent transmission. The evidence is mixed but generally says, yes it does. It also says that there is not sufficient evidence that you cannot get re-infected after receiving the vaccine. Evidence does indicate that if you do get re infected, the viral load you will have is low making transmission much less likely. This is speculative at this point. Masks just add one more layer of mitigation measures that are proven to be effective and, yes, masks tend to mitigate all the uncertainty. There is no question, none, despite what you can find on social media or from quackery, that properly designed and fitted masks prevent transmission of viruses that transmit via airborne mode including SARS-2 - the right one's of course. That's another subject. In my onw case, I've gotten so used to putting them on when I enter a venue that requires them, I don't mind anymore. It's become habit. I have to admit, I have a set of masks in my man-bag that aren't exactly the best but they are comfortable and easy to get off and on. Virtue signaling? Probably. OTH, I am scrupulous about wearing a properly fitting surgical mask in airports and on airplanes and that will continue even as the pandemic fades.

I'm not following Navigator's planned itinerary's out of LA. As a FL resident, flying to LA to take a west coast cruise isn't something I'd probably do, well, maybe. But I think the confusion is reflective of RCL struggling with negotiating port operations in the circumstances the CDC has created for them. With them, noting has been certain. It has to be terribly frustrating. Then, lets say senior people within RCL have a plan and it's being executed on a day to day basis with the usual hic-ups that occur with any plan. There was a joke when I was on active duty in the USMC, a very old, long standing joke, that involved command level decisions about what camoflage cover you'd put on your helmet. "Brown side or Green side." Once a decision was made and worked its way down the chain of command, it would get changed 10X at various levels. By the time it got to the troops, it was 30minutes before the parade was scheduled and, invariably, there was a ridiculous mix of camoflage covers among Marines who are singularly identifiable by their uniformity. I would not doubt that is exactly what is going on here with Navigators launch from LA and is behind the uncertainty and confusion.

Let's be clear. Here is how the CDC defines shared (also known as congregate) housing: ......shared housing includes a broad range of settings, such as apartments, condominiums, student or faculty housing, national and state park staff housing, transitional housing, and domestic violence and abuse shelters. Special considerations exist for the prevention of COVID-19 in shared housing situations .... I'd say a cruise ship at sea for an extended period of time where people congregate, sleep and eat constitutes a shared housing or congregate setting. Disney parks, airline travel, concerts and sporting events don't fall within CDC's definition of congregate settings. So, there's guidance for these places - a ton of it in normal times and 5 tons of it for the current pandemic times . It is very likely that all the CDC had to do was cut and paste some of verbiage that's been on the books for infection control in congregate settings that heretofore didn't include cruise ships. They do now. Then they added MORE. Look, I get this. Would you pillory the CDC for infection control that applies to a hospital? Surgery suites? Isolation wards? I've seen this stuff. It is immensely complicated and vitally important to stop the spread of infections in a hospital setting. While it's true, cruise ships aren't hospitals and infection control onboard is going to be different than in a hospital but, given the chaos in March of 2020, I can see why the CDC is being overly cautious here. That does not mean I like it. Practicing medicine within a hospital system and following infection control rules can be a giant pain in the ass. But, man, the consequences of ignoring this sort of stuff can be deadly. I personally think that what's being done with COVID related infection control aboard a ship is insufficiently bounded by adequate application of risk assessment tools. That's another matter entirely and what I think matters not.

Customs and Immigration.

