WhiteSoxFan

This is a baseline for overall test positivity rate, not infections over a period of time. Even if 1% of the United States became infected each couple of days (length of a cruise) then we would have an issue on our hands. You have to look at these metrics from a different perspective.  The main concern as others have pointed out are the limited resources for handling even 1% infection rate onboard (med staff, isolation rooms, administrative personnel), plus the logistics of clearing these people to go home once ashore.

You can't use any of these figures without realizing that this virus is infecting vastly more people at the same time.  So however acceptable you feel these figures are, when you realize these percentages apply to tens or hundreds of millions of people is when you realize the scope of the problem and the stress this puts on whatever medical resources are available anywhere in the world.  It also does not factor in the number of oeople suffering or dying while ignoring other issues out of fear, issues not taken care of do to lack of resources and the unpredictablity of the short or long term consequences of COVID.  It's so much more complicated then simple percentages.

I posted this to another forum but I think I’ll post it here, also. I don’t like masks…I don’t think anyone really does (with the exception of Batman and the Lone Ranger) but it is what it is. The cruise industry is still transitioning from total shut down to taking baby steps…all while under the microscope of unrelenting scrutiny, fair and unfair, of the media and political appointees. I knew this transition would be flexible and fraught with change, for good and bad, and decided I will enjoy my cruises.
 
It’s not only the passenger’s health being protected…but it’s the crew…and with the crew, the business.
Remember, the crew has to wear masks virtually all the time. Especially when near passengers. They are all completely vaccinated with the addition of boosters and they have to remain on the ship. Shore leave is cancelled. Any infection would likely be carried aboard by a passenger or contractor. As the Hotel Director just told me…if one crew member gets infected, then contact tracing results in a whole group or section of the crew being quarantined as a precaution. That’s what happened to the entire entertainment crew on the November 8th cruise…and that spilled over to the November 14th cruise. Doesn’t matter whether they have symptoms, test negative, are asymptomatic or not. If he loses a few to infection, then the amount of crew being quarantined multiplies. With that comes a lack of personnel to operate a cruise. Cancellations would follow.
As masking is supposed to be good at stopping the infection (droplets) from leaving an infected person…it’s makes sense to me that they try this reasonable step to protect the health of the other passengers in general…and the crew…and the business.
Inconvenient but understandable. Just my opinion.

Just remember: This isn't about you or your vacation. This industry cannot stomach a huge outbreak right now. It could kill them if they can't continue to prove that cruising is safe. We should understand that they know more about this than we do (these cruise execs have spent their lives focused on this for the past 22 months), and if they think it'll help they're probably right. At least more so than we can claim to know.
They are FULLY aware that people don't like wearing masks and that it drives down demand to make people wear masks any more than they have to. They know this will cause people to cancel. So obviously they feel this is necessary or they wouldn't do it. 

We have a Celebrity cruise booked for January and I received an email yesterday stating that all final payment for all cruises through March 31st would have 60 day final payments.  Not sure why there is a difference with them and Royal.

This isn't about the law or doing what's right.
This is about politics and pandering to a base to gain support on a national level for a run at the presidency.  He is out to get his name in the national headlines.  Fining Carnival millions accomplishes that goal.  Anything with "cruise' in a headline gets massive media attention.  It's a perfect storm for him.   He needs attention at any cost.  
Royal has never "required" proof of vaccination to sail.  Not up until the Bahamas required proof of vaccination.  Carnival did require proof of vaccination to sail.  They denied service to unvaccinated.  They have more potential exposure in this matter.
That doesn't mean he won't go after Royal too but he knows he'll lose in court so he might not.  Carnival on the other hand will make for a nice juicy headline in the media.    

A thread on CC says that 10 people on a Carnival Horizon facebook group have tested positive since returning home.  Carnival confirms there is a "small number" of cases on the Vista.

In one way they are already doing this. It's called Celebrity. ?

