phil the brit

5 hours ago, NorthwestCruiser said:

I really wish that they had made the passengers disembarking stand further apart.

Yup, Another mistake, who does their thinking for them? Idiotic.

2 hours ago, 2wheelin said:

So every ship should have a pallet of masks aboard, along with testing kits, etc? Are all these products produced by snapping ones fingers or clicking your heels?

One of the main reasons there is a shortage of supplies is from all the people who snatch them up just in case—when everyone knows masks are completely wasted on healthy people.

 

We want crew to serve people in the buffet (I agree) but it has bee shown crew are much more likely to be infected than passengers. We believe crew are more sanitary so why would someone then be comfortable with ALL crew wearing masks. Remember, masks are for sick people.

Yes they should when they have just had a major problem a month ago, of course they should. Don't tell me they didn't think "what could we do better next time"? Plleeeasee

You saw a possible need and had the foresight to get one.

People who work for big companies (like Princess for example) did NOT think about it until too late. It was obvious weeks ago.

1 hour ago, Caymus88 said:

A million tests that were produced were defective

so couldn’t be used

Well that's not very good is it. Total ineptitude, who employs these people, they let the faulty ones go out as well!

9 hours ago, CruisinCrow said:

 

Not enough test kits.  Not enough personnel to board the ship and administer 3000 tests.  Not enough labs to run the tests.

And not enough thought into the "cruise ship problem". What a mess, from no test kits available to not having enough masks. Who does these peoples thinking for them. After the Diamond Princess problem you would think there would be a pallet of masks in the hold.

I have now read that the guy was not from one of the banned countries. I knew he was checked before coming on board. I withdraw my comments unreservedly. The messages issued by the ship have allayed my fears.

18 hours ago, ebonybee said:

Okay, now I’m wondering if the cruise line informed the passenger before the boarded that there was a crew person in quarantine.

 

Now, I’m wondering about the other ships.

A VERY, VERY good question. One that if I had joined for the cruise I would DEFINATELY want to know.

MSC, were you not honest with your passengers?

33 minutes ago, hal2008 said:

 

I defer to your expertise and experience.

 

But re-reading various posts, it is difficult to buy that it took hours to negotiate with Japaneese on technicality and then that argument was lost!!!   Are you trying to say that if one of the pax on bus developed serious heart condition, they wud not have been taken to hospital??? Come on.

 

This particular state departement has done many botched operations/decisions worldwide. CDC refusing to allow even their name mentioned in the press release in protest tells you something.

 

And no - there was not "as much separation as possible"  That would have been the case if the hazmat container was used. Unfortunately, These 14 were put behind a loose plastic curtain.

 

Even Trunp is upset at state officials (albeit, for different selfish reasons)

I agree completely with you and disagree completely with ncpl.

The agreement by US state officials to take known positive people was a mistake of gigantic proportions. Don't give me that "paperwork was done" crap. It was a stupid mistake that the CDC wanted no part of.

8 hours ago, npcl said:

If it was just a disagreement between government departments you would have both departments holding news conferences detailing their logic.  In this case the only thing you hear is that State over ruled CDC.  Which State would not do on a whim.  The reason why you do not hear any details on that discussion is because it involved Japan and the agreement with Japan.  State certainly will not talk about it because it involves Japan and the nature of that disagreement would have a negative impact on our relationship with Japan.

 

Now I spent 8 years on a committee that involved negotiations between the US, the EU and Japan. What is your experience that results in your determination that the decision was made by someone in State on a power trip.

So you are saying the bureaucrats at the state department risked the lives of the negative results people coming home to USA on repatriation flight for political reasons so as not to destroy US relationship with Japan?

Do me a favour, are you for real?

13 hours ago, npcl said:

The representative from State are also professionals, just a different category of professional.  It is State not CDC that would have negotiated the departure agreement.  It is State not CDC that bears any responsibility for failing to live up to that agreement.  I would expect that CDC would have, in consultation with State, approved the departure list.  In hind sight maybe they should have only included on the list those that had already tested negative (keeping in mind that not all of those tests were recent), but they did not.  However, the agreement was for anyone that wanted to leave that had not tested positive and the planes manifest was established using that criteria.

 

They could have delayed taking anyone, until test results were back for everyone.  Of course that did not occur until the quarantine was over and people were being released from the ship.

 

As the saying goes no good deed goes unpunished.

Please explain whose good deed you are talking about.

https://www.state.gov/joint-statement-by-u-s-department-of-state-and-u-s-department-of-health-and-human-services-on-repatriation-of-american-passengers-from-the-diamond-princess-cruise-ship/

Scroll right down to full transcript at the bottom and read questions from various media. They were only allowed to ask one question each and not allowed any comebacks.

