Suspected Covid-19 case on Quantum

[mattymay]

Oh dear.. good they found it I guess. Not so good that it got on there in a country with very low case numbers.

https://www.cruisecritic.com.au/news/5780/

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/suspected-covid-19-case-on-royal-caribbean-cruise-to-nowhere-ship-returns-to-singapore-mid

[sk8erguy1978]

First and foremost I hope the sick passenger has mild symptoms, if any, and recovers quickly.

This is a bit of a blow. Hopefully the new procedures keep the case count to this one individual, proving they can limit an outbreak ... BUT ... this is a big win for the naysayers and those who believe ships are floating petri dishes.  

Edited December 8, 2020 by sk8erguy1978
typo

[bretts173]

1 hour ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

First and foremost I hope the sick passenger has mild symptoms, if any, and recovers quickly.

This is a bit of a blow. Hopefully the new procedures keep the case count to this one individual, proving they can limit an outbreak ... BUT ... this is a big win for the naysayers and those who believe ships are floating petri dishes.  

 

This could actually go either way. If this person ends up being the only one with the virus (apart from family of course) then procedures are working. However if a small outbreak then this is bad news for all. The message that needs to get out though is this person had the virus before getting on board and caught it in the generalwalking around petri dish of life.

[mattymay]

9 minutes ago, bretts173 said:

 

This could actually go either way. If this person ends up being the only one with the virus (apart from family of course) then procedures are working. However if a small outbreak then this is bad news for all. The message that needs to get out though is this person had the virus before getting on board and caught it in the generalwalking around petri dish of life.

There problem I see is that the pre testing is obviously no good. Now imagine a country with high case numbers, you could have multiple people positive cases on board which will inevitably lead to a larger outbreak. Then it's all bad news.

[sk8erguy1978]

5 minutes ago, bretts173 said:

 

This could actually go either way. If this person ends up being the only one with the virus (apart from family of course) then procedures are working. However if a small outbreak then this is bad news for all. The message that needs to get out though is this person had the virus before getting on board and caught it in the generalwalking around petri dish of life.

I have nothing but confidence in the procedures and that minimal exposure will be a result. I'm just a bit negative of how this will make the industry look, no matter how well they do. The message will get out there but it'll still result in negative press. 

These are discussions with friends and family that never go quite so well, if you know what I mean.

[bretts173]

14 minutes ago, mattymay said:

There problem I see is that the pre testing is obviously no good. Now imagine a country with high case numbers, you could have multiple people positive cases on board which will inevitably lead to a larger outbreak. Then it's all bad news.

Very true, anyone thinking cruising will be starting in the USA in the first half of next year are overly optimistic. Singapore averaging less than 20 cases a day of late.

[Frank Brealin]

So if someone tests positive not only are they quarantined but anyone who had close contact with them is also quarantined even if that person does not test positive?

 

Also, if you are quarantined, do you get a refund?

 

 

[KWofPerth]

11 minutes ago, Frank Brealin said:

So if someone tests positive not only are they quarantined but anyone who had close contact with them is also quarantined even if that person does not test positive?

 

Also, if you are quarantined, do you get a refund?

 

 

The entire ship also returns to port. Cruise over for everyone I guess.

[twangster]

Someone at the CDC is right now at this moment saying this to a coworker... "I told you so, now pay up".

 

[kc1968]

2 hours ago, mattymay said:

There problem I see is that the pre testing is obviously no good. Now imagine a country with high case numbers, you could have multiple people positive cases on board which will inevitably lead to a larger outbreak. Then it's all bad news.

 

Oh dear, just read the news on the local daily. Yes, it is bad news. Because the person obviously tested negative before boarding. So my guess is he/she felt ill during the cruise, went to sick bay, and was then tested positive. This just shows there are "sleeper" infected people in the community, even as aggressive testing is being done. Awaiting more news on the circumstances surrounding this disappointing turn of events. 

 

Lastly, I do hope the person and members of his/her party is fine.

[LogicallyLazy]

Based on information from local forum sites in Singapore, people on the cruise will be given a pro rated refund of 1 day to their onboard credit, with unused credits refunded to their card. Additionally, they would receive 1 days worth of cruise fare as FCC. 

Also, seems the Dec 10 cruise will proceed as planned

 

For anyone interested in a few reads.

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/travel-accommodation-89/royal-caribbean-quantum-seas-5941562.html#post131294251

[twangster]

The encouraging view is that the protocols worked.  If there were around 1,000 guest on board, there was one case discovered and isolated.  