In one way they are already doing this. It's called Celebrity. ?

I'm going to risk brining this up - masking - because for those of you coming to FL to start a cruise, there are some risk calculations I'd recommend you follow. 
Background: For a long time and after we got about 2-3 months into the SARS2 pandemic, I've been an advocate of taking individual responsibility for your own health and the health of those around you. This is the land of the free and I support that basic concept that includes the right to choose ...... to a point.
The courts are making it clear that state's (not the feds .... yet and this is at issue in FL v. Bacerra) have the right under policing authority granted to them in the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution , to establish and enforce laws protecting the welfare, safety, and health of the public. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/police_powers
So whether you think masks protect or don't, whether you think the local authorities can tell you to wear a mask to enter or not is immaterial. They have the lawful right to do so and the courts have been uniform in affirming that right. Your experience with this is going to vary depending on the political nature of your own state's positions on this. e.g. Governor Newsome in CA and others already have issued new mask mandates. Governor Desantis in FL and others have avoided them. 
Moving on and for Matt this post is about cruising not so much masks. There are several ways to assess your risk of becoming infected with COVID getting to/from a cruise terminal, in the cruise terminal, on the ship and in ports of call. One of them is viral prevalence (% positivity is an imperfect but satisfactory metric to do that). Another is to assess the environment and the dynamic within it that you will encounter while cruising. e.g., How good is the ventilation? 
Let's look at both in FL:
Viral Prevalence: Right now FL's state wide % positive rate is a whooping 17%. Broward Co. home of PEV is at 15.9%, Dade, home of POM is 19.2%.
The environment and it's dynamic: Even though the risk of infection might be slightly increased with increased viral prevalence outdoors, outdoors you should still be fine unmasked even though the in-port risks are subject to the same kinds of risk assessments. You can look these up yourselves depending on your itinerary. e.g., if your going to Mexico/Coz/Costa Maya and viral prevalence is high (it is) and you see a whole lot of unmasked people in a crowded outdoor market, think carefully about going in there. Assess your own vulnerability and risk tolerance as well as risks to others if you recently became infected while traveling to the cruise port in deciding to go in or stay out.
Onboard a ship that is 95% vaxed, indoors in places where you cannot maintain spacing, I can make an argument to mask. It's a choice and we don' t need to start arguing the utility of masks issue here. You decide .... for now and sailing from US ports. Masking mandates also depend on the country you're sailing from, e.g., in my recent Apex sailing from Pireaus Greece, Celebrity required masks indoors because the Greek government still requires them indoors, on their ferry's and all cruise ships operating in Greek waters.
I'm sailing on Equinox from PEV next week. I've just received an updated list of health and safety protocols for this cruise. Masks are required in the terminal but not on board. "Curated" tours are required in Coz and Costa Maya (that's new) and Tortola (not new). I don't know where the Coz/Costa Maya requirement is coming from. I suspect it is from Celebrity trying to mitigate transmission risk in two places where viral prevalence has become quite high.
In my experience having already sailed on Apex, Celebrity has taken COVID mitigation measures in accordance with the CDC/HSP recommendations. Spacing is not a problem because of the measures Celebrity has implemented for you to include reduced guest loads and obvious table and entertainment venue spacing just about everywhere there are tables or chairs, 
My argument to mask indoors in crowded spaces where you can't maintain separation is stronger aboard ships with a passenger load that has vaxed and unvaxed guests. However, RCL has done a pretty good job with reducing increased transmission risks in this setting in the first place. Again assess your own risk tolerance and act accordingly when you have a choice. If for some reason going forward in sailing from US ports masks become mandated for everyone aboard and inside, you still have a choice. Book smartly with refundable fares and don't go if you're opposed to masking mandates. I know, there might be exceptions to this based your own situation.
At this point and considering the viral prevalence in FL, I'm aboard with the recommendations from the state of FL's PH officials to increase your level of caution for yourself and others around you. These increased case loads are going to decline. What's more important is that those becoming ill in FL and elsewhere from SARS2 infection and the development of COVID, if the need for hospitalization develops, there is plenty of excess bed space and your chance of a full recovery is exceedingly high, it's like 100% if you've been vaxed. Absolute numbers tend to be scary out of context. While disease burden in FL is increasing, it is not accelerating anywhere close to the rate of new infections. IOW, it's manageable and thankfully Governor Desantis recognizes this and isn't knee jerk reacting with new mandated mitigation measures, which, BTW, he has the authority to issue but has chosen not to.
Finally, I want to be very careful to express that while I'm a retired PA and am up on most, but not all, of the COVID literature, I'm giving you my unofficial recommendations here even though they are based on the current (albeit often confusing and conflicting) medical and PH advice. Do your research. Stay safe. 

