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Interesting goings on with CLIA and the UK (global travel taskforce)


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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/09/travel-news-holiday-abroad-covid-restrictions-spain-portugal/

This is a round up of the Travel news bulletins from today in the UK... lots of cruise posts, insights and statements... International cruising likely to be up and running this summer, and testing (of health protocols) already done in Europe...the update at 3.47pm is an interesting read...

Thought fellow cruisers would like to see some positive cruise news for once... enjoy ?

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16 hours ago, em.down.the.rabbit.hole said:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/09/travel-news-holiday-abroad-covid-restrictions-spain-portugal/

This is a round up of the Travel news bulletins from today in the UK... lots of cruise posts, insights and statements... International cruising likely to be up and running this summer, and testing (of health protocols) already done in Europe...the update at 3.47pm is an interesting read...

Thought fellow cruisers would like to see some positive cruise news for once... enjoy ?

If  you could summarize for those of us outside of the UK, for whom it makes no sense to subscribe, that'd be awesome. ?

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Interesting. Needs careful examination. The UK has had great success in curbing the spread of the virus. Other EU nations have not fared nearly as well despite what I would call reasonable mitgation measures short of a lock-down like the UK implemented to stop the spread of the UK Variant. In Italy, that is what is apparently driving a sharp increase in news cases and hospitalizations. Greece is in the same boat so is Norway. Spain (Barcelona) and the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Portugal (Lisbon) seem to be holding their own. I mention these countries (cruise ports) because a relaxing of cruise travel in the UK is pretty meaningless without a similar relaxation in other countries where the cruise ship related tourism is a big part of those county's economies. A slow roll-out of vaccines is not helping. Australia, New Zealand, some of the Middle East, the US and Asia are completely separate discussions regarding if and when cruises will resume full scale in each of these countries/regions.

My concern is with a meaningful resumption of European sailings. While it's encouraging to see a sensible approach to the cruise industry from UK health authorities, unlike what we are living though with the CDC in the US, Its not time for dancing in the streets just yet. It's a start but will have very limited impact on the kind of robust cruising we all left behind over a year ago.  

   

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27 minutes ago, JeffB said:

Interesting. Needs careful examination. The UK has had great success in curbing the spread of the virus. Other EU nations have not fared nearly as well despite what I would call reasonable mitgation measures short of a lock-down like the UK implemented to stop the spread of the UK Variant. In Italy, that is what is apparently driving a sharp increase in news cases and hospitalizations. Greece is in the same boat so is Norway. Spain (Barcelona) and the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Portugal (Lisbon) seem to be holding their own. I mention these countries (cruise ports) because a relaxing of cruise travel in the UK is pretty meaningless without a similar relaxation in other countries where the cruise ship related tourism is a big part of those county's economies. A slow roll-out of vaccines is not helping. Australia, New Zealand, some of the Middle East, the US and Asia are completely separate discussions regarding if and when cruises will resume full scale in each of these countries/regions.

My concern is with a meaningful resumption of European sailings. While it's encouraging to see a sensible approach to the cruise industry from UK health authorities, unlike what we are living though with the CDC in the US, Its not time for dancing in the streets just yet. It's a start but will have very limited impact on the kind of robust cruising we all left behind over a year ago.  

   

Yep agree.  Over here in the UK there is a lot of talk in recent days about travel to other European countries...Spain is courting letting Brits in if vaccinated, Cyprus has already confirmed fully vaccinated Brits will be allowed in from May 1st.  There's others coming through, but take your point about whether we'd want to travel to these countries.

I would take a cruise to nowhere on Anthem from Southampton along as we cruise the Med for the sunny summer weather.

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A comment on the variants and vaccinated people: Everything I am reading that goes beyond the shock and awe headlines the press likes, e.g., "NEW VARIANTS INFECTING THE VACCINATED" stated as if this if scientific fact.

News Flash: It's not!

