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Testing onboard is working. 2 Passengers on CelebrityMillennium test positive.


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1 hour ago, UNCFanatik said:

There is no way to stop Covid from being on cruise ships, vaccinated passengers or not. Just like everywhere else. Zero Covid should not be the goal

Exactly! Just as there is not way to stop a cold from being on cruise ships. And yes, zero Covid cannot be the goal as it is an unattainable goal. 

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53 minutes ago, CruiseGus said:

seeing nothing of a major new story on this yet, not even a slight mention run on my TV news ticker this morning, where the less important stories go.

Barely a mention on the 3 industry new sites i look at from time to time.

I can tell you it's all over my social media (I tend to find myself in the same places as millennial liberals... only mentioning the politics of it because of how "curated" the internet experience is now based on who the tech companies think you are).

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This is what is really important:

New cases on May 12 in the USA were 35,484. On June 10, 11,882.

And the world as a whole, cases have decreased almost 50% over the same time period. 

The cruise industry has a great plan in place when a case pops up. But saying that, I do feel that we are doing way too much testing. If you test every person who is coming on a ship or even leaving a ship you are eventually going to find a case or two.

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50 minutes ago, CruiseGus said:

all unknown at this time.  Time will tell, expected to see this as a major new story this morning but not really anything yet around here.

the best article i have seen on it yet

https://thepointsguy.com/news/celebrity-millennium-cruise-ship-covid/

 

Only seen a few US (CNN, FOX, Washington Post and CDN (Global website) news reports this morning.

Wait until all the negative cruise bashers get wind of it!

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2 hours ago, Craig 01020 said:

It's possible for vaccinated people to contract the virus, but it's also possible to fake vaccination cards if you're not vaccinated.

I don't think that is the case here, I don't think we are dealing with people who presented a fake vaccination card. 

But this does bring up an interesting point vaccinated individuals can contract covid but I believe the science stated they can't spread covid which is good news for a cruise ship. The issue we could see once cruising resumes out of US ports are unvaccinated individuals who leave the US negative for COVID, disembark the ship at one or two ports of call, come into contact with a person with covid while not taking all proper precautions then bringing covid back on the ship.  The major difference between US, European cruises and Singapore cruises is Singapore cruises are to no where therefore there is little to no chance of covid ever enter the ship if it isn't brought onboard during embarkation day.  Whereas both here in the US/Caribbean and in Europe you are visiting several ports of call and with cruises relaxing the rules and allowing any and all passengers to disembark like we normally would before covid there is a chance covid could be brought back onboard the ship.

Since vaccines will no longer be required the only way to stop any outbreak onboard a ship is by testing all passengers at some point during the voyage, and that is what cruise lines are trying to do they know covid at some point will come onboard a vessel but what they can not have are any more covid outbreaks even though the original outbreaks were not the fault of any cruise line.  

People keep saying the protocols are working, well the only way for covid protocols to work is for a cruise ship to identify covid positive passengers early and isolate those passengers.  The only way to identify and initiate covid protocols this is through testing, because there is a chance covid will be brought back onboard a cruise ship at one or more port of call.  If Celebrity has not tested the guests (even though the test was for guest to return home) we would have never know about these two passengers.  However, just because we would not have known does not mean covid isn't on board the ship.  Since we are not going to require vaccines ( and I'm 100% okay with that decision) we then have to accept the fact that testing must, must be performed while onboard the ship especially if the ship is stopping at multiple ports where all passengers are allowed to disembark and explore the islands on their own.  

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29 minutes ago, ChrisK2793 said:


I’m curious what will happen if somebody’s fully vaccinated, had Covid previously, and tests positive on the the cruise.  It would obviously have to be a false positive ….. I wonder what would happen to them in that case?

 

 

1 hour ago, UNCFanatik said:

Too bad there will be collateral damage done with the false positives that are sure to come. 

Can you imagine being vaccinated and having to take covid test and its a false positive and your cruise is disrupted or worse, you are just left at a port? 

I know some will say thats the risk one runs when taking a cruise during these uncertain times but still...

 

These are definitely my biggest concerns for November, it's my husband's luck that this would happen to us. It's not nearly enough of a concern to cancel but it's in the back of the worry part of my brain!

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21 minutes ago, JasonOasis said:

People keep saying the protocols are working, well the only way for covid protocols to work is for a cruise ship to identify covid positive passengers early and isolate those passengers.  

Another alternative is to reject the premise of the game altogether, which in my view is what needs to happen for us to return to normal (on or off of a cruise ship).

Even if you don't realize it, you are buying into the CDC's idea that managing COVID must be premised on a zero COVID strategy. How different would our mitigation measures look if we could get public health officials to acknowledge publicly what they are already planning for privately: COVID is endemic. 

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57 minutes ago, ChrisK2793 said:


I’m curious what will happen if somebody’s fully vaccinated, had Covid previously, and tests positive on the the cruise.  It would obviously have to be a false positive ….. I wonder what would happen to them in that case?

