Healthy Sail Panel

[James Daily]

How can we write recommendations to the R/C Healthy Sail Panel?  Booster shots are scientifically unwarranted as a condition of boarding a cruise (a new rumor). We would like to provide them the latest studies on this issue.

[smokeybandit]

I'm actually surprised we haven't see any public updates to the HSP, especially with the CSO going away in 3 weeks.

[Matt]

Honestly not sure if there is a way.  Scott Gottlieb, the co chair of the HSP, is on Twitter 

[scott_s]

I don't understand the need for these PCR tests prior to sailing.  The results are only truly valid at the time you took the test.  Once you go out into the public, you could get exposed.  

[LizzyBee23]

RCL (and the cruise lines more generally) boxed themselves in by claiming the HSP's recommendations were what allowed them to control COVID (ha) and sail safely. It was pure hubris to suggest cause-effect in the first place, and it put the cruise lines in this weak position, where now they have to keep running in the proverbial wheel even though it's becoming clearer and clearer it has no real effect on anything.

How many ships are under investigation by the CDC right now? 70+? 

[twangster]

11 minutes ago, LizzyBee23 said:

RCL (and the cruise lines more generally) boxed themselves in by claiming the HSP's recommendations were what allowed them to control COVID (ha) and sail safely. It was pure hubris to suggest cause-effect in the first place, and it put the cruise lines in this weak position, where now they have to keep running in the proverbial wheel even though it's becoming clearer and clearer it has no real effect on anything.

How many ships are under investigation by the CDC right now? 70+? 

I don't recall the HSP ever made a claim to control COVID.

They claim to make sailing safer.  Not 100% safe without any risk, simply safe enough to allow cruising to occur.  They never claimed there would be zero cases.

Indeed the positivity rate is dramatically lower on ships compared to land, Florida in particular where most ships are boarding right now.  

It stands to reason with Florida nearing the highest peak of anytime during the pandemic, that ships would also realize a higher number of cases.  That is completely logical since the cases are being brought on board from land.  The HSP never said that ships would be capable of killing any virus carried onto a ship. The protocols are designed to detect, isolate and diminish but not eliminate spread.

It stands to reason with more cases being brought on board, there will be more cases on board.  Duh!

[LizzyBee23]

18 minutes ago, twangster said:

They claim to make sailing safer.  Not 100% safe without any risk, simply safe enough to allow cruising to occur.  They never claimed there would be zero cases.

The rest aside, here is the root of the logical fallacy: there is no "safe enough". Perhaps you'll agree when the 100th ship sets under investigation by the CDC. You can argue for incrementalism, but then you end up here, in a place where we try to justify to each other with a straight face the value of wearing cloth masks in the face of overwhelming evidence suggesting their ineffectiveness or not being able to touch ketchup bottles. And now, since everything in the world we could possibly think of short of shutting down the industry again didn't actually work and at a first real world test has proven the futility of the exercise, we're stuck.

[twangster]

42 minutes ago, LizzyBee23 said:

The rest aside, here is the root of the logical fallacy: there is no "safe enough". Perhaps you'll agree when the 100th ship sets under investigation by the CDC. You can argue for incrementalism, but then you end up here, in a place where we try to justify to each other with a straight face the value of wearing cloth masks in the face of overwhelming evidence suggesting their ineffectiveness or not being able to touch ketchup bottles. And now, since everything in the world we could possibly think of short of shutting down the industry again didn't actually work and at a first real world test has proven the futility of the exercise, we're stuck.

There absolutely is a safe enough.  Zero cases will never work as a target.  As long as there are cases on land there will be cases on ships.  At some point our society has to find the equilibrium where the level of impact is good enough compared to the impact on our lives.  We reached that equilibrium with the flu.  We need to find it for COVID.  Then it will be good enough.  

Protocols have worked pretty darn good during and before delta.  Not perfect as there were some cases on board during the peak of delta, but nothing like on land, so clearly the protocols were very effective against that variant.