I hope you are right. When things appeared to be going swimmingly in the UK and generally in Europe and European countries, especially Italy, Spain and Greece, seemed set to re-open airports and cruise ports to American citizens, I booked a Celebrity Reflection cruise out of Amsterdam with a Norwegian Fjord itinerary departing July 11th. That was then, this is now. I was almost certain cruising would resume in Europe before it would in the US. I have cruises from PEV booked in June (not likely to happen) and August (at risk). The cruises from US ports through July and into early August are almost certainly at risk given the CDC's insistence on executing what amounts to ridiculously complex over-kill given vaccine availability that will render most of the crazy stuff they are requiring unnecessary. I think this is what parties who have commented in the last 24h appear to be so aggravated about. Smokeybandit mentioned that the lawyers will be involved in these contracts the CDC is requiring between the lines and port authorities and that will induce hardships for all parties involved in this phased return. Still, I'm going to wait for a couple of weeks and see what transpires, assuming we get some details regarding progress toward completing Phase 2A from the CDC, port authorities and the major lines. The CDC talks about transparency and honesty with Americans. Fine. Show it to me in the next 2w.

An additional comment on my post above ......... Most of us, including myself, have little understanding of the complexity of various US government regulations. I'm working from distant memory here on an article I read a long time ago that the US is one of the least friendly nations to business interests due to the complex and difficult to understand regulatory environment. Well, the glimpse we got of it from the CDC is an eyeopener confirming that finding. I mention this only to say that, while I've never read the regulations that airlines, food and the trucking industries, for example, have to deal with, I'm going to assume those regulatory documents are as complex as what the CDC just issued on Friday. This isn't an excuse for the CDC. Like some here who have expressed opinions critical of the government's role in regulating everything that goes on in the US, I'm with you. But it is a reality that right now. We have to accept the impact of that reality on the cruising life we all want to return to. I don't want to politicize this post breaking forum rules but, I'll try to say this politely: Americans need to be wary of the expansion of government into our lives and businesses that the Public Health Emergency Declaration allowed. Tell your elected officials you're concerned about making sure we back out of this gracefully as the pandemic comes to a close.

