Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?

[ljason913]

1 minute ago, Fouremco said:

In spite of the false claims that armchair molecular biologists continue to circulate on the Internet, PCR tests are highly accurate, and are considered the "gold standard" of testing. I've no worries about a false positive.

thats great i still dont want to be tested

[Fouremco]

1 minute ago, ljason913 said:

thats great i still dont want to be tested

No problem, just don't cruise for the next while. I doubt that testing will be a permanent part of the new normal.

[ljason913]

1 minute ago, Fouremco said:

No problem, just don't cruise for the next while. I doubt that testing will be a permanent part of the new normal.

i will cruise out of florida i dont think they will force vaccinated guests to wear mask or get tested.i could careless what they do with the unvaccinated,,,

[Fouremco]

7 minutes ago, ljason913 said:

i will cruise out of florida i dont think they will force vaccinated guests to wear mask or get tested.i could careless what they do with the unvaccinated,,,

Go for it! Let us know what happens if you refuse to be tested at the port. 🙄

[ljason913]

1 minute ago, Fouremco said:

Go for it! Let us know what happens if you refuse to be tested at the port. 🙄

On royals website it says vaccinated people do not need to be tested but have to wear a mask in side 😡 

[LGW59]

11 minutes ago, ljason913 said:

i will cruise out of florida i dont think they will force vaccinated guests to wear mask or get tested.i could careless what they do with the unvaccinated,,,

There is a whole other thread here about current mask requirements, I suggest you read them.  And once you leave FL the ship’s captain becomes the governor.  

[cangelmd]

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

I had not considered about a testing artifact so you might be right.  But I think they were both tested more than once.

LOL, testing artifact or cross contamination was the FIRST thing I thought of. I was referring more to one person was susceptible and the other person, just happened to inhale virus from Person A in time to be picked up by the test - but that only makes good sense if the original test was a PCR - the antigen would be less likely to pick that up. I stand by my final statement - they were not immune, and while I’m not accusing them of faking the card, I think it’s fairly plausible that they were well within the two weeks, Celeb didn’t pick that up or call them out on it and they got exposed at the same time.

[K.T.B.]

2 hours ago, ljason913 said:

i will cruise out of florida i dont think they will force vaccinated guests to wear mask or get tested.i could careless what they do with the unvaccinated,,,

 

If they want you tested, you'll be tested.  If you refuse, you won't cruise.  It's that simple.  Vaccinated, unvaccinated,  doesn't matter.

[cruise kitty]

15 hours ago, mimbecky said:

 

Here is the site...

Digital COVID-19 Vaccine Record (ca.gov)

 

thank you, it looks like I will have to just do with my CDC card for now, as my vaccination site was out of the parameters... going to give them a call on Monday & see if there's anyway for me to get this.  🙂

[larry_s_taco]

4 hours ago, cangelmd said:

Do you know exactly which test you took onboard? Was it an antigen test or a PCR? Did they just swab your nose or was it NP swab?My first assumption was that one person had a breakthrough and the other person sharing the cabin had transient virus picked up by the test. This is less likely with the antigen test because it needs actual viral replication, not just some RNA hanging around.

 

The simplest explanation is two faked vaccination cards or 2 people who weren’t the full two weeks past vaccination. I now think that if they were truly both travel pros, the lure of a free cruise might have been too much to resist and they got vaccinated right before getting on the plane. I don’t know if we will ever know for certain.

On the ship the first test they gave was the antigen test. If your antigen test was positive they then gave you the PCR test. They tested positive on both.

 

[larry_s_taco]

2 hours ago, cangelmd said:

LOL, testing artifact or cross contamination was the FIRST thing I thought of. I was referring more to one person was susceptible and the other person, just happened to inhale virus from Person A in time to be picked up by the test - but that only makes good sense if the original test was a PCR - the antigen would be less likely to pick that up. I stand by my final statement - they were not immune, and while I’m not accusing them of faking the card, I think it’s fairly plausible that they were well within the two weeks, Celeb didn’t pick that up or call them out on it and they got exposed at the same time.

I don't think Celebrity let anything slip. We had to have a PCR within 72 hrs of boarding for Celebrity. St Maaten mandated one within 120 hrs of arrival. So bottom line is that everyone had to have them within the last 72 hrs. Everyone had to be cleared through the St Maarten government to get on the island. Once you uploaded your vaccine card, negative PCR test, and filled out the appropriate government form you waited to receive your approval. To get on your flight from the USA you had to have all three forms or they would not even let you on the plane. Once you got to St Maarten you had to have the same papers to show the officials at the airport there. If for some reason they didn't like the way your PCR test was documented you had retest at the airport at your own expense. ($125.00) Then at the cruiseport you had to produce the documents again. If your PCR was not within Celebrity's 72 hour requirements they gave you an antigen test gratis. It was a very thorough process, and was a little frustrating, but I applaud them for their efforts.

[phoenix_dream]

On 6/15/2021 at 10:43 AM, cangelmd said:

This is what we have done. We are booked on second Equinox cruise, August 1. Everything is refundable until late July. We have fortunate enough to have a Celebrity Suite, so we have a plan for holing up in our room if necessary, but hope to enjoy the ship. If we miss all the ports that’s ok. We are going with the flow and just thankful to be going.

Unfortunately, if you test positive (symptoms or not) you can kiss your Celebrity Suite good-bye, as they will move you to an outside cabin on Deck Two!

[D C]

9 hours ago, Fouremco said:

In spite of the false claims that armchair molecular biologists continue to circulate on the Internet, PCR tests are highly accurate, and are considered the "gold standard" of testing. I've no worries about a false positive.

Having been the recipient of a false positive test, I'll say that it's a valid concern.  