Virologists do have legit concerns about the variants. However, the consensus appears to be that the current ones (there are 4-6 depending on how you count them) are known to increase transmissibility. That is the only aspect of the variants studied enough to give weight to that conclusion. The rest you can dismiss as premature and mostly uninformed, meant to be scary click bait from the MSM. 

The 6 variants come from three original viruses in 3 lineages. That means that vaccine developers only need to deal with a limited number of tweaks to their vaccines to make them go from pretty good to very good. Those are my terms. They are vague because if I more definitively defined them, it would take me a couple of pages. Generally, there is a ton of misinformation about the vaccines; there's a ton of information on the web if you'd like to understand the differences between the main ones and why just being "65% effective" is very good and 55% effective (e.g., against the Brazilian Variant) is still pretty darn good.

The FDA bar for approval of vaccines is 50% effective; flu vaccines are 45-55% effective. The rare few that have been re-infected after vaccination by a variant have had no or mild symptoms. I think in the entire  world, there is only one person that got re-infected that was hospitalized. There have been no deaths (caveats about how countries report apply). It's becoming clearer every day that we're not goin to eliminate SARS-2; it will be controlled with sporadic outbreaks that we will be well prepared to deal with; most illness coming from being infected will be mild. Yes, vulnerable people will die from it ..... jsut like they die from being infected with influenza. Perspective. 

What impact does this have on cruising?  If cruising resumes and you are comfortable with what you will have to deal with and the health risks you are assuming by cruising/traveling, go cruising. You can talk your self out of most things if you seek endeavors that involve no risks. Whne it starts back up, don't let cruising be one of them because of what the lay press says about COVID. I think I'm preaching mostly to the choir here.

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I'm usually the bearer of good news, not bad. I had hoped, with the success the UK is having with COVID and with more accommodating governments to the plight of countries with economies that depend on cruise ship tourism, that Europe would beat the US to the punch and open its cruise ports. Probably not.

The EUC is getting pummeled for it's mismanagement of the roll-out of available vaccines to EU member states. The news today carried reports that Norway and Denmark have halted vaccinations with the AZ vaccine over fears of blood clots. I suspect this report is premature, not entirely accurate and fits the MSM's profile of publishing stuff like this. But, it's nonetheless troublesome with respect to opening European ports to cruise ships. 

When I read things reflective of public health policy among European nations I'm usually impressed but, there is still a penchant within the EU for quick retrenchment when things look like they are going down hill. In Germany, for example, there's always backlash from the states when Merkle declares a tightening of mitigation measures to respond to local outbreaks and the fear that they will spread across the country. A bit of an over-reaction IMO given the successful testing and tracking strategies that Germany's public health agencies have demonstrated in the past. The German public is as sick and tired of COVID and what many citizens now realize are unnecessary mitigation measures as we are here in the US.

Recent COVID related events however lead me to believe that cruise port openings with resumption of cruising is going to be low on the priority list of things to re-open as COVID circumstances improve - and they will. That still doesn't erase the real risk of spreading infections in congregate settings, even though these can be substantially mitigated to render them reasonably safe (fact!) if not with zero risk. What's worse are public perceptions of the dangers of cruising in the COVID circumstance, even though those perceptions can be and most are, completely without basis, will steer public health policy in the EU. We're living with that in the US. The EU is rapidly approaching the craziness of US Public Health policy that's brought cruising to a halt out of the US.

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Well I'm happy to be out of the EU tbh.

The anthem is due to have 3 two week long cruises this summer, coinciding with school holidays.  It is feasible that they can change med ports of call to Greece, Cyprus, Israel for vaccinated peeps (they are interested in looping in the UK in their existing group)...and 2 week sailings makes this feasible to cruise to from Southampton.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised to discover we have a dedicated maritime minister who is feeding into the review of international travel the UK is doing for 12th April.

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I posted last week about concerns regarding the Europe's rising COVID case numbers, excluding the UK which is not an EU member state. That concern is based on the impact on cruising from European ports, this despite the good news in the UK. 

