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On 11/20/2020 at 8:40 PM, Alabaster Cruiser said:

We are "in the same boat".

Nope.  Neither of you are in the boat.

I would not be the least bit surprised if many countries make proof of vaccine a requirement for entry, much the way some countries require small pox, yellow fever or hepatitis.  

16 hours ago, Underwatr said:

An executive order could fix that in a jiffy.

No it couldn’t.  It would take a law passing both the house and senate plus signed by the president.

8 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

At passport control facial recognition use to always fail to recognise me until I renewed my passport🙄. Maybe my ears have changed😄 .

Possibly. But more likely would be the software keeps getting improved and/or the addition of a higher resolution photo taken a slightly different angle improved things.

1 minute ago, ldubs said:

 

I was joking.  😎

Didn’t realize that.  Many people think the software uses the same cues humans use, for facial recognition, e.g. shape of mouth, color of hair, existence of facial hair, hair style,  skin tone, dimples, freckles etc. all which change over time and are easily disguised, however, what the software uses is different cues.  Most important is shape of ears. 

On 9/12/2020 at 7:18 PM, ldubs said:

Gosh, my face has changed a lot in 10 years.  I hope they still recognize it is me.  

 

 

Actually it hasn’t.  The software isn’t counting your winkles or checking if you have bags under your eyes.  Key metrics are the shape if your ears and the distance between distinct points on your face.  Eye to eye, Eye to mouth etc.

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

If the ship is at 50% or less capacity, then each muster station will have 50% or less people at it, so more space available per person and more distancing, even with a traditional muster.

True.  But even at 50% a muster station would be too crowded to remain two meters apart.  

My point is if there is a drastic change to the muster drill under the pretense of Covid prevention, it should only be occurring if all of the other things necessary to prevent Covid spread is also occurring.  Such as reducing capacity to the point that deck chairs are properly spaced, hall ways are one way, dining tables are properly spaced, etc.  If capacity is dropped to the point that the ONLY thing that won’t work with the 6 feet protocols is a traditional muster drill then and only then should an alternate muster drill be considered.  Otherwise the ship should simply not be allowed to sail.

I would proffer that if the ship is running at less than 50% capacity to facilitate social distancing then using an alternative muster to limit crowding might be okay as it is easier to evacuate a half full ship.  But if the ships are over 50% capacity then normal musters are in order.

Call them and ask.  Worst case they say no and you wasted some time on the phone.

Also decent chance this cruise will be cancelled in the next few months.

3 hours ago, sfaaa said:

These countries you mentioned are now dealing with a second wave. It's a vicious circle.

And they are managing it and containing thru contact tracing.  Combined those countries had less new cases yesterday than we had deaths yesterday.  

We need a hard shut down until the virus declines to the point that contact tracing is feasible.

18 hours ago, SelectSys said:

 

Interesting post which I think makes some strong points which I agree with:

 

1) One can't hide in the basement forever

We can't.  But some very selfish people like yourself have needlessly prolonged this.  China didn't shut down forever.  Germany didn't shut down forever. South Korea didn't shut down forever.  Nor New Zealand nor Australia nor any other country that got this under control.  We didn't reopenned too soon.  We need to shut down until we get it under control.  The longer we remain in this half measure the longer it will take to eventually control this once we do take it seriously with even worse damage to the economy and even more funerals.  

Sadly, the process won't begin until January with a death count of around a half a million.  

13 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

 

You bring up a subject 

 

AI is expected to be better than the average human who'd identify that the truck or median is there.  The AI system shouldn't be asleep, fiddling with the smartphone/radio etc..    

 

This is like debating what was the real reason the MAX crashed?

 

 

But agree if everyone wore a mask, respected the virus we'd be allowed to go cruising, fly etc... sadly we value our liberty and freedom at the cost of so much more.

The AI is better on average.  Is there specific instances where the AI messed up and some humans wouldn’t? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean that overall it isn’t better.  Plus after each crash, engineers can improve the software so it doesn’t happen again.  

As for cruising while we need mask compliance we also need to eliminate unnecessary crowds.  Cruises are the very definition of an unnecessary crowd.

18 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

Really I love to see the Teslas run into stopped trucks and barriers, where is Level IV

Humans do that too.  If everyone drove a fully automous car crashes would go down they wouldn't be eliminated.  

Likewise if everyone socially distanced and wore masks and avoided crowds covid 19 would go down.

16 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

Look at say autonomous driving, three years ago what did we predict, and where are we now?    

Autonomous driving is where I thought we would be.  Not perfect, but safer than human operators but blocked for mostly political reasons and a demand that it be 100% safe rather than just safer.

1 hour ago, TheOldBear said:

 

I'll need to dig things up, but I recall reading a Scientific American article [Bio of a NIH vaccine scientist] where it was mentioned that a 1957 'Hong Kong Flu' vaccine was developed, tested and deployed [first 40 million doses ] in a four month period.

 

Found the link https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-man-who-beat-the-1957-flu-pandemic/

 

That wasn’t developing a new vaccine, that was tweeking an existing vaccine.  We do that every year.