I've read the entire CDC update to the CSO. It has to be understood in the context of the original NSO and the initial CSO issued right after the NSO expired in October, '20. I went back and read that 88 page monster too. First, both documents are incredibly complex and reveal the extent of interagency involvement in the NSO and CSO. The Modification issued this afternoon outlines the steps to take the cruise industry from Phase 1 to Phase 2A. Phase 1 dealt with crew health status on ships operating in international waters and wishing to call on US ports for supplies and fuel. Phase 1 extended and codified the color coding system that had evolved, described these and required cruise ships to be coded as green before they could port in US ports. Phase 1 has been applicable since that system was codified, I believe, sometime in late December shortly after the issuance of the CSO. What's happening now makes sense in that context. Phase 2A lists, in great detail, a requirement for cruise lines and port authorities to enter into separate contract agreements (by cruise company and cruise ship) for doing typical cruise ship embarkation and debarkation things as well as handling a passenger or passengers with suspected or confirmed COVID without stressing local and federal resources - like happened in March and April. There are recommendations that cruise ports figure out how they are going to handle multiple ships embarking and debarking in a single port with an eye towrd setting limits to how many ships can operate from a port at one time. Everything you'd expect would be required is required to insure the chaos that occurred as countries imposed lock-downs last March isn't repeated when cruise ship operations are green-lighted. Some of the chaos involved the refusal by port authorities to allow cruise ships to port and disembark passengers. This can't happen - ships with sick passengers cannot be barred from porting - and that is in the CDC phase 2A update. As well there were some pretty harry medevac scenarios carried out at sea for seriously ill passengers. You'll need to read the document in it's entirety to see all the requirements. Given my limited understanding, outside of observing them myself, of what's involved when a cruise ship with passengers ports, what's in the most recent CDC update is complete and extensive. I don't have any problems with what the CDC is requiring in Phase 2A and, IMO, it is definitely moving the process of getting cruise ships operating again. One can argue it's typical government over-reach and unnecessary regulatory intervention. Fine. Complain all you wish to. It won't matter. The path forward is clear and it involves a lot of stuff many of us think is unnecessary but it is what it is - accept it. The stuff released today certainly doesn't come close to what I think people wanted - a green-light to go ahead and start cruising your hearts out. That IS NOT going to happen. It's a process that is going to take a while to work through. My gut tells me it will move quickly considering the scope of what's required but I'd say a July restart could happen if the lines get through phase 2A quickly but there will be only a few ships per company starting out and this will slowly expand over time, a long time. I believe it will go like this after Phase 2A is completed: 2B involves test cruises, crew and ship's company only, and a by ship certification process for that. Phase 3 involves test cruises with select live passengers, phase 4 is closely monitored revenue sailings. This isn't defined anywhere I could find in the two documents (the CSO and today's mod of it). I'm reading between the lines and I may have missed it in that monster 88 page CSO. I would not be surprised at all that the cruise lines, having experience with such agreements between themselves and ports that have already authorized cruise ship operations in Europe, Israel, Asia and now the Caribbean, can comply quickly with all the technical aspects that were revealed today and identified as Phase 2A. That includes submitting these contract agreements to the CDC for review and approval on a company and then on a ship by ship basis. I've also read that port authorities in FL have been doing extensive preparations to restart cruise ship operations. It seems to me all parties should move ahead quickly in satisfying the CDC requirements for 2A. I also could be harboring a lot of wishful thinking. It's noteworthy that in several places within the modification document, there is mention of considering the role of vaccines and vaccinations in fashioning the contracts. For example, the CDC requires that ports establish standards for embarkation and debarkation within terminals that provide for mitigation measures consistent with those required by the CDC for congregate, housing facilities or federal transportation hubs (e.g., similar to prisons or government provided/subsidized housing, airports, bus terminals, train stations). In the case of cruise ports, that would be masks and distancing for porters, guest relations staff and all port employees that might have contact with arriving or departing passengers. Certainly, if everyone involved in embarkation and debarkation at a port is vaccinated, that changes the dynamic of mitigation measures and the CDC acknowledges that. But mandating vaccinations for port authorities is left up to individual ports. That's the CDC acknowledging that there are legal implications here for requiring employees to be vaccinated to work. As I said, I'm all for this, just like I'm for mandatory vaccinations for children to attend school or adults to go to college. Israel has made it very clear to their citizens, "you'll be left behind" if you don't get vaccinated. YMMV, JMO. I think the cruise lines were caught of-guard with the CDC release late on Friday afternoon before Easter weekend. The CDC was definitely feeling the heat. It's clear to me that the requirements detailed in Phase 2A didn't just get done in a week. They are incredibly robust and cover all manner of things that involve reducing the risk of a COVID outbreak on a cruise ship producing the scenes we saw last March and into April. I think the lines will get their act together quickly after some obvious scurrying today and will get through Phase 2A as quickly as they can .... and the CDC handles their review role expeditiously. I'm going to take a wait and see approach. Let's give the parties time to absorb all of this and react. I'll start ranting again if the entire month of April passes without some indication that stuff is getting done. I expect this is going to affect June sailings you might have booked from US ports. I think those will be cancelled sometime this month. July cruises are at risk but there's a chance, especially those after mid July.

Your entitled. Moving on beyond this controversial subject of vaccine passports ......... I don't get the impression that the countries that have allowed cruise ships to operate from their ports are requiring cruise lines to adopt a policy that all passengers and crew will be vaccinated. The policy of vaccinating crew adopted by the major lines emerged before the announcements that passenger sailings would begin from selected foreign ports. My take is that the cruise lines health panels discussing vaccines determined that adopting a policy that all passengers will require proof of vaccination before boarding was a proper step in moving forward toward more cruise ship operations. This is especially practical in countries that have low levels of circulating virus and want to keep it that way. I see it as bone the cruise lines are throwing to the Bahamian and St. Maarten Governments. I also agree with Smokeybandit ........ the Desantis EO barring the use of vaccine passports by businesses operating in FL under FL business licenses isn't going to affect cruise ships, when and if they obtain clearance from the CDC to operate from US ports, at all.

