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It's Coming ........


JeffB

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Started this new thread topic spurred on by the news of Azamara canceling cruises through June, 2021. If I'm not mistaken, Azamara ports predominantly in locations other than the US (they list Miami as a port of call). I'm not taking much from this news because of that as I think the tendency is going to incorrectly associate Azamara COVID decision making with RCG. I think Azamara will work closely with RCL wrt health protocols but not undertaking test and restarting revenue sailings from US ports with Azamara not sailing from any of them.

Having gotten that out of the way, back to the thread title: IT'S COMING. I started to title the thread It's Happening but that wording suggests things are underway or will happen imminently. Instead,  I think .....

  • The CDC will green light test sailings from US ports by mid-May at the latest. 
  • Given a green light to start test sailing, all the majors will slowly restart revenue sailings during the first week in June in combination with additional test sailings. Each ship is required to do these to obtain technical certification from the CDC before each ship is allowed to embark passengers.
  • Initial itineraries will launch from a select number of ports in FL and TX - that's because (1) These states are politically more liberal wrt mitigation measures and lifting them. (2) Governor Desantis in FL has already said his state is ready to welcome back the cruise lines to ports in Fort-Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa and Orlando.
  • The first region to have cruise ships sail within it will be the Caribbean Basin.
  • Three and four day cruises to no where or just as likely to private islands will predominate until the cruise lines work out details with countries that have cruise ports within the Caribbean basin to include Mexico. When that is achieved we'll begin seeing 7d and ultimately longer itineraries but still in the Caribbean.   
  • Australian, Asian and European itineraries with US citizens on board are less certain in my mind and that is because of the perception by health authorities there that US travelers are higher risk for disease spread than EU or Asian citizens. As for Australia and New Zealand, I doubt cruising will resume from there anytime soon. The UK could be an exception. Land based tours and river cruises in the EU and Asia will happen before mega cruise ships carrying US passengers return to the major foreign ports - maybe smaller ships carrying under 1000 passengers by June/July 2021. September is a more likely time frame for the aforementioned regions, not including Australia and New Zealand, for large ship cruising to resume there. 

 What do I base this on? To be clear, other than my medical background and the amount of time I spend researching and reading COVID related medical literature, I have no special insight. I have a re-opening bias and have since February of 2020. I was stupendously wrong about the length and social, economic impact of SARS-2 but I attribute some of the damage done to certainly politics and just as importantly to overreacting to the virus when it hit the US. US public health authorities used the proverbial sledge instead of scalpel.  Rather than scientific facts driving public health policy, fear and a "do something" mentality prevailed and a lot of "something" at the local level was flat-out wrong and unnecessary. . There's room for debate here and I acknowledge that but barring unnecessary overreacting and politics, IMO, the US could have avoided a lot of COVID deaths, got kids back in school and avoided the shuttering - social and economic - that did take place.

You have to be hiding under a rock to not have heard that the introduction of vaccines to what should be the primo target population - over 65 - has dramatically lowered all three standard measures of COVID disease burden - death, hospitalizations AND, surprisingly, new infection absolute numbers and rates of infection (R0).  If one is strictly following the emerging scientific data, vaccinated people should be granted increased mobility and be subject to less stringent mitigation measures. In a mixed group of vaccinated and unvaccinated people, sensible, layered mitigation measures (limited access - to include negative RAPID testing for entry, capacity control, distancing and masking) will keep everyone safe by reducing risk, not to zero - as it can't be - but good enough...... the later being particularly applicable to the cruise industry.

I'm 50/50 on a vaccine mandate to cruise (or travel for that matter) for a lot of different reasons.  But you can bet someone at RCL has asked how many bookings do we have for over 65s and what is the estimate of how many of those have been vaccinated? Can we cruise and make money with just that population?