You can tell the person has an agenda; research the person and look at other videos/social media they have posted in the past. If their post history hadn't been anti-mask, anti-vaccine, basically a covid-denier, then she would have some credibility. This is how I check reddit users (are you a bot or not?) and even people on this forum and others. Is there a consistency to "their reaction" or is it very outside the norm. Usually pretty easy to determine....
 
This sounds like a case of "freedom to make choices, but not freedom from the consequences of those choices" when the outcome was exactly what was expected in the scenarios outlined by users on here and Cruise Critic if a non-vaccinated guest tests positive. Her reaction was NOT appropriate. Also, one can also infer that the cruise line isn't trying to be POLITICAL, they are TRYING TO MAKE MONEY. They have no incentive to kick her off...start with that mindset and things seem a lot clearer.... 

There are two factors that impact mask requirements aboard RCL branded cruises:
(1) The cruise lines policy regarding masking requirements.
(2) The masking requirements established by local authorities for home and call ports.
There is no simple answer to your question. The best way to understand all of this is to be informed of the latest information then keep checking the RCL web site for the most recent health policy updates. I don't think there have been updates to this post. If there have been and others know about them, please provide a current link.  https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/07/05/face-masks-not-listed-royal-caribbeans-august-health-protocols
IMO, masking on cruise ships in some form or for specific people is going to be with us for a while. Waiting for a date certain when, across the fleet, no masks will be required is going to stop you cold from cruising. My advise is accept it and comply. Arguing that masks aren't effective or that the lines should follow this or that guidance instead of having us all be inconvenienced with mask requirements isn't worth the time and/or energy. Be grateful cruising has resumed. YMMV.  

An important moment but it's still not clear how this changes very much for Florida cruises.
The pandemic in general is not over and it's not clear what the impacts of future variants will be.  
The Florida law that prevents a cruise line from cruising safely with vaccinations as a tool in their toolbox is not immediately impacted by this case with the CDC.
For Royal Caribbean International at every step they've taken a path that allows unvaccinated children so it's clear they are trying to accommodate families even in states where this legal case has no immediate impact.  They've also quietly allowed some exemptions beyond children. 
Clearly Royal is not trying to deny service based on vaccination status even in Nassau where it could have, that's bad for business and Royal knows it.   Some are trying to make this look like a binary situation, all vax or no vax but it's not for Royal and never has been.
That's why the Florida law is a law that isn't required.  It's a law to make it look like government is doing something when in fact it's just more government overreach while everyone is celebrating this judge who just slapped down a government for overreaching its power.
In an ideal world a cruise line would be able to determine safe protocols based on the ratio of vaccinated and unvaccinated and they could adjust protocols as new variants emerge and other's go away.  Is that 85% today? 80% a month from now? 50% six months from now? That's for the proper experts to decide, not a doomsday federal agency, not an authoritarian state government and not the general public.  
The pandemic isn't over.  Delta won't be the last variant.  Vaccines are the path to safe cruising without a 100% vax requirement.  Cruise lines like Royal are not trying to establish an absolute vaccine requirement.  That's doesn't change with this latest step in the case against the CDC.

