Illnesses on board. Expected?

[Eyeonhevn]

We are finishing our 14 night cruise thru the Panama Canal on Brilliance tomorrow. It’s been a great trip and so many great memories. However it has been full of medical emergencies and illness (norovirus).

has this been the norm and I just never noticed? Or is this new since the restart? 

[SteveK]

 

I travelled in Dec and got the flu whilst onboard.

And travelled a couple of weeks back on a Pacific Cruise and tested positive to covid 24hrs after we got back home.

Seems pretty normal these days.. colds/flu/covid... pretty good chance you will get one of them.

New norm..

 

[Ampurp85]

Not to be morbid.........but I have talked to plenty of people in the casino who hope to die on a cruise. That basically means there are people who are sick and cruise to enjoy what time they have left. 

[TexanTwoStep]

I wash my hands 40-50 times a day while on cruise and I haven't got sick (yet).

Basically I'm washing/sanitizing my hands 3-4 times an hour.  Yes, my hands get dry, but the peace of mind knowing that I didn't throw away thousands of dollars to be sick on my vacation makes it worthwhile.

Also, we avoid the buffet and human soup (hot tubs) like the plague

[WAAAYTOOO]

The cruise lines will never publish this information so there’s no way to know for sure, but it sure seems to me that there are more frequent medical emergencies these days than there used to be.  

[Pooch]

Or is it because we are hyper conscious of it now

[DoomSlayer]

46 minutes ago, Pooch said:

Or is it because we are hyper conscious of it now

Hyper conscious and spreading stories of getting sick on social media are my guesses.  I honestly don't think the frequency of illness has changed on cruises, we just hear about it more.

[smokeybandit]

2 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

The cruise lines will never publish this information so there’s no way to know for sure, but it sure seems to me that there are more frequent medical emergencies these days than there used to be.  

My completely uninformed thought on that is in the post-covid era the threshold for a diversion is much lower than before.

[teddy]

We haven't cruised as much as a lot of people here, but after a dozen cruises, I've only gotten sick once, and it was in Feb 2020, just before Covid blew up in the US.  I asked my doctor if she thought I caught whatever it was on the cruise, but she told me I most likely was exposed to something on the flight to or from the port.  She said she sees a lot of sick patients after they fly.

[twangster]

These days if someone's shoe laces are untied it makes it onto social media. 

I'm reading a lot about the history of the Panama Canal as I prepare for a cruise.  In those days it took months to sail from France to Panama.  Over those two months there was no communication with the world off the ship.  Then when the ship did finally get there it was extremely costly to send a wire to report that you made it there.  More commonly you might write a letter that took two months to sail back home on a ship.  Four months later... "We've arrived". 

Nowadays if someone takes their shoes off while on an airplane the entire world knows about it before the plane is halfway to wherever it's going. 

It seems everyone feels compelled to report every medical incident these days.  People have medical events.  At home I hear sirens during the day and that's probably someone having a bad day.  If everyone were to take pics of every ambulance going by it would make for a very long day going through your feed.  Yet that's what is happening now with cruises.  The downfall of social media and constantly being connected. 

[CanHardlyWait]

It's a shame that the planet had to basically shut down for hand washing to become popular. I've been doing it forever, everywhere. I also use wipes and sanitizer constantly when I'm out of the house. Why get sick if you don't have to?

Yet, I still see people today, maybe 35%, who use public restrooms and then walk out without washing their hands. Disgusting and stupid. Lol.

[She Sails Away]

I've cruised a for years, and last year was the first time we had a medical emergency requiring helicopter evacuation at sea. 
 

I have a feeling a ton of medical emergencies happen that we never hear about, if they are able to be handled quietly at a port stop.

 

My guess is that there are always viruses aboard, and we won't necessarily know about them unless it impacts us directly or our staff.  
 

On a separate note, it seems to me that there are more cases than ever of people going overboard.

[GatorCruiser]

Another theory is that during the early days of Covid and thereafter people were swept up in the folie a deux and put off regular medical follow up out or fear of medical offices, and those chickens are now coming  home to roost. 

[KJones]

Length of the sailing is probably a factor in the number of reported cases as well. If people are falling ill on day 8+ of the transatlantic, that's 1+ day(s) after the end of a normal 7 day sailing when passengers are falling ill at home rather than on the ship and it wouldn't be reported.

[barbeyg]

Besides some who put off medical care and immune systems that need rebuilding, we have a society that is stressed out, and/or has short fuses. That has to affect the health as well. 

[ChessE4]

22 hours ago, Eyeonhevn said:

We are finishing our 14 night cruise thru the Panama Canal on Brilliance tomorrow. It’s been a great trip and so many great memories. However it has been full of medical emergencies and illness (norovirus).

has this been the norm and I just never noticed? Or is this new since the restart? 

Prior to Covid we were only on one cruise out of more than a dozen that had so many Norovirus cases that the buffet changed from self-serve to staff-served.  The Diamond Lounge buffet shut down.    Prior to Covid my wife caught a cold (from kids, likely) on one Christmas cruise.  Each of us has had Covid once since the restart, but not until the last day when we departed.  There have always been random illnesses that didn't make into the media.  Covid is simply more contagious than anything else we have encountered, so it will be around cruising for the rest of our lives.  As far as the medical emergencies, we are getting older and things happen....