Given my optimistic bias take all of this FWIW. I'm also, admittedly, reading between the lines of recent cruise talk from cruise line executives to knowledgeable cruisers. For example, the Biden administration and it's two main public health spokes persons (Fauci and Walenski -CDC) are purposely articulating easy to reach COVID goals for political purposes. You have to believe these people have a much clearer understanding of a likely return to some level of post-COVID normalcy than they are letting on and will spring it on the electorate pronouncing a job well done, exceeding all the goals and beyond expectations by the present administration and President Joe Biden. Or, take for example, Fain .....  "we should be getting technical guidance from the CDC any day now" or, this ...... at least in the case of RCL, shoring up the company financial ship to, IMO, secure a viable approach -  insuring the cash is at hand to return ships from warm storage and assemble/train crews, all on short notice.

It's coming. Check back with me in 60d to see how wrong or right I might have been with this post.

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....... an additional comment as my initial post took an over 65 view of matters. It's important to understand that EVERYONE benefits from a vaccination priority system that vaccinates the 65 and up US population. The cohort from 65 and up has produced 77% of COVID related serious illness and deaths. That's not to say that there haven't been under 65s who have suffered. There have been, and not just a few. But to simultaneously reduce SARS-2 disease burden and control the virus (R0 < 1 on a regional or by state basis or, % positivity < 5% by county) requires initially vaccinating the over 65 population when supplies are limited like they are now. With regard to "best bang for the buck" this is the right strategy and it is paying off handsomely in reduced hospitalizations and deaths - big time.

Related to vaccination priorities is the news in the last two days that a large increase in doses from Pfizer and Moderna can be expected in the next 2 weeks. We're talking a plus up in the multi-millions of additional shots. Next, J&J got approval from the FDA today - as promised as the go/no go date by the FDA - for emergency use of their one shot vaccine. Those won't get to arms until late March.

Side note: ignore the MSM's reports that the J&J vaccine isn't as "strong" as the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines ..... bull hockey. It will work just as well and just as dramatically as the two mRNA vaccines and are much easier to transport, store and administer. Moreover, it is impossible to compare vaccine efficacy product to product because testing protocols and reporting requirements were different for each of them.

Bottom line, if you are offered a vaccine, no matter which one, take it. If you are onboard the anti-vax ship to start, I can almost guarantee you, like Israeli public health officials are messaging to their citizens, "you'll be left behind." You're going to continue to be mostly homebound as far as travel goes if there is wide introduction of "vaccine passports." Over the next 2 months the availability of the vaccine for under 65s is going to expand exponentially. Don't not take it because you might think you really don't need it or have concerns about safety or side effects. First, the benefits far outweigh the risk (except for a few exceptions due to allergies) and second, yes, you do need it if we are going to reach herd immunity and all of us are able to return to a post-COVID normalcy that includes cruising. 

   

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20 hours ago, JeffB said:

  

  • Australian, Asian and European itineraries with US citizens on board are less certain in my mind and that is because of the perception by health authorities there that US travelers are higher risk for disease spread than EU or Asian citizens. As for Australia and New Zealand, I doubt cruising will resume from there anytime soon. The UK could be an exception. Land based tours and river cruises in the EU and Asia will happen before mega cruise ships carrying US passengers return to the major foreign ports - maybe smaller ships carrying under 1000 passengers by June/July 2021. September is a more likely time frame for the aforementioned regions, not including Australia and New Zealand, for large ship cruising to resume there. 

 

This one is tough, because just be shear numbers, it's safe to assume just about any moderately sized cruise is going to have at least some American citizens on it. And, interestingly enough, after the huge spike in US cases right at the start of 2021, the number of new cases between the US and EU really aren't all that different now - https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=gbr&areas=prt&areas=irl&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=ussd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths

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23 hours ago, JeffB said:

 

  • Australian, Asian and European itineraries with US citizens on board are less certain in my mind and that is because of the perception by health authorities there that US travelers are higher risk for disease spread than EU or Asian citizens. 