At the request of @cruisinghawgI'll reluctantly respond to this and a few other comments:
Not really ........American Citizens have no Constitutional protection from being told by a state vaccinations are required. 
Nearly 100 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts,33 upholding the right of states to compel vaccination. The Court held that a health regulation requiring smallpox vaccination was a reasonable exercise of the state’s police power that did not violate the liberty rights of individuals under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The police power is the authority reserved to the states by the Constitution and embraces “such reasonable regulations established directly by legislative enactment as will protect the public health and the public safety” (197 U.S. at 25, 25 S.Ct. at 361).
It is good to understand the history of how the requirement for vaccinations emerged in the US. I's all right here:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/guides-pubs/downloads/vacc_mandates_chptr13.pdf
Look, I get the concern about children being vaccinated and putting thier safety above any sense of duty to the public health. This is true especially given the short history of the COVID vaccines approved in the US. One needs to be on point when they take that position.
In a that was then, this is now sort of dialogue, distrust of the state has increased dramatically since Jacobsen v. Massachusetts. But the FDA has remained as apolitical and balanced as any government agency in this pandemic - the rigorous testing protocols that pharma has to comply with in brining a drug to market, even under EUA, and with the exhaustive review process the FDA conducts, all the US approved vaccines are very safe. Yet misinformation about their effectiveness and safety flood social media platforms as in, "that decision (not to vaccinate a child) is a no brainer." It is? Really, based on, "Right now, with cases averaging 22 per day on a population of 1.4 million and multiple cases of myocarditis locally."  I doubt both the validity of the numbers and how these are being presented. These are the facts:
CDC numbers through late May estimated that 16 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis would be reported for every million second doses given to people ages 16 to 39. That works out to 0.0016%, or roughly 1 in 62,000.
By contrast, de Lemos said the best studies on college athletes put the chances of a young person getting myocarditis after COVID-19 at between 1% and 3%. That's roughly 1 in 50.
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2021/06/21/should-rare-cases-of-heart-inflammation-put-your-covid-19-vaccine-plans-on-hold
There's more:
Though fewer children contract COVID-19, and fewer kids and young adults experience serious illness, there’s still some risk of contracting the virus. Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 7.7 million COVID-19 cases have been reported among people ages 12 to 29. In May, that age group represented 33% of COVID-19 cases. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 2,767 coronavirus deaths have been reported among this age gr
https://whyy.org/articles/myocarditis-and-the-covid-19-vaccine-what-to-know-about-rare-heart-inflammation/
And then there is this:

All of the foregoing facts seem to indicate that it is a no-brainer to not get your kids vaccinated. 
Profiteering by big pharma as an underlying cause of distrust of vaccines is also a frequently held parental concern. IMO, that denigrates the work of 100s of dedicated scientists that worked on these vaccines and deployed them in record time. I don't think that circumstance is fully understood by critics of big pharma. That pharma developed these in a public private enterprise is perfectly good reason for these companies to be rewarded and the public to benefit from the miracle drug the mRNA vaccines are. I reject that concern as largely baseless. Now of course you could argue that the Chinese and the Russians who deployed Sinovac and Sputnik through government nationalized production did just fine. But they didn't and countries that received these vaccines in a form of vaccine diplomacy are battling reinfections.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/business/economy/china-vaccines-covid-outbreak.html   
One final comment on another set of stats that are floating around on social media platforms that vaccine nay-sayers grab on to without checking them out. The conflations and missuses of absolute and relative risk along with vaccine efficacy abound in social media platforms then trickle down to casual conversations. The  link will take you to a great article that describes these misuses, how believable they appear and how utterly dangerous they are to rational, well informed thought on getting vaccinated or not.
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-thelancet-riskreduction/fact-check-why-relative-risk-reduction-not-absolute-risk-reduction-is-most-often-used-in-calculating-vaccine-efficacy-idUSL2N2NK1XA
All of this sounds like lecturing and badgering those who aren't vaccinated or don't want their kids vaccinated. I apologize for that because it is the least effective way to change people's minds on any number of COVID and Pandemic related views and especially in the hotly debated arena of vaccinations. Generally it's hard to do. But judgements based on inaccurate or misleading information are dangerous. What I encourage is not blindly rejecting or accepting, even being moved by what I've posted here but rather keeping an open mind to views contrary to your own. Become convincible. Join legitimate focus groups led by doctors and scientists. Ask questions.  