First, the EO he just signed applies only to businesses that are operating in FL with a FL issued business license. Cruise ships aren't that and I think that was addressed in several posts above. I don't know where to find this and I'm no expert in Maritime law but its my guess that ships operating from US ports are not subject to laws that might otherwise be in effect and that cover the port itself. You may recall that incidents involving crimes committed aboard ships are rarely tuned over to local authorities. Maritime authorities that a foreign flagged cruise ship agree to be subject to adjudicate these crimes. I will grant it's "possible" that the Desantis EO baring the use of vaccination passports might apply to cruise ships operating from FL ports but I highly doubt it. This is going to come out in an investigative article this weekend from one of S. FL's, Orlando's or Tampa's papers. So, stand by for confirmation that the EO doesn't apply to cruise ships and they can lawfully require vaccinations to board.

For those considering cruising on Celebrity ships, they're great if what you're looking for is an older demographic, almost zero kids if you cruise when schools are typically in session and, what Celebrity CEO, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, has aggressively pursued since taking that position, "an upscale experience" e.g., retreat level stuff. Every ship, following industry trends, now has an some level of exclusivity that include separate dining, pools and lounge areas. We've not partaken in any of that so, can't offer any real insight as to value but, one thing is certain, we don't feel any less well served if we book our typical Veranda or OV cabin and dine in the main dining room or any of the other available specialty restaurants. One other note: This thing about X = excellence dating back to the late 90s before Celebrity was acquired by RCI is still present and how well this goes down onboard is very consistent between Celebrity's ships with minor variances depending on the Captain. When you are experiencing this, it is obvious that corporate has spelled out what is expected on their ships and this translates down to the Captains and from there to every Department head and then from their down to every service worker on the ship. It really is pretty amazing. It's a sign of great team building from the top down. All teams appear to have the same objective, customer satisfaction with the cruise experience on each ship. There's a lot of competition for recognition of that among staff and it's pretty obvious that corporate reads surveys and rewards/incentivizes crew members who perform. Edit: Comment on Twangster's post above. I don't think that there is any question that Perlo and her people have identified a population of cruisers who they are targeting that are willing to pay for exclusivity and onboard gambling, specialty dining and spa treatments - a long list of these that are very expensive and most likely highly profitable. The profits are in that approach not on folks who book inside cabins and spend nothing on anything else while aboard. At the same time, I think she's listened to comments by those who are more price conscious that they don't want to get priced out of cruising. There's plenty of cruising opportunities aboard Celebrity ships for middle income, fixed at that, retirees ..... not to mention there are a bundle of us who have the time and the resources to spend money on cruising. Can't ignore that population. I'll add that until the pandemic, base cruise fares across the industry have remained remarkably stable and a great value for more than a decade. There's a wide range of fares for anyone who wants to cruise. I think we will experience a pretty significant price increase as the lines try to bundle stuff to make it appear you're getting more. You probably aren't but, at this point, I'm willing to pay more, to a point, to cruise and I don't mind contributing to the health of a badly damaged cruise industry when it finally restarts in full.

Section 2. Businesses in Florida are prohibited from requiring patrons or customers to provide any documentation certifying COVID-19 vaccination or post-transmission recovery to gain access to, entry upon, or service from the business. Section 3. All executive agencies under my direction shall work to ensure businesses comply with this order. Any provision of Florida Statutes is hereby suspended solely to the extent it restricts a Florida agency from requiring compliance with this order as a condition for a license, permit, or other state authorization necessary for conducting business in Florida. Section 4. All businesses must comply with this order to be eligible for grants or contracts funded through state revenue. I don't see that in the EO. If you have a business license in the state of FL, you can't require proof of vaccination to receive services that business is offering. The rejoinder in Section 3 says that businesses are not restricted from imposing their own health protocols as long as those aren't a requirement to show proof of a vaccination.

Thanks for that. I had not read the details of the EO from the new sources I scan. I didn't think Desantis could touch the cruise ships. However, I'm 100% behind vaccination passports and a requirement for them to enter a business establishment, sports event or concert. Generally, I'm opposed to the unlimited powers granted to governments by a declaration of a public health emergency. That needs to get thought through next time with decisions about extending or canceling the declaration left to a panel of both physical and mental health experts along with panel members that include economists and business people. But not vaccine passports. #1 it's an incentive to get vaccinated or obtain a valid doctor's excuse why you can't get vaccinated. You have to have a driver's license, right? Part of that is to make sure you know the rules of the road and operate a motor vehicle safely and held accountable when you fail to do that.