Italy will go into full lock-down on Monday to curb rising COVID case numbers. They won't be the last EU nation to do this or at least suffer imposition of more restrictive COVID mitigation measures. Cruise ports aren't going to open up in countries we long to re-visit or visit for the first time. In fact, American ports may open before European ports even though, in general, EU member state's health authorities have been more pro-cruise tourism than our own CDC has been.

Meanwhile, at home in the US, optimism for a return to some form of normalcy by July 4th (Joe Biden's goal for Independence from COVID day) or possibly as early as May according to some experts, is a result of the stunning success of both the vaccines themselves but also the impressive roll-out of them. There's still some disorganization and lack of coordination among dispensing agencies and businesses but people who track this stuff think vaccines will be widely available by mid-April to everyone that wants one and is over 16.

The EU? Vaccine distribution disaster, predictable public health retrenchment along with the curtailment of mobility and social contact. Unless this picture changes within the next 30 days or so, I fear what optimistically looked like a return to cruising in Europe and the Med by July isn't going to happen.   

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JMO and you're going to have a better feel for this than I might em.down, but I can't see a realistic way, assuming Southampton allows cruise ships to port there, that a trip through the Straights and into warmer cruising waters, say the Balearics or even the Canary's on the West Coast of Africa, such routes without port calls can be organized and executed. It sure sounds appealing though. Thoughts?

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1 hour ago, em.down.the.rabbit.hole said:

I'd be perfectly to just cruise around the Mediterranean Sea without making land, straight out and in of Southampton.  I know a lot of Brits who'd like amenities of the Anthem and sunshine on deck, but would RCL do without Ports?

We could always call at Gibraltar, after all it's part of the UK

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Canaries and balearics ... tempting, you could come and organising uk cruising Jeff ?.

It was a over a week ago but jewel of the seas was in Southampton, and Anthem sailed through British waters and was in Le Havre port...so I think they're hovering and waiting...

Just been on Tips for Travellers YouTube channel live stream and there were people know crew on-board ships that are crewing up and preparing for June cruises (but shear rumour atm)...

Do I start to get excited yet???

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Quote

Just been on Tips for Travellers YouTube channel live stream and there were people know crew on-board ships that are crewing up and preparing for June cruises

Well, this makes sense and so it resonates with me rumor or otherwise. I believe that where there is smoke there is fire so even the rumor mill suggesting crews are "crewing up" is an encouraging sign.

I don't think there is any question that for the UK and Greece, probably Spain and Portugal as well, their governments are keen on "saving the summer holiday season in the Euro-zone. Italy was right up there cheering on a return of tourism until just recently. Politicians are pulling reluctant public health officials along behind them in this regard. I don't think that dynamic is present in the US. The public at large remains reluctant to re-engage in socialization that involves large crowds and what the CDC has defined as risky venues - like indoor dining at restaurants, people in the stands at sporting events or concerts. Fine - I'm not going to deny there is a risk of infection in any of these setting that is greater than hibernating in your basement, existing in a self imposed bubble,  until one believes there is zero risk of becoming infected with any number of viruses out there - which will never happen.  

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Spain and Begium are running under 5000 daily cases

Portugal and Norway are under 1000 daily cases

UK is closing in (down) to 5000 cases/day as perspective...

Italy, Germany, France running into 10s of thousands...

Vaccinated people being allowed to travel between borders starts to make sense and possible...

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1 hour ago, em.down.the.rabbit.hole said:

 

Vaccinated people being allowed to travel between borders starts to make sense and possible...

If as has always been mentioned both shots of vaccine are required for it to work correctly and protect us to the best of its capabilities how can we as a country ( UK ) plan International travel when most people will only have had the 1 shot come june? 

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42 minutes ago, Ray said:

If as has always been mentioned both shots of vaccine are required for it to work correctly and protect us to the best of its capabilities how can we as a country ( UK ) plan International travel when most people will only have had the 1 shot come june? 