Wouldn't it be great if a high school with 1,000 students could achieve the same?  

If every county/city/state in America could claim that wouldn't that be incredible?  We'll get there one day.  

Singapore has the situation in control.  That doesn't mean the virus has been eliminated there.  For an area that has the situation under control the protocols seemed to work very well.    

[ptod]

I am aware that it was a short cruise, however, I appreciate that the passenger reported to medical quickly.  I wish them a speedy recovery.

[stevendom57]

Singapore only has 80 confirmed COVID cases out of 5.8 million people. What are the odds that one person out of the 1000 people onboard has it? Only Singapore citizens could be on the cruise.

[LogicallyLazy]

It really is the luck of the draw too. Personally, I walk down orchard road in Singapore and the crowds look no different or even worse than the photos from Quantum of the seas. You don’t have cases popping up everywhere because of that. 
 

Plus, Dream cruise has been operating for a whole month prior to RCI and they didn’t have a case on board. That being said, the protocols in place are different for the 2 cruise lines but for the most part, they have similar measures. 

[Oliver]

Cruising is never going to happen without proof of vaccination. 

[monctonguy]

Vaccine is the ONLY way anything will return to normal..till then its masks, shut downs and very little to NO travel.....governments just won't allow it...

 

I wouldn't book anything before that sails before the fall at this point!

 

If a country with 5 cases allows one cruise, and someone is sick on the cruise.....just think about North American with tens of thousands of cases right now all while we are  trying to "flatten the curve"..it ain't working and winter is going to get alot worse before it starts to get better.....

[cruisellama]

An opportunity to test protocols.   Need to establish confidence in both positive and negative events.

[AndrewPunch]

Test cruise has failed.   The question is it the protocols weren't followed or were the protocols not enough?  IMHO cruises won't start in the US till summer and require a "vaccine passport"

[bretts173]

19 minutes ago, cruisellama said:

An opportunity to test protocols.   Need to establish confidence in both positive and negative events.

Protocols have been tested and hardly satisfactory in a country with virtually no covid cases. It's proven that the virus cant be kept off the ship and at the moment it would be likely that if a ship does sail from the USA that it will come on board. What then quarantine to rooms and return home. Pointless. 

 

[Traveler]

'The good news the protocol worked , 

People were allowed to disembark from the ship and so far RCL planning to have the next cruise tomorrow as planned .For sure lesson learn need to be done but I see it as good results , we have a prove that even if you find one sick person on the ship its not the end of the world.  

[Mykl]

23 minutes ago, Traveler said:

'The good news the protocol worked , 

People were allowed to disembark from the ship and so far RCL planning to have the next cruise tomorrow as planned .For sure lesson learn need to be done but I see it as good results , we have a prove that even if you find one sick person on the ship its not the end of the world.  

Actually... they have announced that the voyage scheduled to leave tomorrow has been cancelled; tentatively planning to resume on 14 Dec.

[Karl]

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-new-cases-dec-9-imported-royal-caribbean-cruise-moh-13732130

 

The gentleman has actually tested negative after coming back on land. Both his original sample abd a fresh sample tested negative. Hurray!

[JLMoran]

51 minutes ago, AndrewPunch said:

Test cruise has failed.   The question is it the protocols weren't followed or were the protocols not enough?  IMHO cruises won't start in the US till summer and require a "vaccine passport"

50 minutes ago, bretts173 said:

Protocols have been tested and hardly satisfactory in a country with virtually no covid cases. It's proven that the virus cant be kept off the ship and at the moment it would be likely that if a ship does sail from the USA that it will come on board. What then quarantine to rooms and return home. Pointless. 

 

There's a misunderstanding in both of these statements -- the protocols are not intended to keep the ship 100% virus free. That is statistically impossible to achieve, and any one / any government that thinks it is possible is deluding themselves.

The point of the protocols is to achieve the same goals as any nation working to keep the virus tightly under control. Test often and aggressively. Enforce behaviors that minimize (but again, don't eliminate) virus transmission. Take actions that minimize or eliminate crowding and that maximize air flow and other environmental factors that reduce virus spread.

The protocols did work. They achieved detection and caught that one passenger who boarded, took a test, but who happened to be recently infected and whose viral titer was still too low to be detected at that point. They achieved the critical step of contact tracing, and in record time; the tracelets allowed for extremely rapid identification of all the passengers who came in contact with that person for any protracted length of time. They achieved isolation, with the passenger and those who came in contact put into designated quarantine rooms that were isolated both in space and airflow.