We've used Celebrity perks on RCL cruises and yes, the Diamond Lounge perk beats anything Celebrity offers. Celebrity turned Michael's Club into a suite guests only lounge. On Celebrity, you can now use your 3 drinks allotment at any bar on board with a limited bar menu that's OK, not fabulous. But, hey, it's free drinks. You also get 240 minutes of Internet. Whoopee. Both those perks have been diluted now with Celebrity's "Everything Included" approach. You get the Classic Beverage Package which is also OK, not great (better than the Captains Club perk cocktail menu). You can upgrade to the Premium package on a per day basis charge paid in advance (everything and anything) and it's usually discounted both pre-cruise and maybe the first day depending on ships load factor. If you upgrade, all adult parties in your cabin have to upgrade. Internet is unlimited at the lower speeds. You can upgrade if you want to stream video content. Booking a suite gets you a premium beverage package and the upgraded Internet thing. The laundry perk avoids washing undies and socks in the sink and for longer cruises, taking enough of those garments to last the entire cruise. We use it a lot. One thing we enjoyed on RCL with our Elite status from Celebrity is that drinks go from 5 - 8:30p on RCL, 5-7p on Celebrity. We dine late so that's real nice. Also enjoyed the Diamond Club and heavy hors d'oeuvres. There's bites on Celebrity if you go to the designated Captain's Club Lounge whihc may be at different locations on the ship. Thier OK but the spread in the Diamond Club is better. We're actually Elite Plus on Celebrity which means about zilch and I might get to Zentih if I booked the owner's sweet 5x per year for the next 10y, or alternatively, booked OV or Veranda cabins more than 20 cruises per year for the next 20 years ... heh. Hard to get to Zenith and every passenger I've met that got there was well into their 80s with 100 Celebrity cruises or more under their belts.

I get the complexity of the science that the CDC has to wade through in making recommendations. Politics is obviously playing a part in public policy statements like this. It's noteworthy that the CDC is at least 2w, maybe 4, behind the facts on the ground. Their claim that as new data is received, changes can be made rings hollow with me. What took you so long to catch up with what most people that follow this stuff know and that people in the know that have been vaccinated have been pretty much doing whatever they want, including flying on airplanes, since, oh, maybe mid January when lots of 65+yo's were getting vaccinated by then. So, no, I'm not impressed. I'm sure the CDC is very pleased with itself. I do think this new travel guidance foretells that the CDC may issue the "technical details" they've been promising for over 4 months to the cruise industry. Mayor Cava, of Miami-Dade Co's statement on Twitter suggests something may be forthcoming on that. I'm not holding my breath. We've heard this before. Like Michael Bailey, I'm feeling pretty sure that whatever guidance they do release won't be much different that the what was outlined in October - a 4 phase return to cruising with each ship being required to pass muster before passengers can board and sail. There may be a casual nod from the CDC regarding the impact that requiring vaccinations to board might have but that will be about it. ANd then we have this ........ .........FL's Governor Desantis just issued an EO banning businesses in FL from requiring any kind of documentation of vaccination to enter. This is going to be a mess.

That's the thing. Almost a contradiction in terms. We have rapidly rising case numbers in most of Europe and plenty of cruising going on out of ports there (an in Asia). Not full on cruising but it's cruising. What's more, is that I read that since large ship cruise lines have been operating on a regular basis there, there have been 19 confirmed COVID cases NINETEEN out of what is being reported as 400K passengers. That's an infection rate of 0.006% Obviously the safe to sail protocols that are being used apparently consistently among the cruise ships that are operating are working very well. That's all well and good but it doesn't matter to government officials making public health policy. We've been down this road. We know for a fact that SARS2 is much more transmissible than influenza (I've read 4 to 8x). Based on the increased transmissibility of SARS2 v H1N1 concerns, I'm consistently reading a significant amount of worry regarding the potential downsides, from both a health and political standpoint, of greater mobility and the increased human contact that entails. Fear of stoking COVID outbreaks permeates health policy thinking. That's the fly in the ointment right now and I don't see an end to it until vaccines produce the kind of measurable declines in COVID metrics I mentioned above.

