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Interesting and a worrying read as I have 2 cruises booked for 2021


Cruisemad888

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That story is pure clickbait. "The Carnival Cruise Ship That Spread Coronavirus Around the World"

Give me a break. Let's conveniently forget that the virus spread across the world on airplanes, which were never stopped at all and given a free pass for being the primary means of transmission from one country or continent to another.

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Here in a landlocked state a senior bridge tournament on February 29 killed 13 and infected dozens more.   Contact tracing did not show any cruise ship history.  Cruise ships made the world wide news, the seniors who died made the local news.  

The entire COVID-19 disaster in the NYC area occurred from spread on airplanes from Europe in February and March leading to the spring outbreak.  

Did the virus spread on cruise ships?  Yes.  Did the virus spread in churches, schools, airplanes, buses, trains, restaurants, bars and so on?  Yes.  That's what this virus does - it spreads anywhere that people gather.  Yet the media continues to focus on cruise ships because it generates clicks and ad revenue.    

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As I look back and relive early February I was on Ovation of the Seas to New Zealand.   When I boarded on Feb. 2nd in Sydney the news was all about the wildfires in Australia.  Sydney was in the midst of celebrating the Lunar Festival for the Chinese new year.  I first learned about the virus and the outbreak on the Diamond Princess while I sailed around New Zealand.  As the cruise progressed discussion of the virus started to be heard around the ship more and more.

I enjoyed many conversations in the Concierge Lounge with the concierge.  She is from China.  She had one more cruise left in her contract and had been onboard for months.  The ship started to take the temperature of the crew numerous times during the cruise.  They were looking for signs and symptoms of the virus.  Near the end of the cruise she told me her mother told her not to go home to China, it was too dangerous.  She didn't know what she was going to do and she was trying to extend her contract.

It was the mention that ship crew were having their temperature taken on a periodic basis and the timing of the cruise in early February that now comes back to me with greater meaning.  

What occurs to me now is how Royal Caribbean was taking steps in response to the virus long before this country even started to take notice.  At least one cruise line did a better job in the early days of the virus than the U.S.A. did.  It wasn't really until early March that the U.S. woke up to the reality of the virus.  The response was to panic buy toilet paper.  

It's easy for the media to point the finger at cruise ships.   They are a faceless object.  The U.S.A isn't alone with having a slow response to the virus.  Many countries around the world were slow to respond.  So while the virus was spreading in places like churches and schools around the world somehow cruise ships were supposed to know what the rest of the world did not.  For a journalist pointing a finger at churches is a résumé generating event, better not go there.

Taking crew temperatures appears to be a minor step yet in hindsight it shows Royal Caribbean had taken notice of the virus and were doing something in response to the virus at least a month before many countries around the world did.  The media will never report that.  

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