The only thing about this that disappointed me is that they immediately turned around and returned to port, but this might also be a current requirement of the protocols that I missed in earlier reading. I had thought that the procedure would be to isolate the detected individuals but otherwise continue the sailing while monitoring continued, unless / until infection was found to have spread beyond the initial detection or above a certain low threshold. But maybe in these very early sailings they're operating on a super-abundance of caution (or at government requirements)

[Vancity Cruiser]

48 minutes ago, Karl said:

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-new-cases-dec-9-imported-royal-caribbean-cruise-moh-13732130

 

The gentleman has actually tested negative after coming back on land. Both his original sample abd a fresh sample tested negative. Hurray!

I am not surprised by this but you won’t hear this part of the story reported in the news.

 

most people who test positive go into isolation and end of story but where the money is (professional sports etc how many times have we seen ‘positive’ cases reported only to have retests show the person is actually negative. Same with the MSC ship earlier this year that had 6 crew test ‘positive’ only to have retests come back negative. A positive test is often false. (And yes I know negative tests could be wrong as well)

[LogicallyLazy]

With the news that the man tested negative after debarkation on 2 separate tests, I think attention now has to turn to the accuracy of the test they have on board and how they deal with false positives in the future. While false positives are inevitable in any test, considering it halts the entire cruise, I think a retest should have been done on the ship itself to see if the results repeated. Hopefully it isnt due to contamination of covid in their test devices, because the test on land showed the original sample from the patient also tested negative.

That being said, the protocols work. They aren't there to completely stop the virus on the ship, but to prevent the spread if there was a case on board. In which case, they demonstrated that they had a plan in the event of a case. Now they just need to add protocols in regards to the handling of positive results on board and the possibility of false positives.

[sk8erguy1978]

3 hours ago, monctonguy said:

I wouldn't book anything before that sails before the fall at this point!

Our sailing is in September and I was just telling a friend, we may be among the first. I do however have my fingers crossed for May / June. These companies can only bleed for so long. 

Edited December 9, 2020 by sk8erguy1978
typo

[WAAAYTOOO]

While it's great news that the potential "victim" had a false positive, I agree with @LogicallyLazythat there needs to be some mechanism in place to overturn the false positives.  Think how this disrupted the entire cruise for him and the rest of the pax...and I believe that they have cancelled the following cruise. It's really good to know that the protocols are working.  That's the victory here.  The lessons learned need to focus on how to preclude the Charlie Foxtrot that was created by the false positive.

[princevaliantus]

30 minutes ago, LogicallyLazy said:

With the news that the man tested negative after debarkation on 2 separate tests, I think attention now has to turn to the accuracy of the test they have on board and how they deal with false positives in the future. While false positives are inevitable in any test, considering it halts the entire cruise, I think a retest should have been done on the ship itself to see if the results repeated. Hopefully it isnt due to contamination of covid in their test devices, because the test on land showed the original sample from the patient also tested negative.

That being said, the protocols work. They aren't there to completely stop the virus on the ship, but to prevent the spread if there was a case on board. In which case, they demonstrated that they had a plan in the event of a case. Now they just need to add protocols in regards to the handling of positive results on board and the possibility of false positives.

Apparently, it didn't work since and neither does the protocols since the 83 year-old male Singaporean has had two follow-up tests in Singapore and both tests have come back negative.  As a follow-up, NPHL will conduct another test tomorrow to confirm the 83 year-old male Singaporean's COVID-19 status.   Rapid tests are notorious for false positives and thus the results are not 100% conclusive which leaves a lot to be desired. As such, anyone who goes on a cruise cannot be guaranteed, beyond a show of a doubt, that they will/will not be contaminated. It's a game of Russian Roulette.

[twangster]

I would think the Singaporean government would view this as a success and allow cruising to continue.  The ship followed their response plan when a case was (mistakenly) detected.  Had it been an actual case the potential for spread was reduced.  

They continue to report no new cases of domestic infections, only recording "imported" new cases from arriving international air passengers.  Most of these appear to be contract workers who can't take cruises.  Only citizens and residents are allowed to cruise, contract workers are specifically denied the opportunity to take a cruise.  

 

[Lovetocruise2002]

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/12/09/two-covid-19-retests-of-royal-caribbean-passenger-come-back-negative

[CruisinForABruisin]

Oh god, I already feel for the customer service reps when an army of angry Karen's come for their heads after their 7nt cruise gets called back to port after 1 day, and it turns out to be a false positive 

[AndrewPunch]

3 hours ago, JLMoran said:

There's a misunderstanding in both of these statements -- the protocols are not intended to keep the ship 100% virus free. That is statistically impossible to achieve, and any one / any government that thinks it is possible is deluding themselves.