100% correct....this is why the US is red and those entering the UK from the US must self isolate in a designated hotel room without leaving for 10 days at a cost over roughly £1200...

Oooops my mistake 

US isnt red!! Its not on the banned list 

Anyone coming in from there doesnt have to do as was mentioned..

Now if your coming from Portugal which is EU or UAE which is Asia then yeah you are seen as higher risk than someone from Florida or new york etc so US citizens are NOT seen as higher risk. 

Ps river cruises have already started in germany as has been reported a while back 

With regards EU both germany and france are looking at going into another lockdown. 

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Would want to watch when crew movements start.   Guessing a setback of at least 30 - 60 days of from a sail date.  So May sailing could imply crew notifications in March.   Maybe look for that 2 month sliding window.   If anyone has insights into provisioning suppliers at major ports, knowing when purchase orders start trickling in would be another observable.  But crew watching might be the easiest to get insight though watching crew blogs.  

To amend comment:  also as certain cruise lines will require crew vaccinations, there should be a fair amount of chatter  about when that starts.   

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I see that SMS International has job posting for port agents at a couple Florida ports.  Like Intercruises they are a 3rd party that employee the terminal workers who do check in and manage guest flow through the terminals.  Some of those posting are ~ 30 days old so they might just be collecting resumes at the moment.  

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On 2/25/2021 at 6:30 AM, JeffB said:

 

  • Australian, Asian and European itineraries with US citizens on board are less certain in my mind and that is because of the perception by health authorities there that US travelers are higher risk for disease spread than EU or Asian citizens. As for Australia and New Zealand, I doubt cruising will resume from there anytime soon. The UK could be an exception. Land based tours and river cruises in the EU and Asia will happen before mega cruise ships carrying US passengers return to the major foreign ports - maybe smaller ships carrying under 1000 passengers by June/July 2021. September is a more likely time frame for the aforementioned regions, not including Australia and New Zealand, for large ship cruising to resume there. 

 

P&O (the local cruise line) are planning a June restart. We'll know in few weeks if the cruise ban due to expire 17-March is extended or not. I think they already know something and that the ban will be lifted in June, because why cancel until 19-June if the ban was going to expire 17-March? Doesn't make sense. 

Obviously if it does resume, it will be within Australia itineraries, and only Australian citizens. No one can get in anyway, so that is kind of irrelevant to begin with.

Royal aren't due do have any ships here until end October even without COVID in the picture, that's just the normal schedule. Vaccine rollout will be completed by then. They have already modified the 21-22 season to have less cruises visiting foreign ports.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, monctonguy said:

Astra-Zeneca just approved for use here in Canada...so that's our 3 approved vaccine....good news.

 

On the flip side....we have vaccinated only 1.7 million ppl since Dec15ish......so a very very slow process here......

It's fantastic news!

Not sure what it looks like on the East Coast, but here in Ontario the pace is picking up.  There is some light at the end of the tunnel.  There is one health unit that I know of in Ontario that has already started to vaccinated the general public seniors 80+.  So not as fast as the US, but definitely the pace is picking up.  With the Astra Zeneca news, that pace can only pick up, God willing.  Before AZ was approved, we (teachers) were slotted for May 1.  I am hoping that moves ahead.  Definitely going in the right direction finally.

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3 hours ago, monctonguy said:

Astra-Zeneca just approved for use here in Canada...so that's our 3 approved vaccine....good news.

 

On the flip side....we have vaccinated only 1.7 million ppl since Dec15ish......so a very very slow process here......

We're up to 70 million jabs here in the US as of Feb. 25, and we're jabbing about 2 million...a day.

