PRINCESS SHIPS & CORONA VIRUS

[barbaraanne]

2 minutes ago, barbaraanne said:

I’m not particularly worried for myself, but I am just wondering what protocols will be in place for people returning by cruise ship from affected ports/countries, now that it is spreading outside of China?  Will people who have visited areas where there have been cases be allowed to disembark in the regular manner?  What if there are positive cases of Coronavirus on board?  How do we keep it from spreading?   
 

I’m talking about ships that boarded and visited these places before the current policies were put in place in the past several days

[SunNFunCruzer]

7 minutes ago, barbaraanne said:

Will people who have visited areas where there have been cases be allowed to disembark in the regular manner?  What if there are positive cases of Coronavirus on board?  How do we keep it from spreading?  

 

And those are the million dollar question$ for ALL of us with upcoming cruises in the short term.  We are just watching and waiting for now.  We haven't made a decision about sailing or canceling.  Good luck.

[NorthwestCruiser]

Exponential growth.   Ouch.   Keep in mind that most people will be just fine with this disease, but it can take weeks to recover.   This probably changes the quarantine plans.   Like I said earlier, isolation of this disease is not likely to work.   The goal has to be to mitigate and delay it long enough to give us enough time to invent a response to it.

 

[ceilidh1]

Sorry if this has already been posted:

https://www.princess.com/news/notices_and_advisories/notices/diamond-princess-update.html?fbclid=IwAR3SMek0O7nQxXqKAOseDaEaqtbXy9ZqwgyZbawjVZLgc1GAgqZeOvOfoK8

 

Updated February 9, 2020 at 2:30PM PT

Compensation – Full Refund and Future Cruise Credit

Because of the extraordinary circumstances onboard Diamond Princess, Princess Cruises will refund the full cruise fare for all guests including air travel, hotel, ground transportation, pre-paid shore excursions, gratuities and other items. In addition, guests will not be charged for any onboard incidental charges during the additional time onboard.

Princess Cruises will also provide guests with a future cruise credit equal to the cruise fare paid for the voyage which ended on February 4.

Princess Cruises also confirmed that although all gratuities will be refunded back to guests the company will ensure crew members receive their designated gratuities for the work performed.

Guests have been provided a letter delivered to their stateroom with details on how to process this refund.

[NorthwestCruiser]

4 minutes ago, SunNFunCruzer said:

 

And those are the million dollar question$ for ALL of us with upcoming cruises in the short term.  We are just watching and waiting for now.  We haven't made a decision about sailing or canceling.  Good luck.

How does it work if you cancel a cruise that is later cancelled?   Do you still have to pay the financial penalties?

 

I have a feeling that there are not going to be a whole bunch of new cruises in the near future until we get this thing figured out.   It has already gone from Wuhan->Germany->France->England so just discriminating against Asians is not going to work as a practical matter for the cruise lines.

[Aus Traveller]

3 minutes ago, NorthwestCruiser said:

How does it work if you cancel a cruise that is later cancelled?   Do you still have to pay the financial penalties?

I reckon if you cancel a cruise that is later cancelled, then you will have to pay the penalty applicable at the date you cancel. I can't see any cruise line handling a cancellation any other way.

[Aus Traveller]

4 minutes ago, NorthwestCruiser said:

 

I have a feeling that there are not going to be a whole bunch of new cruises in the near future until we get this thing figured out.   It has already gone from Wuhan->Germany->France->England so just discriminating against Asians is not going to work as a practical matter for the cruise lines.

The cruiselines will move their ships from Asia to areas of the world not heavily affected by the virus. One ship has already been diverted to the Mediterranean. During the SARS epidemic, one ship that was operating out of Singapore, moved to Australia and offered great prices.

[SunNFunCruzer]

15 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

Compensation – Full Refund and Future Cruise Credit

Because of the extraordinary circumstances onboard Diamond Princess, Princess Cruises will refund the full cruise fare for all guests including air travel, hotel, ground transportation, pre-paid shore excursions, gratuities and other items. In addition, guests will not be charged for any onboard incidental charges during the additional time onboard.

 

 

This is because people on twitter were showing statements from Princess that they were being charged $2.00 for a can of coke, etc DURING the quarantine.  Princess [Official Blue Check Account] responded and said they would Not be charged.

[ceilidh1]

2 minutes ago, SunNFunCruzer said:

 

 

This is because people on twitter were showing statements from Princess that they were being charged $2.00 for a can of coke, etc DURING the quarantine.  Princess [Official Blue Check Account] responded and said they would Not be charged.

The onboard incidentals is one thing, but it's pretty classy of Princess to offer refunds for EVERYTHING! Bear in mind, before the quarantine the cruise was a regular cruise so all of those costs are getting refunded. I applaud that decision 100%!