[Pattycruise]

7 hours ago, CanHardlyWait said:

Yet, I still see people today, maybe 35%, who use public restrooms and then walk out without washing their hands. Disgusting and stupid. Lol.

It’s absolutely disgusting to see people leave a stall, bypass the sink and go about their day. 
cruise ships have had signs to use paper towels to open bathroom doors for quite some time.  I see the need for that.  
 

Self serve buffets gross me out too.  Watch as people eat while “shopping”, lick their fingers and then grab the serving spoon.  With that said, I also did not like being served at the buffet during the restart because the server couldn’t understand what “a little” meant.  

[Eyeonhevn]

2 hours ago, ChessE4 said:

Prior to Covid we were only on one cruise out of more than a dozen that had so many Norovirus cases that the buffet changed from self-serve to staff-served.  The Diamond Lounge buffet shut down.    Prior to Covid my wife caught a cold (from kids, likely) on one Christmas cruise.  Each of us has had Covid once since the restart, but not until the last day when we departed.  There have always been random illnesses that didn't make into the media.  Covid is simply more contagious than anything else we have encountered, so it will be around cruising for the rest of our lives.  As far as the medical emergencies, we are getting older and things happen....

They switched to staff serve in the windjammer. They sprayed cleaning stuff constantly. We still saw plenty of passengers and crew, by passing the sink after leaving the toilet…. Yes, disgusting! 
 

Medical emergencies on day one removing a whole family after leaving Ft. Lauderdale. At every port I think we had one or more leave the ship for medical reasons. Just made me wonder if I never noticed on other sailings.

[YoungFamilyExplorers]

On 4/16/2023 at 8:26 PM, Eyeonhevn said:

We are finishing our 14 night cruise thru the Panama Canal on Brilliance tomorrow. It’s been a great trip and so many great memories. However it has been full of medical emergencies and illness (norovirus).

has this been the norm and I just never noticed? Or is this new since the restart? 

Why are you assuming that it is norovirus?

[Eyeonhevn]

Because we were told it was by the captain of the ship….and printed in compass….

[PL8SWPR]

14 hours ago, GatorCruiser said:

Another theory is that during the early days of Covid and thereafter people were swept up in the folie a deux and put off regular medical follow up out or fear of medical offices, and those chickens are now coming  home to roost. 

 

Late spring 2020, I needed to see my Dermatologist for my regular appointment.  I'm a stage 3 Melanoma survivor so those checkups are kind of important.   I was told that they were not scheduling in person appointments because of a virus far less deadly than stage 3 melanoma.  

[smokeybandit]

14 hours ago, GatorCruiser said:

Another theory is that during the early days of Covid and thereafter people were swept up in the folie a deux and put off regular medical follow up out or fear of medical offices, and those chickens are now coming  home to roost. 

That's not even a theory. There has been plenty of evidence that delayed routine or proactive medical care has caused a lot of problems.

[FSUFAN]

Never been sick on the ship, but one sailing got really bad norovirus type sick about 4 or 5 hours after we got off the ship.  We lived in FL at the time, so port was less than 2 hours away. Started feeling it on the drive home. I probably dropped 8 or 10 lbs as I could not eat or hardly drink anything for about 3 or 4 days after the sailing.  (This was way before Covid).

[Eyeonhevn]

Also- on the last night, a survey was left in our room- room number. A comment about norovirus symptoms  AND a survey- as they needed to collect the data and knew that many were sick that did not report to the medical facility onboard. 

Did anyone in this cabin experience symptoms of norovirus during this sailing?

yes or no

 

[Bowen]

On 4/16/2023 at 10:26 PM, Eyeonhevn said:

We are finishing our 14 night cruise thru the Panama Canal on Brilliance tomorrow. It’s been a great trip and so many great memories. However it has been full of medical emergencies and illness (norovirus).

has this been the norm and I just never noticed? Or is this new since the restart? 

I think a consequence of locking down for two years is that people’s immune systems spent two years not fighting bugs. Everyone in my sphere has been way sicker since most places started reopening. 

[smokeybandit]

Norovirus was pretty high for a while shoreside.

[DoomSlayer]

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

Norovirus was pretty high for a while shoreside.

Went through the kids' schools here and made the news.

[twangster]

Noro has been ravaging parts of Florida.  Jacksonville was a hotspot.    It should be trending down now.

Historical monthly noro trends:

But then again Noro has always ravaged land more than ships, it just doesn't go beyond the local news if it even gets into the local news.  

CDC graphic on noro:

(cruise ships fall into the "other" category at 1%)

https://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/trends-outbreaks/outbreaks.html

Cruise Ships

Norovirus is the most frequent (over 90%) cause of outbreaks of diarrheal disease on cruise ships and these outbreaks often get media attention, which is why some people call norovirus the “cruise ship virus.” However, norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships account for only a small percentage (1%) of all reported norovirus outbreaks. Norovirus can be especially challenging to control on cruise ships because of the close living quarters, shared dining areas, and rapid turnover of passengers. When the ship docks, norovirus can be brought on board in contaminated food or water or by passengers who were infected while ashore. Repeated outbreaks on consecutive cruises may also result from infected crew or environmental contamination. This is because norovirus can persist on surfaces for days or weeks and is resistant to many common disinfectants.