The point of the protocols is to achieve the same goals as any nation working to keep the virus tightly under control. Test often and aggressively. Enforce behaviors that minimize (but again, don't eliminate) virus transmission. Take actions that minimize or eliminate crowding and that maximize air flow and other environmental factors that reduce virus spread.

The protocols did work. They achieved detection and caught that one passenger who boarded, took a test, but who happened to be recently infected and whose viral titer was still too low to be detected at that point. They achieved the critical step of contact tracing, and in record time; the tracelets allowed for extremely rapid identification of all the passengers who came in contact with that person for any protracted length of time. They achieved isolation, with the passenger and those who came in contact put into designated quarantine rooms that were isolated both in space and airflow.

The only thing about this that disappointed me is that they immediately turned around and returned to port, but this might also be a current requirement of the protocols that I missed in earlier reading. I had thought that the procedure would be to isolate the detected individuals but otherwise continue the sailing while monitoring continued, unless / until infection was found to have spread beyond the initial detection or above a certain low threshold. But maybe in these very early sailings they're operating on a super-abundance of caution (or at government requirements)

 

I disagree the protocols should allow for a cruise to complete its planned itinerary.  The prevention aspect is the most important aspect of it because the cruise will fail to deliver the promised value if one has to stay in their cabin and not have the "full" experience.  I agree the response part was well executed but thinking of these larger ships that 1 sick person turns the boat around is a risky preposition until the vaccine is widely available.  

[mattymay]

Good news on the negative result. It was kind of strange that a country with zero community transmission for quite some time would just now happen to get one on a ship. Need more accurate tests by the looks of it.

[princevaliantus]

22 minutes ago, mattymay said:

Good news on the negative result. It was kind of strange that a country with zero community transmission for quite some time would just now happen to get one on a ship. Need more accurate tests by the looks of it.

Good point!!!

[JLMoran]

6 hours ago, AndrewPunch said:

I disagree the protocols should allow for a cruise to complete its planned itinerary.  The prevention aspect is the most important aspect of it because the cruise will fail to deliver the promised value if one has to stay in their cabin and not have the "full" experience.  I agree the response part was well executed but thinking of these larger ships that 1 sick person turns the boat around is a risky preposition until the vaccine is widely available.  

See, the reason I believe the protocols should allow continuation of the cruise up to a threshold is the exact situation that happened with this case. Testing is going to have its share of false positives and false negatives. If the cruise has continued while this person and those in contact were all in isolation, the one who tested positive could have been cleared after the negative test, or at most two negative tests over consecutive days (which was generally the threshold for discharge from hospitals in the beginning of all this). Those who were in contact, as long as they continued to test negative, would also have been released from quarantine since everyone was demonstrably negative.

Overall impact to the cruise itinerary was zero. Impact to those affected by the positive test was not great but bearable; they could receive OBC or FCC or cash refund for the time confined to quarters. Impact to everyone else was zero, just continue following the protocols as before. It would drive home the benefit of every. single. person. taking these same steps every day.

And I would hope they'd see that it would benefit them not just while on board, but in regular day-to-day life when they got back home.

And wouldn't that be a great message for the cruise industry to give to the press, and the world at large?

[Mike.s]

16 hours ago, Vancity Cruiser said:

I am not surprised by this but you won’t hear this part of the story reported in the news.

 

As you stated none of the UK press who gleefully reported the case have followed up with the update of the negative retests, guess the headline sorry was a false alarm doesn't sell papers, but as per usual all the anti cruise brigade have jumped on the story 

[princevaliantus]

4 hours ago, Mike.s said:

As you stated none of the UK press who gleefully reported the case have followed up with the update of the negative retests, guess the headline sorry was a false alarm doesn't sell papers, but as per usual all the anti cruise brigade have jumped on the story 

Not fair for the cruise line who did the RIGHT thing. I would rather err on the side of caution.

[kc1968]

8 minutes ago, princevaliantus said:

Not fair for the cruise line who did the RIGHT thing. I would rather err on the side of caution.

You're Right, kudos to RCIfor doing the right thing and following safety protocols. My guess is someone bungled that test on board. 

[RWDW1204]

 

He was retested, found not positive.Covid-19 tests for passenger on a Royal Caribbean cruise in Singapore