Its an unpopular position to articulate support for the CDC. Their public messaging hasn't been good. They have themselves to blame for that. However it is the politicians and the press that "politicize" their recommendations and public statements that come from the CDC.
I'm not a fan of Anthony Fauci either and the reasons for that go beyond his credentials as a virologist - those are solid. He is always very careful - hedging is the operative term - not to get pinned down. Listeners don't like that but he's a scientis and few things are certain in science, especially emerging science on SRAS2 and COVID. 
The CDC, in most circumstances that do not involve regulatory authority (I'll get to that), provide recommendations for PH matters. They don't direct anything and since the mask debacle in February 2020 and the Trump administration telling CDC folks to go sit in the back of the room and shut-up, CDC spokespersons have been very careful to make that clear.
The most recent clarifying statements wrt that involve the position they took on masking when their recommendations (no masks for vax'ed) differed from the WHO's recommendations (masks indoors regardless of vax status....... Walenski's response when asked about this (paraphrased) "we are recommending no masks for the vaccinated in the US but leave decisions in that regard to local PH authorities." I think the CDC is spot on regarding no mask wearing required for vaccinated people in the US. I'm pretty sure you would not disagree with that.
The CDC does, in fact, have regulatory authority over the cruise lines through the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP). The authority I am most familiar with is what is granted under 42 U.S.C, Section 264. Regulations pertaining to preventing the interstate spread of communicable diseases are contained in 21 CFR parts 1240 and 1250 and 42 CFR part 70.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/71.1
When Merryday ruled in FL v. Bacerra, he did not say the CDC doesn't have regulatory authority. They do. What he said is that aspects of the CDC specifically directed at the cruise industry were, for all-intent-and-purpose, new laws that the CDC does not have the power to write.  Most of the legal arguments presented by FL's attorneys revolved around the limited time frame that free pratique can be denied via the VSP. That argument carried the day and the details of why it did, including pages of citing case law going back hundreds of years is in his written ruling. The link below describes the CDC's regulatory authority for the cruise line.
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/default.htm
I can't agree with this generalized statement. There is some uncertainty about responses to vaccines v. natural immunity with certain T-Cell types. With others there is no uncertainty - for example, CD4 and CD8 T-Cells showed a marked decrease following infection with SARS2 that are not seen with vaccines. In fact, the T-Cell response with the mRNA vaccines is robust (confounding factors in several studies were not isolated. The article linked below pertains.
https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-are-T-Cells.aspx
WARNING: we can easily both get in over our heads in this area. 
What I try hard to do within this forum when I post about COVID is to eliminate my biases or admit them and not make generalized statements that may not be supported by the facts. Nevertheless, in social media platform like this is authoritative statements frequently become gospel when the statements conform with a particular readers biases and preconceived beliefs.  It's not easy to remove biases from posts. Admission of a bias and links to facts supporting a viewpoint are helpful. I really have a problem with sweeping generalizations intended to support a POV. 