[poolreader]

A passenger who owns the radio station KHTS in Santa Clarita is showing the preparation for the evacuation of 66 additional people who have tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus.

[Aus Traveller]

6 minutes ago, poolreader said:

A passenger who owns the radio station KHTS in Santa Clarita is showing the preparation for the evacuation of 66 additional people who have tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus.

Another 66. ☹️ This must be stretching the Japanese medical system to keep these people in isolation.

[ilikeanswers]

2 hours ago, barbaraanne said:

As far as which animal the virus originated from, I think the entire world would be safer if they banned those “wet markets” in China that sell live wild animals, or living ones of any kind that have been in close contact with other animal species and humans.  Where humans and animals have close contact is where these viruses make the species jump. Why does China put up with these animals like the pangolin to being captured and sold anyway?  

 

Not always that simple:

Why shutting down Chinese ‘wet markets’ could be a terrible mistake

 

Pangolins are seen as a magical cure all animal and technically they are illegal to trade since they are critically endangered but corruption is rife and the triads pay good money for the government to turn a blind eye.

[fragilek]

6 hours ago, npcl said:

From everything I have read they are still doing genetic tree tracing to determine which animal it transferred from.  However the Corona virus family is pretty widespread and common.  The last I have seen indicates that it may have emerged from a virus related to SARS which came from Civet Cats.

 40 % of domestic cats carry FCoV a type of Coronavirus that mutates  in 10% of infected animals to a more deadly form FIP of the virus that is always fatal. There is no treatment or vaccine available all trials have failed so far.  Not suggesting it has any link at all just highlighting that this virus exits in many animals we come into contact with daily so it may be some time to completely identify the cause so far a few vector are under suspicion, including  bats, snakes and the pangolin

[auldlassie]

Now total of passengers on this ship has jumped overnight from 63 or 64 to 130 (130-ish as figures not yet finally confirmed) more than double. Very worrying indeed, yet the Japanese health minister has been quoted today as saying they "might have to test everyone on the ship" . No kidding? That should have been done a long time ago, right at the start. Self-reporting is clearly not sufficient. 

[Pushka]

It would have been impossible to do multiple tests for around 4000 people - including crew. 

[fragilek]

6 hours ago, npcl said:

In phase 1 in April basically still means you might, if everything goes well, have an available vaccine early in 2021.  There are several candidates out there.

 They may get out a bit faster as can be used off label even in extreme cases before phase III under the compassionate use release (I have been involved in the use of an anti-fungal of label ahead of phase III in a child with a  fungal brain disease which was not responding to any available drug- It worked 😊. And the drug is now licensed, but it was still a risk/ benefit hard decision for his team and family - above my pay grade thankfully! ). In the height of Ebola crisis several vaccines ( not sure but I think drugs too) got used this way -  This would not be a wide spread world vaccination program, but may get used in sporadic hot spots until more data is available.  This will obliviously depend on what WHO find as death rate/icu rate when the  get into China and if outbreak spreads more widely thus they will have more (verified data) as every drug is used on a risk/ benefit analysis. 

[paphoslady]

2 minutes ago, Pushka said:

It would have been impossible to do multiple tests for around 4000 people - including crew. 

I'm guessing that Japan doesn't have the capacity to process all the swabs from 3,700 passengers on the Diamond Princess  as well as swabs that must be being taken from people living in Japan. I read a report that labs in the UK can only process 100 samples a day. This may explain why there has been a delay in test results being confirmed as positive. I agree the only way is to sample everyone but this will likely take some time to do!!

[auldlassie]

Of course testing all would be logistically difficult. But just because it is difficult, expensive and/or time consuming, that does not lessen the need for it to be done. Japan is a rich and sophisticated country with many labs surely able to deal with this if they are tasked to. Testing all on board should have been put in place at the start.  Current circumstances show there does not seem to be another path which will ensure everyone who leaves the ship is virus free. If that does not happen, what was the point in the first place?

[seapals2]

The quarantine period of 14 days should have been enough to guarantee that passengers who remain symptom free at the end should be considered as not having contracted the virus.  However my biggest fear all along that this was not normal quarantine with crew who were also at risk caring for the passengers.  
If crew were also reporting cases then obviously the rest should have been in quarantine alongside the passengers.  A nightmare situation.  
Logistically to transfer all passengers and crew to a land based quarantine area would be impossible.  This at the moment appears to be the only way to try and contain the spread.  