This is going to blow up, one of the most pertinant questions was how long were (known) infected people sitting on the busses with non infected people. The answer was "there was a 40 minute ride to the airport and busses were emptied as soon as it was safe to do so".

THAT WAS NOT THE QUESTION, HOW LONG WERE BOTH INFECTED AND NOT INFECTED PEOPLE ON THE BUSSES MIXED UP?

This was NOT answered...............It WILL be asked again I am sure.

12 minutes ago, seapals2 said:

So why only 32 Brits onboard the flight back.   Where have the rest gone?  Originally It was stated some 70 Brits on the ship.  I know a couple from US refused to board their flight back and are now wondering freely in Japan.  Surely Brits have more sense than this.  

I want to know that as well. We sent over a 747 plane with room for what, 400 and all we get is 32 (and that included some "EU" citizens). Were perhaps some of them crew and not allowed to travel but HAD to stay on ship to get their 2 months extra pay?

3 minutes ago, fragilek said:

 try a different browser I can open free

Thanks, i'll do that.

7 minutes ago, villauk said:

 

 

I can open it - no money required.

It opens for me for 3 seconds then says pay........ and the article goes.

6 minutes ago, Willbrise123 said:

If interested (which you clearly are), why not pay?  If not, scroll past - its unfortunate that paywalls exist, but there are some folks who do subscribe and the links are helpful.  

I really don't want to subscribe to the Japanese Times or the Singapore Gazette or the Hong Kong News, three journals I will probably never want to view again after a week has gone by.

1 hour ago, bluesea321 said:

Looks like Dr. Iwata's video has done some good.

 

"At a news conference, Kono admitted that the Defense Ministry applied the standards — which are higher than those in use by health ministry officials working on the vessel — after viewing a video from the ship posted by Dr. Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University Hospital, who joined the disaster-relief team as a veteran infectious disease specialist."

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/21/national/sdf-protection-diamond-princess-princess-video/#.XlABxBNKjPA

No, another link that cannot be opened, can people stop doing this with paid for only links .............please??

Don't know if this is genuine or not, seen on facebook..............

I am writing this letter.In behalf of the Filipino crew the Galley Team of Diamond Princess Cruise Ship .We know that quarantine period has been done. But why we are still working 5 days? We are counting days and it seems like it’s getting longer & longer. We are no longer functional well, both body & mind.And we are stressed & frightened.Thinking what will happen next? As the virus has been spreading so fast inside this ship.I hope u understand us. Money is nothing if you die and leave ur family without a great memory.I stand to this for myself and my team.Because I care for them and their family.We always say 1 team 1 dream! And apologies to those who are not happy with this messsage. I hope you understand.God Bless The Galley Team and Filipino Crew of Diamond Princess lets stand together!

8 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Well, first, I have no knowledge of any claim that AC air gave "probable" infection to cabins.

 

The air that is vented from the cabin via the bathroom vent goes through ductwork that collects many cabins' exhaust, and then carries it up to the highest decks, where it is discharged, not out onto the balconies.  So, no, given the distance covered by the air exhausted from even the highest cabins to the point of exhaust, and then back to the balconies, there would not be "droplets" anymore, and environmental conditions (wind?) would make this transfer longer, or not at all.

 

Your second point is correct, that air from the passageway would flow into a cabin with the balcony door open.  But, again, you are ignoring the experts at WHO and CDC who say that aerosol transmission of this virus is limited to a 6 foot radius, and that once the droplets from a cough or sneeze breaks down, there is not enough concentration of virus to cause infection through inhalation.

Thank you for your thoughts.

The "probable infection" was of course my words.

Are you saying that "high on the ship" balconies cannot receive this exhaust air from rooms onto their balconies, i mean how high up the ship do they vent?

You mentioned wind would take away the bad air but remember the ship was stationary most of the time, not moving along.

12 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

I'm guessing that the "eminent professor" is the one who blasted the quarantine, and then took all his videos off social media?  That tells me something about his "eminence".  Further, from what quick look at his views were, I didn't see any mention of AC systems, merely that untrained personnel (crew) were used to service the quarantined.

Correct in who the professor was. I believe that he was "forced" to take his comments down. He was told to say that it has all been fixed now (fact) but he has not been back to the ship to see that for himself. Basically he has been "got at".

He didn't mentioned AC systems, he didn't get to do any more analysis before he was removed from ship. He therefore did not get to that.