The science is solid on the risk of air travel as a means of introducing SARS2 and it's variants into countries that have obtained low levels of circulating virus. The reality is that an infected person can have a negative COVID test before boarding an aircraft because their viral load was too low to be detectible (the incubation period), then, once in country, develop mild symptoms or be asymptomatic and spread whatever it is that person is carrying. Public Health officials around the globe are going to hold off on green-lighting travelers coming from foreign destinations by air, sea or traveling by ground conveyance across boarders, I'm guessing, well into the fall when, it is anticipated, most countries can see a level of herd immunity that (1) is defined by low levels of circulating virus (low R values and positivity in the 3-5% range) and (2) health care facilities have returned to a pre-pandemic baseline of seriously ill patients to include those admitted with a diagnosis of COVID. This reality is starting to soak in for me. There are simply too many obstacles for Americans who want to cruise from Europe to overcome to make that a realistic hope. There are, of course, a lot of wild cards that could change that circumstance for the good or further toward the bad, but right now cruising from Europe with port stops along the way for Americans isn't looking good.

I'm generally in agreement with you, JLMoran. People who have actually experienced serious illness form COVID or had a friend or relative in that group or worse, someone who died secondary to COVID, have a completely justifiable bias for caution. About a month ago when I was writing about this stuff, I listed the probabilities of events like serious injuries in a motor vehicle accident, dying from cancer, a whole bunch of them that I can't recall, compared to the probability of serious complications or death from becoming infected with SARS-2. Most of these bad outcomes had higher probabilities of occurring than serious illness from SARS2. My thinking was not meant to diminish the terrible impact on humanity of this pandemic but rather to take comparisons to ground and demonstrate that the social and economic costs of heavy handed mitigation measures were not justified by the benefits obtained from them. To be clear, I have for along time been an advocate of reopening schools. Not willy-nilly re-opening but doing it safely with all the mitigation measures we understand that work in that environment as part of re-opening. So, I admit a bias less cautious about all of this than some. YMMV.

I'll use COVID data from FL yesterday to illustrate how important it is to contextualize that data. As word11 notes above, the reality is this is not a group (school age kids) we need to worry about ...." New case numbers are up as they are in many states that, like FL, still had a lot of circulating virus even when numbers were trending downward up until two weeks ago. FL is unique in that there has been a large inflow of visitors to the state, especially in S.FL. That new cases haven't jumped off the charts is noteworthy. Positivity is up to 6.7%. It had gotten down to as low as 4.8%. So, yes, there is circulating SARS-2 virus in FL..... there is circulating virus ALL THE TIME and we're not shutting things down over that. 79% of new cases are in the under 65 age group with the biggest percentages of new cases in the 15-34yo range. Over 65s as a group account for just 6%. Under 15 accounts for the rest or about 13% Deaths are stable, hospitalizations are down, ED visits for ILI and CLI are down. This is a clear indication that the virus is no where near as dangerous a it was a year ago and as vaccines continue to roll-out. Upwards of 80% of health care and nursing home staff, first responders and over 65s have received at least one dose of a vaccine. This cohort has been generally rendered safe. It does not take a rocket scientist to make rational conclusions based on this data. Here are mine: Most of the 79%'ers are suffering a common cold at worst or are asymptomatic. I don't think we should be concerned about this cohort as no effort whatsoever is made to protect anyone from catching the common cold or influenza. School age kids who get infected are around 98% asymptomatic. For states that made a concerted effort to prioritize vaccines to the most vulnerable, I can mount a solid argument that both vaccinated, recovered under 65s and unvaccinated under 50s, without other risk factors for COVID complications, can do pretty much what they want taking basic precautions - and in that I would include wearing a mask indoors in public spaces and avoiding congregate settings where social distancing can't be maintained. The rest of the US either doesn't have circulating virus to be concerned about or are in a similar situation to that of FL. I just don't get the defective and increasingly irrelevant PH guidance and this continuing drum beat of rising case numbers. We're at a point where that kind of data is pretty much useless in a circumstance where vaccines are becoming widely available. Starting yesterday, in FL, if you're 18 or over, you can get the shot. There's plenty of vaccine availability and plenty of places to sign up to register for an appointment and get the shot. The cost of waiting around for more certainty about this and that is just stupid..... and dangerous: Car-jackings by teenagers who are generally out of school and unsupervised during the day are up 300% in some cities. Gun violence, well, all you have to do is tune in to your local news, is out of control. Fentanyl OD is up all over the country and not by small amounts. Child abuse is up - and that's not just recently. It's been surging since last July. But, yeah, sure, lets just wait for absolute certainty on vaccines, vaccine side effects, all of the pandemic related "science" before we start encouraging people to return to normal activities in ways that incur the lowest risk of catching the virus or spreading it if you do.