 

From my understanding even with vaccination and antibodies if tested at exactly the right time after exposure to a big viral load of COVID (perhaps at one of the ports?), one could test positive before the immune system kicked in to quell it.  Not technically a false positive, but doesn't mean they were infected or infectious.  But they would be treated as if they were and quarantined and subject to future testing.   Seems like that's what the Celebrity protocols are doing here and if no one else ends up testing positive then they would have effectively worked.

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15 minutes ago, LovetoCruise87 said:

Does anyone know if the tests were antibody tests?

I believe that if you had the virus, and were asymptomatic, and got the vaccine, antibody tests could show that you at one time had the virus due to the antibodies showing up. Thus giving a false positive.

I would imagine the tests are the RAPID antigen (viral protein) tests, rather than antibody. Assuming they were, there is still a chance for false positive compared to an RT-PCR test; but, I can confirm from personal experience that even if you were very recently vaccinated and therefore full of spike proteins (which I believe is the antigen being tested for), it does not generate a false positive. I had to get a RAPID and RT-PCR test at the same time ahead of my last surgery, and I had received my second vaccination shot just a week prior. Both tests came back negative.

As The Washington Post article linked by the OP notes, there are expected to be some measure of "breakthrough" cases in vaccinated people, which includes infection by one of the variants that the vaccines don't completely protect against. The two who tested positive clearly hit that low-chance lottery.

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16 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

As The Washington Post article linked by the OP notes, there are expected to be some measure of "breakthrough" cases in vaccinated people, which includes infection by one of the variants that the vaccines don't completely protect against. The two who tested positive clearly hit that low-chance lottery.

And that is a lottery I have absolutely no desire of winning, therefore I will not buy any tickets!

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3 hours ago, CruiseGus said:

seeing nothing of a major new story on this yet, not even a slight mention run on my TV news ticker this morning, where the less important stories go.

Barely a mention on the 3 industry new sites i look at from time to time.

Didn’t have time to stay and watch the story, but Good Morning America ran it at the top of the show and referred to it as “chaos”. ?‍♂️

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I think this brings up a BIG problem with vaccinated cruises. Obviously by requiring vaccination, you are excluding a large portion of the potential customers already. Now, with positive cases happening on a fully vaccinated cruise, will fully vaccinated cruisers be willing to take the risk of having their vacation abruptly ended due to what's either a false positive, or a correct positive? Even if they are indeed COVID positive, the fact that everyone else on that ship is fully vaccinated means that COVID will not spread based on the evidence we know now. So what does kicking people off the ship accomplish, aside from a PR perspective? I would think from a PR perspective that there are some vaccinated people who would choose not to cruise due to the chance of something like this happening.

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15 minutes ago, nate91 said:

I think this brings up a BIG problem with vaccinated cruises. Obviously by requiring vaccination, you are excluding a large portion of the potential customers already. Now, with positive cases happening on a fully vaccinated cruise, will fully vaccinated cruisers be willing to take the risk of having their vacation abruptly ended due to what's either a false positive, or a correct positive? Even if they are indeed COVID positive, the fact that everyone else on that ship is fully vaccinated means that COVID will not spread based on the evidence we know now. So what does kicking people off the ship accomplish, aside from a PR perspective? I would think from a PR perspective that there are some vaccinated people who would choose not to cruise due to the chance of something like this happening.

It's a good question. Honestly. Also, can we not forget to include other communicable highly contagious diseases that are a threat to interrupting a cruise vacation. The media as always will love to get a hold of and completely BLOW OUT OF proportion one of those as well. I can see the headline now "Covid not the only threat to the newly restarted Cruise industry...old foes such as NORO rear their ugly heads on the at sea petri dishes". Enter CDC. (End Scene 1). 

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19 minutes ago, Biff215 said:

Didn’t have time to stay and watch the story, but Good Morning America ran it at the top of the show and referred to it as “chaos”. ?‍♂️

 GMA says 'chaos'... everyone remotely interested in the cruising world looking for said chaos...Travolta GIF by memecandy

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33 minutes ago, CruiseRoyalDad said:

Hey Matt, do we know what they did with the passengers that test positive until safe return to shore? 

They announced on the ship that the patients were moved to isolation rooms.

According to my room steward, all of the people who were in contact have been tested negative and released.

There's been no further announcements on the ship about the status of the two patient's 

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15 minutes ago, steverk said:

They announced on the ship that the patients were moved to isolation rooms.

According to my room steward, all of the people who were in contact have been tested negative and released.

There's been no further announcements on the ship about the status of the two patient's 

Again, the protocols were put in place for just this reason, and they are working.

The Healthy Sail Panel have done a great job in putting this together.

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34 minutes ago, Biff215 said:

Didn’t have time to stay and watch the story, but Good Morning America ran it at the top of the show and referred to it as “chaos”. ?‍♂️

"Chaos" hmmmm. I'm on the ship and my description would be "normal" while everyone tries to avoid the elephant in the room.