4 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

The balcony door does not affect the cabin AC (that system that recirculates the air within the cabin, and is controlled by the cabin thermostat).  The balcony door affects the separate AC system that provides fresh air into the cabins.  There is a system of AC that takes outside air in, cools it, and supplies it to many cabins (typically all the cabins in one fire zone (the area between the doors in the passageway) on one or two decks, so about 40-50 cabins).  This fresh air will increase the pressure in the cabins, since it is coming from outside (think of a fan blowing into a room from an open window, and no other windows or doors are open in the room).  Some of this overpressure is relieved via the bathroom exhaust fan, which takes air from the cabin (via the gap under the bathroom door) and exhausts it outside the ship.  However, the system is designed so that the fresh air delivered to the cabin is more than that exhausted by the bathroom fan, so the cabin is at slightly higher pressure than either the outside or the passageway.  This is done so that air flows out of the cabin into the passageway, to prevent the spread of smoke from the passageway into all the cabins during a fire.

 

So, unlike a hotel or home, make up fresh air is not drawn from the passageway, it is drawn from outside, and the vents into the passageway, and the gap under the door are designed to let air out of the cabin.

 

Now, throw in the balcony door.  Opening this large area (compared to the ventilation duct size) to the lower pressure outside, causes the pressure in the cabin to drop to outside pressure.  Now, air will flow from the passageway into the cabin under the door.  This will also cause a much larger flow of fresh air through the fresh air duct into this cabin as the system attempts to rebuild the overpressure.  This will cause the other 40-50 cabins on that fresh air system to get less fresh air, under normal conditions causing those cabins to heat up from the reduced flow of cool air, but in a quarantine, it will cause them to lose overpressure as well, and air will flow from the passageway into those cabins as well.

 

The passageways have their own AC systems, both a recirculation system, and a supply and exhaust system, but here the size of the supply and exhaust are reversed to those for the cabins, meaning that the exhaust fan removes more air than the supply fan does, so the passageway is under a slight underpressure.  Again, for smoke control.

So, two questions about air from contaminated areas that gave probable infection to cabins.

1/  Air from a cabin vents to outside. Some of the cabins are stacked in a way that one level overlooks the balcony below. Their exhausted air (containing micro organisms carried in the air from different cabins above) and this then falls onto the balconies below.

2/  If guests left their balcony door open (as many did) and then opened the hall door then all the air in the hall (which probably is contaminated) will send particles into a room.

Both of these scenarios will spread airborn infection from cabin to cabin, Yes?

1 minute ago, chengkp75 said:

Ah, now we come to the rub.  Does that separate air conditioning system use all fresh air, or does it recirculate some of that air back to the room.  You are correct that they will have a separate system for each room, and I did misspeak, but only at level 3 is air not allowed to be recirculated.  Now, just because the air is recirculated within a single room in the lab, does this make this not "recirculated" air, as others have tried to claim?  Why can the lab have a separate AC system that recirculates air, and a cruise ship cabin cannot?

NOW we agree.

29 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

As I said, if this charity were distributing the meals onboard, rather than just delivering them to the ship, that would be breaking quarantine in the worst fashion, and would make the entire quarantine a farce.

It already is a farce, can it get any worse. I wouldn't trust "the beaurocrats who are allegedly running the show" to run me a bath.

32 minutes ago, AlyssaJames said:

Yep, journalists need paychecks too. 🙂

Well unless we are all going to subscribe to all of these sources then i really can't see the point in putting up the links. I'm fed up with continually ending up in dead ends.

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

The air vents outside the cabins are merely a return vent that provides the path for the overpressure in the cabin to relieve itself into the passageway.  The passageway has its own recirculation air system, separate from the cabins.  As I've said before, the cabins are kept at a higher pressure than the passageways to prevent smoke from a fire from travelling down the passageway and filling the rest of the cabins with smoke.  So, in an abundance of caution, since both the WHO and CDC don't believe the virus can be transmitted through an AC duct system, but can be transmitted over about 6 feet by droplets, these direct vents from the cabin to a public space are taped over, forcing the excess pressure to vent out below the door, hence further from someone who might inhale just after someone in the cabin sneezed at the vent.

 

Do you believe that each room in a hospital, even in anything short of a level 3 biohazard lab has separate air conditioning systems for each room?  They don't.

You are wrong I'm afraid, not all of the air is fresh on the ship. In a biohazard lab ALL of the air is fresh. Fact.

The Diamond Princess whistleblower professor has pulled his youtube video

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/02/4bbd92cd4f91-breaking-news-japan-scholar-removes-videos-blasting-situation-on-virus-hit-ship.html?fbclid=IwAR0JLxGKc8tkXcMBQFfrPFTXK7kcdmhXGjp5tJShH28VYoAgIlmL9mwfc0s

Make of that what you will.