I have a lot of stories to tell about dining in main dining rooms. Most of them good. It's great way to socialize and meet new people but, if your looking for a quiet intimate dinner, that's a legitimately hard one. I suspect quieter more intimate dinning will be a lot easier when cruising resumes with table spacing both in the main and specialty dining spots. We used to book the biggest table we could book. Met some really fun people who, after a glass of wine or so got more fun. That was great when most people dined in the main dining rooms but as specialty dining expanded and folks took that up, we had a couple of experiences where we were seated at 10-tops and we were it! No problem getting reseated with other guests but our first night at that 10-top for 2 we had a good time with our waiters sitting at opposite ends of this very long table as if we were the king and queen. They got a good laugh out of that. We now take our chances with 4 and 6 tops. Most cruisers we've found are pretty gregarious but there's always the duds or complainers. We're loath to move around so, we smile and make the best of it. Had one guy pull out some floss and do his teeth after the meal - and not surreptitiously! Otherwise a nice guy who was partnered with a complainer. A double whammy of bad! Those are the exception though. We still favor the mains just to meet new people and talk over a good meal. Nothing better.

This. The press release lacking any data points is understandable. As I recall Pfizer did the same sort of preliminary press release thing when the trials of their mRNA vaccines were completed. The actual trial data was released about two weeks later. Then the FDA took about a month to complete their review facing a lot of pressure to issue the EUA. I also recall that when the AZ vaccines were in this circumstance they released preliminary data and NAIAID (Fauci's show) questioned the validity of it. Whatever NIAAID was worried about should not have been made public, especially what it turned out they were worried about (10ths of percentage points). It may have been leaked by interested parties in doing vaccine damage. Regardless, just another example of poor insight and a broad understanding of statement impacts coming from the faces of our public health policy. Given the probability that there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% of the US population who will refuse to get vaccinated for various reasons, some good, some not so good, this kind of thing has the potential of wrongly increasing that pool and gives anti-vaxers more fuel for their fire. Think it through people. Anyway, the prelims are good news. Getting the study report containing the data points will be much better.

In a minor bit of good news, Pfizer had been running a trail using their mRNA vaccine on kids 12 to 16. They just released trial results indicating it's safe. The announcement pre-dates published and reviewed data so, it's going to be a while before the FDA approves it for use in the US. Small trial size of around 3000 kids. Minor and typical side effects. Pfizer has not released data on how the kids' immune systems responded. Still, this is good news. Doomsayers have been bemoaning the difficulty in achieving herd immunity when kids under 16, who can become infected, be generally asymptomatic but still spread the virus, aren't being vaccinated. They can sit down now and be quiet. Just a gut feeling but back in March of 2020, all the models were predicting pandemic outcomes that were never obtained. Science didn't know much about SARS2 then so, OK. We do know a lot more now but morons within the scientific and medical community with disparate agendas are still talking doom. Take the doomsday talk in but carefully evaluate what is being said and put it in context. We're doing fine and moving to the endpoints I mentioned in a post yesterday.