Different variants will require adapting.  Had they not adapted the protocols, how many more cases would there have been?  100 cases on board instead of 50?  We'll never know.  The presence of some cases does not mean the protocols didn't work at all.  That is not proof that mask don't work.

This will continue to be an evolving process.  As new variants with different characteristics are introduced it will require new actions and protocols.

For example, perhaps the lesson learned over the past 2 to 4 weeks is that maybe they should have cancelled guest reservations as unpopular as that would have been.   Perhaps had they cancelled 10% of reservations there would have been 25 cases on board instead of 50.  We'll never know, but it stands to reason if they had cancelled 50% of reservations there likely would have been dramatically fewer cases.  Cancelling 50% is excessive.  Cancelling 0% possibly too much of an under-reaction.  Somewhere in between is a magic number that would be better while not being excessive.

One thing is for sure.  If the next variants spreads easily like Omicron and kills like Delta it will require more stringent protocols.  If the next variant is weaker than Omicron then society and governments need to avoid overreacting.  

It's also entirely possible the only reason they realized the number of cases that they did recently was because of the new first time cruises that refuse to follow protocols.  We've all seen them.  Weekend cruisers have lower protocols acceptance rates.  Holiday cruises saw more reports of "those" people who refused to follow protocols.  Unmasked kids running around.  Perhaps the entire recent outbreaks are due to those folks and the solution is mask police who kick people off ships or lock them in their cabins with a guard at the door.  

[Mike.s]

3 hours ago, twangster said:

Perhaps the entire recent outbreaks are due to those folks and the solution is mask police who kick people off ships or lock them in their cabins with a guard at the door. 

Personally I'd be happy for people who refuse to follow the protocols they agreed to when booking the cruise to be removed from the ship. Why should they be allowed to potentially impact others on the ship?

[Pattycruise]

14 hours ago, twangster said:

1-Protocols have worked pretty darn good during and before delta.  Not perfect as there were some cases on board during the peak of delta, but nothing like on land, so clearly the protocols were very effective against that variant.

2-For example, perhaps the lesson learned over the past 2 to 4 weeks is that maybe they should have cancelled guest reservations as unpopular as that would have been.   Perhaps had they cancelled 10% of reservations there would have been 25 cases on board instead of 50.  We'll never know, but it stands to reason if they had cancelled 50% of reservations there likely would have been dramatically fewer cases.  Cancelling 50% is excessive.  Cancelling 0% possibly too much of an under-reaction.  Somewhere in between is a magic number that would be better while not being excessive.

3-It's also entirely possible the only reason they realized the number of cases that they did recently was because of the new first time cruises that refuse to follow protocols.  We've all seen them.  Weekend cruisers have lower protocols acceptance rates.  Holiday cruises saw more reports of "those" people who refused to follow protocols.  Unmasked kids running around.  Perhaps the entire recent outbreaks are due to those folks and the solution is mask police who kick people off ships or lock them in their cabins with a guard at the door.  

I numbered the excerpts from your comments to comment to those  
1-It would seem so .But how did those cases "slip past"....and because that variant was not as contagious and had a longer incubation period it's more likely people became positive after their immediate contact tracing, potentially spread it and would test  positive when they got off the ship (not tracked)

2-Cancelling anyone does not necessarily mean less cases on board.  This variant is extremely contagious.  Conversely it could be argued had they allowed more people onboard the % of positive cases would have been lower based on statistics.   The number of positive cases was "reasonable" (less than on land) given the #'s of people on board.  I suspect it would have been much higher had they tested everyone on board (just like if they walked into a random catering hall and did testing of everyone present)

3-The refusal of protocols being followed is not the only risk.  Everyone in the main dining room is unmasked, tables "on top of each other", unmasked in casinos (as was the protocol until last week), unmasked in vaccinated areas (as was the protocol until last week).  They can mask in all areas-as they are now, the dining room would still have permitted the spread of this-as well as any venue where people remove their mask to eat/drink-Windjammer, specialty restaurants, bars etc.  They are saying this variant can be easily picked up and you test positive within 3 days.  (as opposed to the "standard 5-10 days" of past variant).