 

Problem with false positives is that they're simply assumed to be real and asymptomatic. The US has never had a "check twice" protocol. Nor has there been any regulation of PCR cycles.  

 

Hopefully the cruise lines do a better job of making follow up assessments upon a positive result. 

Edited June 21, 2021 by D C

[Fouremco]

3 minutes ago, D C said:

Having been the recipient of a false positive test, I'll say that it's a valid concern.  

 

Problem with false positives is that they're simply assumed to be real and asymptomatic. The US has never had a "check twice" protocol. Nor has there been any regulation of PCR cycles.  

 

I'm not saying that PCR false positives never happen, just that they are infrequent and consequently don't worry me. There are many other things that I would worry about far more. 

[D C]

Just now, Fouremco said:

I'm not saying that PCR false positives never happen, just that they are infrequent and consequently don't worry me. There are many other things that I would worry about far more. 

You did call them "false claims" however. 

 

The chances are certainly remote and don't bother me in terms of cruising, but they do exist, and the likelihood of a positive being false* is actually quite large right now as the expected test result trends lower and lower (*different from a test result being positive) 

[nocl]

13 hours ago, TeeRick said:

A pretty good summary of mRNA vaccines and Myocarditis.   The risk from COVID itself is about 1/1000.  The general risk /frequency is 1/100,000.  It seems that the general data seen so far in the vaccinated is about 300 cases in 7 million vaccinated younger people (ages 12-17) according to CDC.  Not sure if all were vaccine related.  Cases seem to be mild and resolve quickly.   An advisory committee to the CDC is meeting this week to review everything.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/17/1007447098/pfizer-covid-vaccine-teens-symptoms-myocarditis

The rate is about twice what would normally be expected in that age group so the increase comes out to about 20-22 per million or about 1 per 50,000. 

[cangelmd]

5 minutes ago, D C said:

Having been the recipient of a false positive test, I'll say that it's a valid concern.  

 

Problem with false positives is that they're simply assumed to be real and asymptomatic. The US has never had a "check twice" protocol. Nor has there been any regulation of PCR cycles.  

 

I’m sorry you had a false positive- it is a problem with this PCR, although becoming rarer. There is  verification of PCR cycles for SARS COV 2 through PT from the College of American Pathologists. WHO also has published recommended cycle count, I think it is 32-35, and validation sets are available. Not every lab will use the same cycle count, that’s why the assay is validated. Early on like this time last year, the number of cycles corresponding to a clinical positive was unknown. For this virus, the long incubation is a problem. In June 2020, the big topic was persistent positives - could not get recovered patients discharged to rehab or nursing home, employees couldn’t get cleared to come back to work. Now we have more in depth clinical knowledge of what the test means.

Not sure what you mean by check twice - we confirmed cases all the time, ran some people 3-4 times, but these were symptomatic patients, sometimes gravely I’ll, whose results didn’t make sense - not asymptomatic or mildly sick patients.

[Fouremco]

1 minute ago, D C said:

You did call them "false claims" however. 

 

The chances are certainly remote and don't bother me in terms of cruising, but they do exist, and the likelihood of a positive being false* is actually quite large right now as the expected test result trends lower and lower (*different from a test result being positive) 

You need to reread my earlier post. My reference to "false claims" pertained to the misinformation propagated on the Internet that PCR tests are prone to huge numbers of false positives.

[nocl]

9 minutes ago, D C said:

You did call them "false claims" however. 

 

The chances are certainly remote and don't bother me in terms of cruising, but they do exist, and the likelihood of a positive being false* is actually quite large right now as the expected test result trends lower and lower (*different from a test result being positive) 

False positives with PCR are usually related to lab error (flaw procedure, contamination of sample. excessive cycles).  Antigen testing is more likely to produce a consistent rate of false positive results. For that reason best way is a low cost fast antigen test, with any positive result confirmed by a PCR test.  The odds of a false positive taking place on both tests would be extremely low.

Edited June 21, 2021 by nocl

[nocl]

Interesting data coming out of the UK where they have compared brain scans in a number of patients per and post a Covid infection.   Measurable loss in grey matter showing up in many cases.  Largely centered in the areas related to taste and smell.  Makes sense considering the presence of those symptoms in some cases, as well as some of the long haul symptoms.

 

Mechanism of action causing the loss of grey matter still unknown.

[D C]

10 minutes ago, nocl said:

False positives with PCR are usually related to lab error (flaw procedure, contamination of sample. excessive cycles).  Antigen testing is more likely to produce a consistent rate of false positive results. For that reason best way is a low cost fast antigen test, with any positive result confirmed by a PCR test.  The odds of a false positive taking place on both tests would be extremely low.

Agreed. The second opinion, so to speak, is essential. 

[TeeRick]

10 hours ago, nocl said:

Interesting data coming out of the UK where they have compared brain scans in a number of patients per and post a Covid infection.   Measurable loss in grey matter showing up in many cases.  Largely centered in the areas related to taste and smell.  Makes sense considering the presence of those symptoms in some cases, as well as some of the long haul symptoms.

 

Mechanism of action causing the loss of grey matter still unknown.

Another very good reason to get vaccinated and avoid COVID.

[TeeRick]

I think they should put some of these people in public service ads to encourage vaccinations.  Just like they do with some of the lifelong smokers with major complications who have agreed to do them.

 

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210618/man-refusing-covid-vaccine-later-needs-lung-transplant

[Pinboy]

11 hours ago, Fouremco said:

There are many other things that I would worry about far more. 

Yea--- Like what happened to Les Canadiens last night !!!

 

[Fouremco]

1 hour ago, Pinboy said:

Yea--- Like what happened to Les Canadiens last night !!!

 

 😪  😪  😪