smokeybandit

This is great news coming out of South Africa. Unfortunately US public health guidance has been so poor that despite this data, we still are expected to react for the worst

-Pleas from the hospitals will be there no matter what, especially hospitals suffering self-inflicted staffing shortages. -Professional sports are already changing their protocols since they realize keeping asymptomatic people off the field is not a common sense approach anymore as covid weakens -There have been cases on cruise ships since June. With current protocols there will ALWAYS be cases found on ships.

This too shall pass. Even the Biden admin has hinted this could be a quick surge, at least for vaccinated people.

That'll become more important once you can start billing regular insurance for them

This would be the new batches finally getting into circulation

With the feds taking 500 million tests, I'll be curious what supply chain issues will be like

Oh I'm all for banning smoking in casinos for plenty of non-covid reasons.

With that in mind they aren't really banning smoking outright. They're banning smoking because of the mask rule, so it doesn't seem as arbitrary to me as it did before.

This kind of stuff annoys me. Do they have evidence that a leading cause of covid cases on a cruise ship are due to smokers in the casino? Or is this just a dart board measures to make it look like they're doing something. Adding masking is dumb in my opinion for various reasons, but at least there's widespread precedent for it. Picking on the smokers though?

Most of the time a "system glitch" is code for "a human screwed up"

That was announced a week or so ago. But antigen tests will now be given at the port (which is why, thanks to the CDC, you need a PCR test beforehand). Not that big of a deal for Americans, but certainly a huge PITA for Canadians.

I would assume that's because more and more foreigners are taking cruises now and it's too much to handle. But it looks like they'll still contract out to have someone offer tests at the terminal. I guess we'll be taking Binax Now tests on our June Vancouver cruise

Those are the same people that would complain that they didn't know they needed a pre-cruise test or vaccination to board.

But people come from all over the country for a cruise. We don't know the state of residence (or country) for patient zero.

Protocols once again worked to allow over 99% of those on board to continue their cruise. End of news story.

That's a lot of rubbing elbows to come in close contact (enough to qualify as a covid close contact) with several hundred passengers on a cruise.

The article says contact tracing for 1 person (that seems really high). They don't say how many were tested. "Everyone who tested positive is asymptomatic"

Cozumel only has six gates. 500k passengers per year. That would rank it about 125th in the USA

"cases" should have been thrown out the window months ago and jut focused on keeping people out of the hospital

I would imagine it's just additional room releases. Even in July on Adventure it was sold out in most classes then one day there plenty of cabins available in blocks. So it wasn't just one-offs here and there from people canceling last minute

I asked. Didn't get a response. Just got a robotic stare

The problem with the robotic bartender is he doesn't remember you next time even if you give a good tip. Not a chance at getting a generous pour

It's a natural worry, but the odds are so low it's not worth the fretting. As of the end of October, only 0.2% of cruise passengers tested positive. And a solid chunk of those were cruises out of the Bahamas that required post-cruise testing. No American-based homeport requires post-cruise testing. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/08/07/royal-caribbean-flying-passengers-home-private-jet-if-they-have-covid-19

No doubt.