The politics of the cruise industry during COVID19

[pokerguy90]

Just a few short months ago, you would board a cruise and hope the Norovirus wasn’t a fellow passenger.  Fast forward and now, any of us would easily trade Covid for Noro.  My how things can change so quickly.  
 

Now the cruise lines have to scramble to get us cruising again once things calm down, and this freaking virus is quashed (hopefully).

Until then the political game is now in play.  When is it safe, how will the lines deal with sanitation going forward?  They just found on Tuesday on a Princess ship that after 20 day the virus is still showing up on hard surfaces on that ship.  
 

How are we to believe it is really safe even after the ships are back to revenue cruising? Ah, thats where the politics comes in.  Do we have blind faith? Do we wear hazmat suites for 7 days in the carib. Will buffets only be served by gloved staff?  Oh, and WHEN that first case of Noro I mentioned before rears its ugly head. Will that be the end of cruising? Or will we just forgo better judgement and roll the dice when they are giving cruises away, just to get people back.

how will this play out?  I am eager to hear what you have to say.

 

[not-enough-cruising]

I don’t have much comment on most

of your post.  Referencing finding the virus after 20 days on the Diamond Princess however needs addressed. 

They found RNA, on had surfaces on the ship, RNA is not infectious, it is only a bio marker. Also of note, the ship had undergone ZERO cleansing or disinfecting. The disinfectant used

on a Noro cruise (since you used Noro

multiple times) easily kills Coronavirus. 

I am sure it was not your intent to alarm, but this  fallacy out there that the virus lived on the cruise ship counter tops for nearly 3 weeks Is just a bad narrative. 

 

[fdthird]

Politics???

[pokerguy90]

Politics akin to office politics, not referring to govt.  

To address the RNA I purposely omitted that. It has nothing to do with a virus being inert , but more about public perception of said narrative.  What will people think.  I am not adding any additional oil to an existing fire.  This is basically an open forum to discuss a simple topic.  Sorry if you feel that way. Never was my intention.  We are all equally connected in this.

[voyager70]

Not a productive post at this point IMO   

[pokerguy90]

19 minutes ago, voyager70 said:

Not a productive post at this point IMO   
 

Not understanding your reply.
The cruise industry will NOT fully recover from this unscathed.

NCL & Princess will not survive this.  NCL has less then 150mil in cash with 9.8 Billion in debt.  Carnival Corp will be forced to bury the Princess line as law suits and problematic name recognition will continue to plague them.  Arnold Donald is no fool. and Frank Del Rio knows he is totally screwed.  
 

Even with securing a few Billion in temp funding. The writing is on the wall.  
very topical and thought provoking subject.  Never meant to be a productive post. Not every post needs to be.  Besides how many posts about sneaking booze on board is really productive anyway.

 

stay well.😀 
 

[drrich2]

A big question...given that not everyone will get it or have had it at a given point in time, presumably a large number of people on a given cruise would be vulnerable, not everyone with symptoms would announce that (for a number of reasons, including denial), and fever can be suppressed with Tylenol before you board. I imagine testing everyone will be cost-prohibitive, and false positives would tick a lot of people off (and you get false positives when you do mass screening of populations where the large majority don't have the condition). Asymptomatic carriers are possible. 

 

So, in terms of what needs to happen, what are we waiting for? 

 

1.) Lower prevalence of the virus due to containment via temporary social distancing, hoping it just 'goes away?' If so, how uncommon will it have to be to take the chance?

or

 

2.) A vaccine is in wide-spread use. Might even require boarders show proof of immunization or prior case that cleared. A vaccine could take much longer than the cruise industry can wait.

 

Interesting times...

[mugtech]

Not even thinking about cruising until April, 2021, at the earliest.  Anything else on this thread is pure speculation, and since I have many months to view cruising I can wait to see what really happens.

[compman9]

The world is waiting for two things:

1. An effective treatment

2. A vaccine

 

Once the first one is achieved things will start getting back to normal. Until then, we will be in lockdown

[JAMESCC]

10 hours ago, pokerguy90 said:

Just a few short months ago, you would board a cruise and hope the Norovirus wasn’t a fellow passenger.  Fast forward and now, any of us would easily trade Covid for Noro.  My how things can change so quickly.  
 

Now the cruise lines have to scramble to get us cruising again once things calm down, and this freaking virus is quashed (hopefully).

Until then the political game is now in play.  When is it safe, how will the lines deal with sanitation going forward?  They just found on Tuesday on a Princess ship that after 20 day the virus is still showing up on hard surfaces on that ship.  
 