I thought something like might happen which is why in a different thread I raise the question, what happens if a non-vaccinated adult passenger tests positive and several people posted Royals response they will cover all cost. But when you are talking about resuming cruising on multiple ships from multiple port out of Florida where you are prohibited by law from asking for or requiring vaccines the cost to Royal Caribbean to get customers home would be astronomical.  Remember when the industry shut down the CDC prohibited cruise lines in particular from utilizing commercial travel to get people people home if they tested positive. If cruise lines are still barred from booking customers who test positive and subsequently disembarked from the cruise on commercial flights the cost of booking noncommercial travel adds up quickly and there is no way a company like RCC can absorb the total cost associated with getting non-vaccinated  passengers home on noncommercial flights.
I 100% believe that passengers should have a choice they should not be forced into getting vaccinated just to go on a cruise.  However at the same time unvaccinated passengers can not expect a cruise line to absorb 100% of the cost if they should test positive during their voyage.
Back in 2018 my husband got sick on a MSC cruise we were on the Divina on a 12 night cruise and they medically disembarked us in Colon Panama. Luckly we had insurance and I'm bless to work for an airline.  If we didn't have insurance and airline employee, between the medical cost, hotel cost, port fees (Panama charged us a hefty penny for the disembarkation in Colon), taxi to get from Colon to Panama City and then finally last minute air fare we could have easily been out of $10,000 - $13,000 dollars if not more.  That situation was the first time we ever had a medical emergency on vacation and I was grateful we had insurance.  This situation we went through is precisely the reason why I've been questioning Royal's policy on covering 100% of cost if a passenger test positive especially if RCC feels like Florida's law would result in a even larger pool of unvaccinated customers (adults) on their ships.  There is no way RCC can cover the cost and remain in business if several unvaccinated adult passengers test positive on cruises and require disembarkation. Remember the MSC ship in Italy disembarked not only the 2 passenger who test positive but also their entire traveling party and those deem to be in close contact because they were all unvaccinated. I can only imagine what it cost MSC to get all those passengers home especially if they couldn't use commercial /public transportation.

I tend to agree with you. In the short term, however,  these are things to consider as possible impediments.

I do think that US cruises will be successful to the point that the public finds the number of cases that will undoubtedly occur to be of a sufficiently low level as to allow the continuation and expansion of cruising.  That said I do not think the industry would have been nearly as successful had they started back in September 2020.  The whole US surge that occurred late fall early winter could have been disastrous to the industry.
IMO the overwhelming thing that has everything pointing in the right direction is not the policies and protocols, although they are important, but the vaccine.  Vaccinations work and are driving levels of cases down dramatically in places that have embraced it.  IMO cruising could have, and should have, been possible earlier than it has started but possibly only by a few months.  Just my humble opinion.

I think this has been out for a while.  There was a little discussion on the CC Celebrity board about how they would maintain the 95% requirement which is still in place until July 18th.  Would people be denied boarding if they exceeded the threshold?  I believe that Celebrity was asking people if they would be willing to provide proof of vaccination.  Maybe they have already got the information and run the numbers and are good. 
 

Which part is not correct?  They are definitely contacting people and asking if they would like to say they are vaccinated and willing to prove it.  As far as denied boarding there is a lot of speculation only because, under the CSO, they have to sail with a 95% or greater vax rate.

Found this on the =X= boards.  I like the part about fraudulent docs.

I think this has been out for a while.  There was a little discussion on the CC Celebrity board about how they would maintain the 95% requirement which is still in place until July 18th.  Would people be denied boarding if they exceeded the threshold?  I believe that Celebrity was asking people if they would be willing to provide proof of vaccination.  Maybe they have already got the information and run the numbers and are good. 
 

I think this has been out for a while.  There was a little discussion on the CC Celebrity board about how they would maintain the 95% requirement which is still in place until July 18th.  Would people be denied boarding if they exceeded the threshold?  I believe that Celebrity was asking people if they would be willing to provide proof of vaccination.  Maybe they have already got the information and run the numbers and are good. 
 

I believe "this might change" is the mantra of everything at this point.

I don’t think much will change as far as protocols go. Masks will likely be dropped for vax’d. 
 
The cruise lines DON’T want outbreaks. They can’t afford it. I think the healthy sail protocols will be the norm. 
 
No test cruises= fleet able to get going