Other than the crew, I've only seen one person wearing a mask.

There's so few people on the ship that it's hard to tell if some people are hiding in their rooms, but I do find people out  and about.

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5 hours ago, FionaMG said:

Excellent article about it by a TPG writer who is on board here: https://thepointsguy.com/news/celebrity-millennium-cruise-ship-covid/

Good write up by someone on the scene. It gives pretty good insight on what happened and how its being handled. It all sounds pretty straight forward and logical to me with no finger pointing or wouda/shouda/couda. It is what cruises can probably expect in the short term. Who knows in 6 months or a year from now other than it probably will not be the same.

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16 minutes ago, LovetoCruise87 said:

Again, the protocols were put in place for just this reason, and they are working.

The Healthy Sail Panel have done a great job in putting this together.

We can certainly say the protocols are being followed.  Now we find out if they work.

And, yes, they did a great job putting the protocols together. If I didn't think they would work, I wouldn't have taken this cruise 

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44 minutes ago, steverk said:

I'm not surprised GMA did a report on the ship.  They have a crew on board. They must know chaos is not an accurate description,  but they probably wrote that headline weeks ago. 

We like GMA but they are always overly dramatic, particularly at the top of the show. Gotta convince people to keep watching I guess. 

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19 minutes ago, Louvanh said:

ABC news reporting two guests are remaining in St. Maarten until negative but what an atmosphere just waiting for next positive or the anxiety of being seated near the two for past 4 days. What a great time. 

I agree it would be very disconcerting to have been in close contact. I'm on board now. Since we don't know who it was, we can only trust celebrity's contact tracing to tell us.

Most people on board are taking it in stride and enjoying the sea day.

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3 hours ago, nate91 said:

I think this brings up a BIG problem with vaccinated cruises. Obviously by requiring vaccination, you are excluding a large portion of the potential customers already. Now, with positive cases happening on a fully vaccinated cruise, will fully vaccinated cruisers be willing to take the risk of having their vacation abruptly ended due to what's either a false positive, or a correct positive? Even if they are indeed COVID positive, the fact that everyone else on that ship is fully vaccinated means that COVID will not spread based on the evidence we know now. So what does kicking people off the ship accomplish, aside from a PR perspective? I would think from a PR perspective that there are some vaccinated people who would choose not to cruise due to the chance of something like this happening.

Yes - but having unvaccinated people on board doesn't make the outcome better.   It exacerbates the issue.   At least if people are vaccinated the chance of them becoming critically ill or dying are almost zero.   The chance of passing it on are less if you're vaccinated - so if I were a cruise line I would be doing every single thing I could to ensure the safety of my crew and passengers, not less.   For now.   Not forever.

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7 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

Same for unvaccinated people

Truth. - but it certainly lessens the chances in vulnerable populations, which is why we typically vaccinate for chicken pox, measles, meningitis, rubella, etc.   Very few people die of measles, but it is insanely communicable and certainly makes for an uncomfortable journey as your body fights the virus.  Similar with covid, no?

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5 hours ago, ChrisK2793 said:


I’m curious what will happen if somebody’s fully vaccinated, had Covid previously, and tests positive on the the cruise.  It would obviously have to be a false positive ….. I wonder what would happen to them in that case?

 

Not necessarily true... you can have COVID more than once (in rare cases) and with the variants of COVID that exist, including the more contagious variant "Delta" now found in 6% of new cases and causing a surge in cases in the UK, those odds increase.  Depending on which vaccine you had, they are only protective 60%-88% of the time for this Delta variant.  This is why there will likely need to be a booster shots similar to seasonal flu shots.

Bottom line is that the protocols are working and that is the take home message for everyone to have confidence in cruising.  ? I know I have confidence to cruise in August on my Allure sailing!  

Taken from RC website, if you test positive at least you get a refund and they arrange and pay for you to quarantine and get home:

+++++++++++++++

What costs are covered in case I test positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the cruise?
A  If a guest who followed our protocols tests positive during his/her cruise and is required to quarantine onboard, is removed from the ship mid-cruise or denied reboarding as a result, the impacted guest will receive a full refund. Additionally, Royal Caribbean will cover the cost of onboard medical treatment and any required land-based quarantine for that guest, and will arrange and pay any additional costs incurred by the guests for safe travel home.
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3 hours ago, Biff215 said:

Didn’t have time to stay and watch the story, but Good Morning America ran it at the top of the show and referred to it as “chaos”. ?‍♂️

I did watch it even recorded the episode for wife to see when she come home.  Yes the headline,2 second coming later said "Chaos" but when Gio Benitez filed his report he was talking about how this was how it was supposed to work, they were immediately isolated, they did say that medical experts say breakthrough cases are extremely rare but they do happen.

This was followed up by an interview with GMA's medical expert who said that this is why it is so important that everyone be vaccinated, which surprised me.

For me this just reiterates why all cruises should be only for those fully vaccinated if eligible, there are going to be cases and when the un-vaccinated contract it it will be worse for all involved

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