Come June half of uk adults will have had both jabs.  I am also presuming that there will be some sort of vaccine passport as well.  Also, those travelling abroad would be the vaccinated people and social distancing/mask wearing also still required by countries with travelling corridors set up.  I think there may also be a route abroad for this with negative covid tests still (but with differenttravel corridors - you know how the government likes to keep things complicated)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm a Brit living in Belgium. I was disappointed at first to see the UK government unsurprisingly opted for UK only cruising to UK only residents this summer.

Given over 50% of EU citizens will be vaccinated fully by start of August I hope it will allow the UK gov to drop this UK only rule and also seeing cruise lines amend their offerings perhaps to go to Iceland or Norwegian fjords. 

 

 

 

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23 hours ago, Morganno said:

I'm a Brit living in Belgium. I was disappointed at first to see the UK government unsurprisingly opted for UK only cruising to UK only residents this summer.

Given over 50% of EU citizens will be vaccinated fully by start of August I hope it will allow the UK gov to drop this UK only rule and also seeing cruise lines amend their offerings perhaps to go to Iceland or Norwegian fjords. 

 

 

 

Seeing as many European Countries infection rate is currently going in the wrong direction not sure how the UK Government could have made any other decision. It's still unlikely that UK citizens will be allowed to travel to many parts of Europe for much of the summer.

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The science is solid on the risk of air travel as a means of introducing SARS2 and it's variants into countries that have obtained low levels of circulating virus. The reality is that an infected person can have a negative COVID test before boarding an aircraft because their viral load was too low to be detectible (the incubation period), then, once in country, develop mild symptoms or be asymptomatic and spread whatever it is that person is carrying. 

Public Health officials around the globe are going to hold off on green-lighting travelers coming from foreign destinations by air, sea or traveling by ground conveyance across boarders, I'm guessing, well into the fall when, it is anticipated, most countries can see a level of herd immunity that (1) is defined by low levels of circulating virus (low R values and positivity in the 3-5% range) and (2) health care facilities have returned to a pre-pandemic baseline of seriously ill patients to include those admitted with a diagnosis of COVID.

This reality is starting to soak in for me. There are simply too many obstacles for Americans who want to cruise from Europe to overcome to make that a realistic hope. There are, of course, a lot of wild cards that could change that circumstance for the good or further toward the bad, but right now cruising from Europe with port stops along the way for Americans isn't looking good.   

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6 minutes ago, JeffB said:

There are, of course, a lot of wild cards that could change that circumstance for the good or further toward the bad, but right now cruising from Europe with port stops along the way for Americans isn't looking good.   

I don't think you're wrong, especially as things stand today. However, once Europe starts getting access to the vaccine like UK and US have had, I think things will rapidly change.

We've been extremely fortunate here in US to get the lion's share of the vaccine first. 

My hope is once vaccine is readily available in many other countries, we can start to see travel barriers come down.

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17 minutes ago, Matt said:

 However, once Europe starts getting access to the vaccine like UK and US have had, I think things will rapidly change.

We've been extremely fortunate here in US to get the lion's share of the vaccine first. 

My hope is once vaccine is readily available in many other countries, we can start to see travel barriers come down.

I agree @Matt, but it is interesting to me that although EU seems to behind the US as far as vaccinations go, they seem poised to start cruising before the US. 

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3 hours ago, FManke said:

I agree @Matt, but it is interesting to me that although EU seems to behind the US as far as vaccinations go, they seem poised to start cruising before the US. 