Keep in mind if we have a vaccine in mid - 2024 then Covid-19 will be the quickest developed vaccine in human history.  The current record is five years.   

47 minutes ago, sanger727 said:

but why is it necessary for passengers to recognize that signal? As I said, I’ve gone to several muster drills and I still wouldn’t recognize that signal. Signals are great for crew and if the purpose is to ‘wake the dead’. But when communicating to people with zero experience in a real life emergency; it is best to use simple commands in plain English. ‘All passengers report to your muster station’ played over the PA would be a much more effective communicator than expecting passengers to realize that those ship whistle signal means they should go to their muster station.

Along with not everyone know English as previously stated.  The PA system is not always clear many times in my stateroom I hear enough to know an announcement was made but not what was said.  As they say in the army "train as you fight"  In schools they signal the beginning of a fire drill or shooter drill by sounding the appropriate alarm.  That way everyone knows what each sound means.  If everyone doesn't know the difference between the fire alarm and active shooter, kids might die - from exposing themselves to shooter or hiding in a closet during a fire.

2 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Given that the objectives when rolling out "Muster 2.0" is to "allows guests to enjoy more of their vacation with no interruption",  "allow the ship to operate without pause ", "increase health, safety and guest satisfaction simultaneously" and "what’s most convenient for our guests", interrupting the bar service would be countering those repeated objectives.

That absolutely should NOT be the goals of a muster drill.  Any cruise line whose number one goal for a muster drill is not “Prepare the passengers and crew to safely evacuate the ship in an emergency “ should be banned. from operating.  All other goals must be secondary to safety.

On 7/25/2020 at 12:00 PM, chengkp75 said:

Yep, unless they give out colored party hats to designate those who have completed the drill, how will the crew know which of the 20 people lining the bar have complied and which have not, until they start doing a person by person card swipe, on a bunch of moving targets.

Very simple solution that each cruise line will need to do exactly once.  

Let's say muster drill needs to be completed by 4 pm.  At 4:15 you close the muster station.  You send crew members to pack up the stateroom of every noncompliant passenger.  You use purchase card transactions to track everyone down and escort them off the ship.  On the first cruise this may take a few hours. It won't be an issue on subsequent cruises. 

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

 

To me it depends on the time between the test and the flight.  We'll see how this plays out.  I am pretty sure things will become more nuanced with time and exceptions are made.  

Here is the problem, while testing capacity is increasing community spread is increasing even faster.  Once we have the capacity to test every school student to ensure our schools are safe we can discuss wasting test kits on vacationers.

29 minutes ago, SelectSys said:

 

I don't see the difference.  A person who has been tested showing they don't have COVID isn't a risk regardless of their point of origin.  It's like everyone going into the White House where everybody gets tested.  You don't go in if you are tested as being positive.

 

Now people are applying the concept to travel as I showed above.  As cost of testing goes down, adding $50-100 test doesn't seem to be a big deal if someone wants to travel internationally. 

 

As background, here is a reference regarding some back and forth regarding the accuracy of the test of the machine being used at the White House:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-abbott/abbott-says-new-data-on-rapid-coronavirus-test-used-in-white-house-shows-high-accuracy-idUSKBN22X2S8

 

 

 

 

 

There is a huge difference between the odds some one in Canada coming in contact with someone who has Covid 19 between the time of test and getting to destination and the likely someone coming from the USA.  

2 hours ago, SelectSys said:

 

You could do this, but is this the best approach to take?  Obviously the ability to test people has changed radically since February.  

 

The Philippines is doing something like this for passengers arriving from Dubai where arriving passengers get test upon arrival and have evidence of being clear before traveling:

https://gulfnews.com/uae/covid-19-swab-test-a-must-for-dubai-manila-passengers-1.72714186

 

Similar for arriving into Dubai:

https://gulfnews.com/uae/covid-19-negative-pcr-test-dubai-clarifies-rules-for-flight-passengers-1.72558200

 

My sense is that this type of testing will become more prevalent as time goes on and used to vet travelers.  

 

UAE by and large has the pandemic under control.  Those would be perfectly fine for travelers from a country like Canada. But USA is the epicenter of the pandemic.  

None scheduled.  I won't even consider booking a cruise until the lines have been operating six months with little to no major problems so best case is about 2 years.  

In July of 2020 people traveling from the USA should be treated the exact same as people traveling from Wuhan China in February 2020.  

41 minutes ago, ldubs said:

 

The concept is to increase circulation for the benefit of the economy.  When a dollar is spent it doesn't end there.  The economic benefit multiplies as it circulates.   Also, I don't understand the comment about hotel owners.  They spend money.  They have employees.  They sign paychecks.  The one thing I agree on is that this should not be done before travel is deemed safe.  

 

If not enacted it should be because it isn't going to pass some cost/benefit test or because there is a better approach.  It is political only because people want to make it political.   

A dollar spent on food doesn’t end there either.  So why not expand food stamps instead.  A dollar spent in rent doesn’t end there either so why no give a tax credit for rent so folks don’t get evicted.  A dollar spent installing plexiglass sneeze guards on every school desk doesn’t end there.  Plenty of alternative stimulus packages exist.  This one benefits those people who can afford vacations and the president himself.