How are we to believe it is really safe even after the ships are back to revenue cruising? Ah, thats where the politics comes in.  Do we have blind faith? Do we wear hazmat suites for 7 days in the carib. Will buffets only be served by gloved staff?  Oh, and WHEN that first case of Noro I mentioned before rears its ugly head. Will that be the end of cruising? Or will we just forgo better judgement and roll the dice when they are giving cruises away, just to get people back.

how will this play out?  I am eager to hear what you have to say.

 

That report was FALSE!

 

 

[time4u2go]

12 hours ago, pokerguy90 said:

Just a few short months ago, you would board a cruise and hope the Norovirus wasn’t a fellow passenger.  Fast forward and now, any of us would easily trade Covid for Noro.  My how things can change so quickly.  
 

Now the cruise lines have to scramble to get us cruising again once things calm down, and this freaking virus is quashed (hopefully).

Until then the political game is now in play.  When is it safe, how will the lines deal with sanitation going forward?  They just found on Tuesday on a Princess ship that after 20 day the virus is still showing up on hard surfaces on that ship.  
 

How are we to believe it is really safe even after the ships are back to revenue cruising? Ah, thats where the politics comes in.  Do we have blind faith? Do we wear hazmat suites for 7 days in the carib. Will buffets only be served by gloved staff?  Oh, and WHEN that first case of Noro I mentioned before rears its ugly head. Will that be the end of cruising? Or will we just forgo better judgement and roll the dice when they are giving cruises away, just to get people back.

how will this play out?  I am eager to hear what you have to say.

 

Not only can people not catch the virus from the RNA, they purposely did not clean several rooms so that they could be used for analysis. The 20-day thing is extremely misleading.

[rtazz17]

Just like every virus you will get it and recover. You will have immunity after recovering. its not a death sentence... its just too many getting it at once over whelming hospitals. On top of that its still flu season and then the people panicking with a sniffle running to the hospital. Media has done a number in fear mongering the heck out of this. I work in emergency medicine treating patients and people are petrified from watching the tabloid media hype. There will be another virus that comes along and hopefully we have learned from this experience. Common sense is still your best defense. Wash your hands,dont lick your fingers,etc... its nothing new..most viruses are all transferred the same route. Dont panic. If you get it treat your symptoms and recover. Of course if you are immune compromised you are more susceptible. But that goes for every virus.

 

Eventually this will pass and fun will resume!   

Edited March 28, 2020 by rtazz17

[bobmacliberty]

No matter the reality, Princess Cruise Lines will have a harder time recovering than other cruise lines.  Their reputation took a huge hit.

[Wine-O]

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

No matter the reality, Princess Cruise Lines will have a harder time recovering than other cruise lines.  Their reputation took a huge hit.

I'm not so sure about that.  People have short term memories.  Remember when they had that Carnival ship stuck at sea for 4-5 days with no power, no electricity, no A/C, people sleeping on open decks with their stateroom mattresses, yada, yada, yada?  People still sailing Carnival.  🍷

[JAMESCC]

2 hours ago, rtazz17 said:

Just like every virus you will get it and recover. You will have immunity after recovering. its not a death sentence... its just too many getting it at once over whelming hospitals. On top of that its still flu season and then the people panicking with a sniffle running to the hospital. Media has done a number in fear mongering the heck out of this. I work in emergency medicine treating patients and people are petrified from watching the tabloid media hype. There will be another virus that comes along and hopefully we have learned from this experience. Common sense is still your best defense. Wash your hands,dont lick your fingers,etc... its nothing new..most viruses are all transferred the same route. Dont panic. If you get it treat your symptoms and recover. Of course if you are immune compromised you are more susceptible. But that goes for every virus.

 

Eventually this will pass and fun will resume!   

Excellent post, agree with this. I could have never said it as well but agree.

[Toofarfromthesea]

5 hours ago, rtazz17 said:

Just like every virus you will get it and recover. You will have immunity after recovering. its not a death sentence... its just too many getting it at once over whelming hospitals. On top of that its still flu season and then the people panicking with a sniffle running to the hospital. Media has done a number in fear mongering the heck out of this. I work in emergency medicine treating patients and people are petrified from watching the tabloid media hype. There will be another virus that comes along and hopefully we have learned from this experience. Common sense is still your best defense. Wash your hands,dont lick your fingers,etc... its nothing new..most viruses are all transferred the same route. Dont panic. If you get it treat your symptoms and recover. Of course if you are immune compromised you are more susceptible. But that goes for every virus.