Edited by emmef
update from CDC numbers
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On 2/24/2021 at 3:47 PM, JeffB said:

ottom line, if you are offered a vaccine, no matter which one, take it. If you are onboard the anti-vax ship to start, I can almost guarantee you, like Israeli public health officials are messaging to their citizens, "you'll be left behind." You're going to continue to be mostly homebound as far as travel goes if there is wide introduction of "vaccine passports." Over the next 2 months the availability of the vaccine for under 65s is going to expand exponentially. Don't not take it because you might think you really don't need it or have concerns about safety or side effects. First, the benefits far outweigh the risk (except for a few exceptions due to allergies) and second, yes, you do need it if we are going to reach herd immunity and all of us are able to return to a post-COVID normalcy that includes cruising. 

I'm 48 and my wife is 49.  Both of us fall into the "essential worker" tier in Illinois.. I haven't gotten a flu shot in almost 25 years... We both got our first dose of the Pfizer Vaccine Tuesday.. 

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1 hour ago, RickinSTL said:

I'm 48 and my wife is 49.  Both of us fall into the "essential worker" tier in Illinois.. I haven't gotten a flu shot in almost 25 years... We both got our first dose of the Pfizer Vaccine Tuesday.. 

Nice.  Got my second dose last Friday.  Lets just say plan to do nothing for a couple days after.  Headache was rough the first day about 2 hours after the shot.  Lymph nodes swelled as well and some nausea.  Second day was fever and headache with joint and muscle ache and chills.  I held off as long as I could before taking tylenol not wanting to interfere with the vaccine.  Third day was more of the same but much less, took tylenol that morning and was good after that.  Only other thing I noticed was being tired but having a hard time sleeping.

I am 41 and pretty good immune system, rarely get sick.  Neighbor of mine is older and had a headache and arm ache from the first one and second was about the same.  I am just glad I planned for down time as I honestly was in bed a good portion of the two days afterwards.

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Well, today's messaging from Fauci and Walensky is anything but encouraging or words that might lead to local officials easing restrictions or the CDC greenlighting cruising.  In fact, quite the opposite and, IMO, intended. According to these now public faces of the Biden administration's COVID experts, the rate of decline in new infections is slowing so, don't break out the Champaign just yet ..... or worse, don't start relaxing mitigation measures or letting the cruise industry get back to producing billions in global economic activity.

Here's the basis of that. Epidemiologist think that the UK variant is going to become the dominant strain in the US. It has risen from 1% of new cases to 10% here. The UK variant is more transmissible because it spends more time in the human host compared to the original strain (13d v. 8d). Ostensibly, that leads to one person infecting more people that they come in contact with, IOW R(0) rises. So, R(0) must be rising, right? Is R(0) rising?

I track three sources of data that are the basis for R(0) - the most reliable measure of trends in circulating virus; when it's below 1.0 it can be present but it is not increasing in sero-prevalence (% positivity). All of them are in agreement: the presence of the virus is declining*. There may be local increases but these are few and far between. Check your state here:

https://epiforecasts.io/covid/posts/...united-states/

* This data is collated and presented at this website on a weekly basis and is current as of 02/20/2021. The CDC does not get anymore accurate data than what the states report and they will report week-ending data for 02/26/21 tomorrow. Wslenski is shamefully premature and probably wrong in suggesting that circulating virus "could be" on the rise.

Are deaths and hospitalizations rising? Nope...... and these two metrics are the best and most important measures of COVID disease burden.

https://covidtracking.com/analysis-u...19-data-feb-25

So, what is this, people? If I can go out and show that today's statements made by Fauci and Walensky are at best premature and at the worst, blatantly wrong and misleading how much confidence should Americans have in what they're selling? Is there any doubt why people are still scarred and won't go out? Why the CDC is holding out on allowing cruises to operate from US ports causing billions in losses to this industry? Any doubt why we will continue to have these unnecessary measures being foisted on us by local officials? To bring that point home, an article popped up in my local Sun Sentinel around 2p today. The author interviewed a handful of vaccinated people in S FL asking them if their behavior was going to change after they got vaccinated and as more Floridians got their shots? Everyone of them said they were still concerned about getting COVID and still wouldn't go out or socialize much ...... face palm follows. Once people buy into how they should behave, it is really hard to change that unless and of course you aren't following this advice like sheep.