That's the thing. Almost a contradiction in terms. We have rapidly rising case numbers in most of Europe and plenty of cruising going on out of ports there (an in Asia). Not full on cruising but it's cruising. What's more, is that I read that since large ship cruise lines have been operating on a regular basis there, there have been 19 confirmed COVID cases NINETEEN out of what is being reported as 400K passengers. That's an infection rate of 0.006%

Obviously the safe to sail protocols that are being used apparently consistently among the cruise ships that are operating are working very well. That's all well and good but it doesn't matter to government officials making public health policy. We've been down this road. We know for a fact that SARS2 is much more transmissible than influenza (I've read 4 to 8x). Based on the increased transmissibility of SARS2 v H1N1 concerns, I'm consistently reading a significant amount of worry regarding the potential downsides, from both a health and political standpoint, of greater mobility and the increased human contact that entails. Fear of stoking COVID outbreaks permeates health policy thinking. That's the fly in the ointment right now and I don't see an end to it until vaccines produce the kind of measurable declines in COVID metrics I mentioned above. 

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On 4/2/2021 at 8:22 PM, JeffB said:

That's the thing. Almost a contradiction in terms. We have rapidly rising case numbers in most of Europe and plenty of cruising going on out of ports there (an in Asia). Not full on cruising but it's cruising. What's more, is that I read that since large ship cruise lines have been operating on a regular basis there, there have been 19 confirmed COVID cases NINETEEN out of what is being reported as 400K passengers. That's an infection rate of 0.006%

Obviously the safe to sail protocols that are being used apparently consistently among the cruise ships that are operating are working very well. That's all well and good but it doesn't matter to government officials making public health policy. We've been down this road. We know for a fact that SARS2 is much more transmissible than influenza (I've read 4 to 8x). Based on the increased transmissibility of SARS2 v H1N1 concerns, I'm consistently reading a significant amount of worry regarding the potential downsides, from both a health and political standpoint, of greater mobility and the increased human contact that entails. Fear of stoking COVID outbreaks permeates health policy thinking. That's the fly in the ointment right now and I don't see an end to it until vaccines produce the kind of measurable declines in COVID metrics I mentioned above. 

I will be cruising this summer from many European locations.

Belgium will have enough vaccines to fully vaccinate 50% of the adult population by end June and that is only taking into account 1 out of 4 suppliers who can commit to supply.

 

AZ, J&J and Moderna have not yet given their supply details yet so expect this number to rise perhaps even up to 60% fully vaccinated by end June in time for summer season. I think the Cruise companies might regret moving their ships to cold and wet summer cruises in the UK. 

Not even thinking of two other vaccines about to announce vaccines in Q2, Novavax and Curavax. 

the future looks bright for European Cruises this summer with no CDC to worry about. People might be best hanging fire on UK British Isles cruises to see what's out there in the next couple of months. 

 

Like I have said before if that is Europe wide then we are talking about potentially 200 million fully vaccinated clients in the EU come July.  Cruise lines would be very foolish not to want to tap into that market. 

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15 minutes ago, Morganno said:

I will be cruising this summer from many European locations.

I hope you are right.

When things appeared to be going swimmingly in the UK and generally in Europe and European countries, especially Italy, Spain and Greece, seemed set to re-open airports and cruise ports to American citizens, I booked a Celebrity Reflection cruise out of Amsterdam with a Norwegian Fjord itinerary departing July 11th.

That was then, this is now. I was almost certain cruising would resume in Europe before it would in the US. I have cruises from PEV booked in June (not likely to happen) and August (at risk). The cruises from US ports through July and into early August are almost certainly at risk given the CDC's insistence on executing what amounts to ridiculously complex over-kill given vaccine availability that will render most of the crazy stuff they are requiring unnecessary.  I think this is what parties who have commented in the last 24h appear to be so aggravated about. 

Smokeybandit mentioned that the lawyers will be involved in these contracts the CDC is requiring between the lines and port authorities and that will induce hardships for all parties involved in this phased return. Still, I'm going to wait for a couple of weeks and see what transpires, assuming we get some details regarding progress toward completing Phase 2A from the CDC, port authorities and the major lines. The CDC talks about transparency and honesty with Americans. Fine. Show it to me in the next 2w.  

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