 

Eventually this will pass and fun will resume!   

 

Maybe.  But the relief bill that just passed will give the cruiselines nothing since they chose to NOT be American companies, a decision the cruiselines made that has saved them a lot in taxes over the years but which may prove, in the end, economically fatal.

[sanger727]

How will this play out? Cruise lines will resume operations someday; they will offer discounts to fill their ships; and people will book because they care more about their cheap vacation than getting sick. Life will return to normal eventually and people have short memories. None of the items you suggest will change. 
 

right now we are in the thick of it and I still see many many people going about their business like nothing has changed. If this issue isn’t sufficient to inspire short term change in the masses, when it’s over it wont inspire long term change either.

[Ava79]

On 3/28/2020 at 10:49 AM, compman9 said:

The world is waiting for two things:

1. An effective treatment

2. A vaccine

 

Once the first one is achieved things will start getting back to normal. Until then, we will be in lockdown

I complete agree with you. Without this, it is stupid to do anything. And in general, all the arguments about the future, including the future of cruises, are now exclusively assumed-subjective. We are waiting for official news and hope for the best.

[yorkshirephil]

22 hours ago, rtazz17 said:

Just like every virus you will get it and recover. You will have immunity after recovering. its not a death sentence... its just too many getting it at once over whelming hospitals. On top of that its still flu season and then the people panicking with a sniffle running to the hospital. Media has done a number in fear mongering the heck out of this. I work in emergency medicine treating patients and people are petrified from watching the tabloid media hype. There will be another virus that comes along and hopefully we have learned from this experience. Common sense is still your best defense. Wash your hands,dont lick your fingers,etc... its nothing new..most viruses are all transferred the same route. Dont panic. If you get it treat your symptoms and recover. Of course if you are immune compromised you are more susceptible. But that goes for every virus.

 

Eventually this will pass and fun will resume!   

Hopefully non of your young healthy family or friends will die from this, it is this gung ho attitude that is spreading the virus. Bury your head if you ned to but I would take note of what is happening globally and see if you feel the same in a couple of months.

[ilikeanswers]

On 3/29/2020 at 1:01 AM, rtazz17 said:

Just like every virus you will get it and recover. You will have immunity after recovering. its not a death sentence...

 

It could be a life sentance though. There is evidence coming out that damage to the lungs after being infected with COVID 19 could be permanent with capacity reduced up to 30%. Look at the damage that SARS did to people's lungs. There is some links to brain lesions and heart damage. The measles it was discovered completely ravages the immune system taking three years to fully recover and therefore making those people more suseptible to other infections diseases in the mean time who knows if COVID 19 doesn't have a similar effect. The truth is we don't really know what could be potential long term side effects to COVID 19.

[ilikeanswers]

5 hours ago, sanger727 said:

How will this play out? Cruise lines will resume operations someday; they will offer discounts to fill their ships; and people will book because they care more about their cheap vacation than getting sick. Life will return to normal eventually and people have short memories. None of the items you suggest will change.

 

I used to think people will forget but now I am not so sure. Talk of COVID 19 is 24/7 on the news cycle and it is a constantly trending search on the internet and if you are in a country that is locked down for six months after being so long conditioned to social distancing it might be an effort to convince people that cruises are safe🤔.

[clo]

On 3/27/2020 at 6:26 PM, not-enough-cruising said:

They found RNA, on had surfaces on the ship, RNA is not infectious, it is only a bio marker.

Not exactly. Most of the articles I found were SO technical in nature but this says it quite well.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/23/coronavirus-isnt-alive-thats-why-its-so-hard-kill/

[not-enough-cruising]

1 hour ago, clo said:

Not exactly. Most of the articles I found were SO technical in nature but this says it quite well.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/23/coronavirus-isnt-alive-thats-why-its-so-hard-kill/

Interesting article, but nowhere does it say that RNA found after 20 days is still infectious

[clo]

18 minutes ago, not-enough-cruising said:

Interesting article, but nowhere does it say that RNA found after 20 days is still infectious

It may be and it may not be.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_virus

[not-enough-cruising]

13 minutes ago, clo said:

It may be and it may not be.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_virus

Do you even read these articles you are posting?  Not one shred of evidence that the RNA material found on this cruise ship after nearly 3 weeks could be infectious; and for the record Wikipedia is a terrible source of information.

 

This article from NEJM, states quite clearly that RNA found outside a host for this amount of time is completely inert.

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973?query=featured_home