 

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What I just said ..... stop worrying about extremely unlikely COVID risks. This is a Bloomberg opinion piece that's paywalled but is free content here:

https://tylerpaper.com/ap/commentary...88d89ab63.html
 
Props to Matt's mention of the July 2020 study that showed cruise ships were pretty safe places to be. That study got absolutely ignored in the rush to hammer and scapegoat the cruise industry. So wrong!
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Back on the positive side: got my 1st jab of the Pfizer yesterday.  Feeling a little run down, achy and a headache, but given my autoimmune disorder, it's actually a far better outcome than I expected.  I was shocked how well organized and seamless the whole thing was once I got the appointment.  It was given in a "mega site" in Edison, NJ.  The administrative/registration end was run by the National Guard while Robert Wood Johnson medical staff did the vaccinating and post vax observation.  It was 11 minutes from door to needle.  I literally spent more time in observation (15 minutes) than I did waiting and taking care of paperwork.  Knocking on every piece of wood within reach, but it seems like they're starting to get the system down pat up here! ? 

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56 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

The 911 center is still being told we won't get them until May.  Cuz, really, who needs anyone to answer 911?

Hoping to be a beacon of hope: my original appointment date was April 16th until I got a text on Sunday that there were appointments available this week for me. ?

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According to reports in the UK the new strain found in New York is the one to watch. 

So US reports are saying UK strain is the worst and UK reports are saying its the New York one!!!

So each is accusing the other of having the worst strain, guess this is one title no one wants to win lol

The only fact that matters is the fact there are now vacccines out there and most sensible people are getting them. Are they going to be 100% successful? Not a chance!! I mean the flu jab isnt 100% , we just need to try and focus on each day without thinking to far into the future because everything could change again in months to come

 

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15 hours ago, JeffB said:
What I just said ..... stop worrying about extremely unlikely COVID risks. This is a Bloomberg opinion piece that's paywalled but is free content here:

https://tylerpaper.com/ap/commentary...88d89ab63.html
 
Props to Matt's mention of the July 2020 study that showed cruise ships were pretty safe places to be. That study got absolutely ignored in the rush to hammer and scapegoat the cruise industry. So wrong!

I'm sorry your use of facts to debunk the official narrative is clearly not kosher in some way. ? Keep it up !

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As far as the news reports go on which one is worse and if an existing vaccine works... well throw reading or watching them in the trash. Simply put the news is about ratings and big scary headlines makes most people interested in them. I can barely stand to watch the local weather with the oversensationalization and living in tornado alley is something you have to do sometimes.  That and I feel like I need to get tickets to all the "events" that seem to be popping up. 

 

Save yourself a major headache and an ulcer and watch and read less news about current events that are major headlines. 

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On 2/27/2021 at 5:30 AM, mattymay said:

What about the Californian devil strain? 

image.thumb.png.43515234a8f0b7326a3caa52564e622e.png

Not sure if this is tongue in cheek or a serious question. I'm going with the later .......

This stuff is interesting tm me, may not be to others but I post it here mainly because there is so much misinformation about the SARS-2 variants, what they actually are, whether vaccines will be compromised by their appearance or whether or not they evade detection and produce more serious symptoms. The authors of the article where this chart appeared, along with being frankly honest about the risks a handful of variants present to controlling the virus, is that a mutation process known as "convergent evolution" dictates that more worrisome SARS-2 variants will be few instead of many. In practical terms it means that variants found in South Africa may be of the same lineage than those found in Brazil. The implication is that vaccines can be tweaked to handle just a few lineages containing multiple variants and will work fine against all of them. Something I took from this chart is that out of the hundreds of variants (not all of them are shown here) only 6 of them are of concern to scientists studying them and 1/2 of these come from the same lineage.