Good stuff esmoov. I entered Fort Lauderdale and PCR and got probably a dozen locations that were close enough to me to make sense. None of the rapid PCR tests are cheap. Checked the first two on the list and prices were right around $200 or a shade below. The linked web site is very easy to use and well laid out.

I hate to keep dumping on the CDC but I feel that this is important to understand among our group of cruise fanatics. The reason is that when confronted with arguments against a resumption of cruising, you'll be armed with the facts. The news this morning was about travel. Lots of it. United made more money in the last month than they did since march of 2020! Surprise, people are traveling. With out a doubt this sort of thing has the potential to increase human contact and spread disease. And what is new about that! Restricting travel and mobility are prime ways to reduce the spread of a global pandemic. Fine, I get that.Hello, humans will be human. They are generally ignoring government pleas to stay in your homes to stop COVID. This is happening everywhere on the planet not just i n the US. After a year of locking people inside their homes, shutting airports and sea ports, directing businesses to have employees not come to the office and instead work from home, closing businesses in the travel and leisure sector, citizens in various countries are saying to hell with that. I'm going to my local bar or restaurant, I'm jumping on an airplane and flying to some Caribbean island that wants us to be there or Mexican resort in Cancun or Madrid or any number of places that are saying, "come on down!" Some of that activity is being carried out carelessly and without regard for the continuing risk of SARS2 transmission and if we were gettting better messaging from public health officials the impact of that on disease spread could be reduced.When Angela Merkle said, I'm locking all you German citizens down for the 2 weeks that include Easter, there was such outrage that she backed off a shut down entirely. The French have never been enthusiastic about Macron telling them to not go out and drink wine. Italians? Same. Then, of course we have the Swedes that took a different path of figuring out how to cope with the virus from the start, instead of trying to eliminate any risk that you might catch COVID. They seem to be doing about the same as other EU countries. Well, no kiddding. Governments ..... it's time to wake up.What's not getting enough attention is the on-the-ground reality of the impact of vaccines. If I put together a graph of two variables, vaccination rates and serious illness on the Y axis and time in months on the X axis, color coded vaccination rates in blue and serious illness and death in red, you'd have a positive slope on the blue line and a negative one on the red with the lines intersecting sometime in May. Forget about putting case numbers on the graph but if you did you'd continue to see the predictable peaks and troughs over time with peaks getting lower and troughs deeper. It's what viruses due. It's what SARS2 has done for over a year.Now, yes, we can think about things like variants that might render these miracle vaccines less effective delaying the decline in serious illness over time. But, I'm telling you, vaccination science involving genomic technology (that's the novel mRNA vaccines) have revolutionized vaccine development and production making it much easier to adapt vaccines to genomic variations in a given virus and provide boosters. Trust me and many other experts who are saying SARS2 is going to become a seasonal thing just like H1N1 Influenza and all it's variants. But the disease burden that was very high from this virus a year ago has steadily declined over that same period and will continue to do so in the long term.Why is this so hard to understand among government officials who are making public health policy? The smart thing to do is to tell businesses how to minimize viral spread in their places of business (already being done, e.g., airlines and the cruise industry) and, more importantly, tell citizens how to safely return to normal activities - because that's what the citizens are going to do anyway whether you tell them how to make it safe or not. The right approach is to recognize that over time in a pandemic (global) circumstance, there will be a predictable transitioning to an epidemic (regional) and then to small (local) outbreaks. At that point outbreaks are easily ID'ed and controlled (see the Ebola virus experience and many others). And, shockingly, this is exactly the circumstance expanding availability of SARS2 vaccines and the miracle technology that can adapt vaccines going forward are making obvious.