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Cancellation Misconceptions


Swar

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Talked with some of my friends in the last day or so. They were under the false impression that ALL cruises are cancelled. These people are not dummies and read/watch the news. The media has done a good job of implanting false information in the public's consciousness. The cruise lines may want to band together and get a media blitz going to get their story out. Plus, whatever we can do as cruise lovers to get the word out. 

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1 hour ago, Swar said:

Talked with some of my friends in the last day or so. They were under the false impression that ALL cruises are cancelled. These people are not dummies and read/watch the news. The media has done a good job of implanting false information in the public's consciousness. The cruise lines may want to band together and get a media blitz going to get their story out. Plus, whatever we can do as cruise lovers to get the word out. 

Some cable stations are labeled "entertainment" rather than "news" outlets, so we avoid them.  

I agree we can help spread good news.  I enjoy telling people we meet that the incidence of disease on a cruise ship is far less than on land (per capita), as many members have reported and government-published statistics point out.

While I am puzzled and disappointed about the CDC recommendation to avoid cruising, I don't let it affect me much.  There are other things more dangerous (health-wise) that we will avoid for a few weeks.

We wish everyone a joyful 2022, whether cruising or not!

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7 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I haven't seen anything in the news that could be construed as all cruises are canceled.

People read what they want to read.  Some of my FB acquaintances read "some ports were canceled" as "all cruise ships are stuck on the ocean and not allowed back into port and passengers will wither away at sea so you shouldn't go on a cruise!!!!!!!!"

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It does create a quandry though.  Our Harmony cruise Jan 23, has 2 Bahamas ports, Labadee, and Jamaica.  Right now, that could mean a cruise to nowhere...all sea days or something [Bahamas PCR requirement not practical, Haiti closed due to unrest, and Jamaica just stodgy to reopen anyway].  We imagine alternate ports will be substituted...mainly Mexico since they remain open.  But if all ships are headed to the few alternates still open...well, can you say hoarded crowds?  It's not that big a deal to us as we are bonafide cruisers just wanting to get on a ship.  But does make one wonder what's going to happen.  As far as 'closing down cruising', didn't Florida's De Santis get that injunction against the CDC that they can't [for now] just shut industries down [not in their legal authority]?  Wish RCL would offer some updates on possible things that might happen in near term.

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19 hours ago, ChessE4 said:

I enjoy telling people we meet that the incidence of disease on a cruise ship is far less than on land (per capita), as many members have reported and government-published statistics point out.

Better check your math before you go spreading this notion. If 1% of people onboard are getting infected onboard in a matter of 4 days. Then that means around 3.3 million people would need to get infected in 4 days in the US to be on pace with that infection rate. Right now it's about 400k infections per day in the US and that's with the omicron spike.  Blown out of proportion? Not really

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If you count all the asymptomatic infections and unreported positive at home tests, I'm sure millions of Americans a day are infected with the Covid. i.e. cruise lines test everyone and the results are transparent, general society not so much. Not a big deal.

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11 minutes ago, Swar said:

cruise lines test everyone and the results are transparent

Yes, but the 1% metric is for passengers/crew testing positive while onboard, not pre cruise testing. The only reason they would test onboard would be symptomatic cases or suspected exposure (much like on land). Even with 1 million positive cases per day in the US, it would still be on par with the case counts on recent sailings.

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On 1/1/2022 at 2:57 PM, SpeedNoodles said:

People read what they want to read.  Some of my FB acquaintances read "some ports were canceled" as "all cruise ships are stuck on the ocean and not allowed back into port and passengers will wither away at sea so you shouldn't go on a cruise!!!!!!!!"

My holiday-food-filled belly could probably stand a bit of "withering away" for a few extra weeks...why NOT do it on a RCL cruise ship? 🤣 🛳️ 🤣

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On 1/1/2022 at 5:29 PM, LinRon2 said:

It does create a quandry though.  Our Harmony cruise Jan 23, has 2 Bahamas ports, Labadee, and Jamaica.  Right now, that could mean a cruise to nowhere...all sea days or something [Bahamas PCR requirement not practical, Haiti closed due to unrest, and Jamaica just stodgy to reopen anyway].  

@LinRon2 You might be ok with the Bahamas. The latest discussion in this thread suggests that no further testing should be required other than the testing already required by RCL to board. At least, this is how I understand it. 

 

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On 1/2/2022 at 9:06 AM, AspiringCruisePlanner said:

Better check your math before you go spreading this notion. If 1% of people onboard are getting infected onboard in a matter of 4 days. Then that means around 3.3 million people would need to get infected in 4 days in the US to be on pace with that infection rate. Right now it's about 400k infections per day in the US and that's with the omicron spike.  Blown out of proportion? Not really

There are problems in your math, too, so we will need to agree to disagree.  For example, when we compare the incidence of infection to a broader population (to calculate a percentage), we can't use all of the US. Many of us stay at home and don't socialize, so we aren't in the population of land-based persons from which the testing samples are drawn (biased though they may be).  Yet in these samples, the percentage testing positive is very high (as in over 10% for a geographic area).  Admittedly, comparing one biased sample to another is like comparing apples and oranges, but the trend is there -- land-based socializers and workers are getting infected at a high rate (over a 1-week period) relative to cruise ships (over a 1-week period).

Absent a true random sample study that compares cruising to land socializing, we can't make a definitive comparison.  But we do know that millions of Americans are infectious over a two-week period based on government published statistics.  We also know that many of them are unvaccinated and unmasked.  So we choose cruising because, when we socialize, we want to hang out with vaccinated and masked individuals.

Whatever folks choose to do, we hope everyone has a safe and joyful 2022.

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36 minutes ago, ChessE4 said:

Absent a true random sample study that compares cruising to land socializing, we can't make a definitive comparison.

Thank you for expanding on my post.  Yes, a true apple to apple comparison is not realistic with this situation.  I guess my main point was that a 1% infection rate over a week or less time period for a population of people is still significant and shouldn't be just brushed aside as a low infection rate.

 

42 minutes ago, ChessE4 said:

Yet in these samples, the percentage testing positive is very high (as in over 10% for a geographic area). 

I'm still confused where you're getting this 10% number from.  Is this a percentage of the geographic population that tested positive from the start of the pandemic or a calculation of the percentage of a population that tested positive in a short period of time?  I'm unaware of any regions that had this rate of infection in a matter of 4-7 days.  If you're stating that this is the percentage of all tests that come back positive as rolling average (positivity rate), you've misunderstood what I'm comparing here.

For a time after the restart the infection rates onboard cruise ships were very low (less than 10 people) but with omicron that number has jumped to 50+.  There's a reason the CDC set the green, orange, and yellow color statuses for cruise ships.  They are not just arbitrary thresholds.

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