[paphoslady]

I agree logistically it would be a nightmare to isolate all the passengers and crew in a land based facility. Confining passengers to their cabins seems to be the most sensible option. My heart goes out to everyone on the Diamond Princess really not what anyone wants at the end of a cruise. In the UK as in many countries British nationals who have been flown home from Wuhan are also being quarantined for 14 days, now at 2 separate locations. Apparently 1 of the quarantined group has been threatening to leave the quarantine facility hence why the UK government has acted this morning by raising the threat level to ensure that people stay in quarantine.

[sweby]

I hope the crew are being paid really well for all the above and beyond care, and I also hope that they are not being forced into situations that put them at risk. They are supposed to be staffing a cruise ship, not a quarantine  hospital.

Sweby

[fragilek]

Here is a link to a British broad sheet paper (not a tabloid) 3 things jump out in the article

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/10/coronavirus-news-uk-china-wuhan-virus-outbreak-latest/

 

 

1. incubation may in extreme cases be up to 3 weeks - this ties with the "super-spreader story he came back from Singapore on 24th of Jan and  by all account (though no formal statement  as such)still shows no symptoms- he contacted nhs111 only because he had been at a conference for his company in Singapore and several collages had contracted it. (he is on day 17)

 

2. The death rate new calculations from Wuhan are quoted as 20% (but stated as may require adjustment for non diagnosed patients) can't see where this info came from but as i said above this is a reputable paper .  I wonder if China's story is changing now WHO on route (my thoughts not anything to back those up)

 

3 Over the weekend, an official in Shanghai confirmed the coronavirus also travelled through aerosol transmission, which means it can float a long distance through the air and cause infection later when it is breathed in. - However, not seen this backed up by western scientist for WHO confirmation.

Edited February 10, 2020 by fragilek
added info

[Pushka]

3 hours ago, auldlassie said:

Of course testing all would be logistically difficult. But just because it is difficult, expensive and/or time consuming, that does not lessen the need for it to be done. Japan is a rich and sophisticated country with many labs surely able to deal with this if they are tasked to. Testing all on board should have been put in place at the start.  Current circumstances show there does not seem to be another path which will ensure everyone who leaves the ship is virus free. If that does not happen, what was the point in the first place?

It is a very new virus and it has escalated very quickly. It isn’t a matter of simply drawing a blood sample and taking a temperature but rather a throat swab. I don’t know about others but when I have  blood drawn it takes quite some minutes to get the name right, and all the bio details done. Then in this case ensure there’s no cross contamination and then off the ship then off to the lab. What happens if the first test is negative? That doesn’t mean you are in the clear. It has to be repeated. And likely repeated, until the 14 days period passed. There is no way this could have been done because there was absolutely no time to prepare for the regime. 

[Pushka]

58 minutes ago, fragilek said:

Here is a link to a British broad sheet paper (not a tabloid) 3 things jump out in the article

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/10/coronavirus-news-uk-china-wuhan-virus-outbreak-latest/

 

 

2. The death rate new calculations from Wuhan are quoted as 20% (but stated as may require adjustment for non diagnosed patients) can't see where this info came from but as i said above this is a reputable paper .  I wonder if China's story is changing now WHO on route (my thoughts not anything to back those up)

Just commenting on 2. I’d say that only very seriously ill patients are now going to hospital so that may explain the change in death rate. Some report manageable symptoms, others mild and some, no symptoms at all. Just a guess really. So those might not even enter into the statistics. 

[in rod we trust]

4 hours ago, fragilek said:

 40 % of domestic cats carry FCoV a type of Coronavirus that mutates  in 10% of infected animals to a more deadly form FIP of the virus that is always fatal. There is no treatment or vaccine available all trials have failed so far.  Not suggesting it has any link at all just highlighting that this virus exits in many animals we come into contact with daily so it may be some time to completely identify the cause so far a few vector are under suspicion, including  bats, snakes and the pangolin

 

there are some pics of them throwing cats and dogs out of high rises thinking they transmit the virus its a myth spread by locals in china...  but here is food for thought.. in Canada they were researching the coronavirus . Chinese  targeted that microbiology lab and had a couple Chinese spies in there that stole some of the virus and ended up at the Chinese microbiology lab a military base 20ks from the Wuhan markets.   them markets as bad as they are have been going for 30+ yrs as they are. I think the Chinese were researching the coronavirus and something went wrong . so not to alarm the world by telling them its started in there bio weapons laboratory , they came up with lets blame it on the markets.. you can never trust the Chinese gov to tell you the truth .. the Canadians did a enquiry as how china got hold of there virus from there labs. after the enquiry the Canadians found they had Chinese spies a husband and wife scientist working there and were forcibly removed for stealing the virus . 

 

with that many infected on that ship its probably going to be a ghost ship now as I think people will be a bit scared to board that ship now..