Click image for larger version  Name: Genome.JPG Views: 15 Size: 87.6 KB ID: 1730181

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Obviously good news on the vaccine front today.  After what seems like the 15th approval in a long list of news of, "it's approved", the J&J vaccine will begin distribution from manufacturing sites tomorrow. 

  • It's a one shot vaccine with trials underway to determine if two shots of it are better. Trials are also underway for teens.
  • It's a "cold virus analog" carrying the SARS-2 spike protein that stimulates a protective immune system response.
  • This, unlike the mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, is a prototypical vaccine similar to AZ's and both the Russian and Chinese versions or your annual flu shot.
  • The biggest advantage is that it can be stored in a fridge for up to 60d.
  • Side effects are comparable to the Pfizer and Moderna shots - arm soreness, flu like symptoms.
  • It's considered 85% effective in preventing serious disease and death v. all 6 of the troublesome variants that I posted about above.
  • It's 66% effective when moderate disease is included - the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines never included moderate disease in their trials.
  • Comparing the effectiveness of the 3 isn't possible due to trial designs.
  • Don't refuse one to wait for another you think is better. Take whatever is available as soon as it becomes available to you.
  • 20M doses immediately available for distribution, 100M "by summer."

If I've got this right, the US will have enough vaccines distributed by the end of May to have inoculated everyone over 18 who accepts it.
When herd immunity is reached depends on the rate of vaccine acceptance. Obviously, the more people that refuse the vaccine for non-medical reasons, the later herd immunity will be reached. Anywhere close to 60% gets us there by the end of April.

But still we have this pessimistic messaging that I've derided elsewhere:

“This is exciting news for all Americans, and an encouraging development in our efforts to bring an end to the crisis,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “But I want to be clear: this fight is far from over,” he added, encouraging people to stick with masks and other public health measures.

Look, I'm not a virologist, an epidemiologist or an expert on this but everything I read, you know, the scientific facts, tells me that providing pessimistic messaging like this is counterproductive and encourages and continues the fear factor that is keeping people tethered to their homes and avoiding social contact while public health officials refuse to ease mitigation measures.

FACT:

  • You can't get COVID from touching a surface yet we persist with this sanitizing of surfaces in public venues.
  • The risk of getting COVID outside, even in congregate settings, is lower than being involved in a serious car crash with injuries.
  • Do we stop driving? Nope.
  • Are there places where COVID mitigation measures include no public gatherings of more than X number of people and masking outdoors? Yes, a lot of places.
  • In a gathering of vaccinated people, no one needs to mask or distance yet, in FL, because of the kind of messaging coming from Biden among others, fully vaccinated retirees living in community settings, won't play cards, dance or gather with each other.
  • In their "golden years" they are sacrificing what is most important for their mental health, face-to-face socialization. Ridiculous.

I'm more reluctant to discard masking and distancing for the unvaccinated under 65 crowd when out and about although I can make a case for that based on risk/benefit analysis. It's not because I think increased disease burden in the US will occur in this population. It won't. I do think the potential for increasing new cases and positivity counts is real. There was an article yesterday at the Points Guy website that said, "the one number to watch for the restart of cruising is (absolute) case numbers. I'll get to why that's wrong in a subsequent post.

 Of course, people in the under 65 age cohort will mostly be asymptomatic or have a cold. But, if this population pursues testing and because of it case numbers rise there's a problem with that. The problem is that public perceptions and how PH officials view this will harden, e.g., the CDC won't green light cruising from US ports. The MSM will augment the fear factor by reporting the rising case numbers as a new wave of the virus - the fifth!

An increase in case numbers/positivity (sero-prevalence) will prompt a refusal to ease mitigation measures, mobility restrictions and restrictions to congregate settings. People will continue to needlessly stay home, won't shop, won't eat out, won't socialize, won't gather responsibly. Stoking the fear factor will increase pressure from the public to keep unnecessary mitigation measures in place - and for Pete's sake, don't let cruise ships operate. Everyone will nod their heads in agreement. 

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