Positive Covid Case on Paul Gauguin's 1st Cruise

[MrRandal]

7 minutes ago, Roger88 said:

I frequently receive such news. I always wondered how they do detect it on board. I mean so short line cruises are either taking on board already sick people or they simply have no temperature tests before boarding. I also doubt any precautions are taken care of when such incidents happen  

 

You obviously didn't read the thread, and your comments are out of line with the facts. Paul Gauguin had very strict precautionary protocols in place, including frequent temperature checks, and the positive case was asymptomatic. Once it was detected, after 4 days of this passenger being in French Polynesia, the ship isolated all passengers and returned to Papeete. French Polynesia requires a negative test 72 hours prior to boarding a plane headed to FP, and a second test, 4 days after arriving. All precautions and protocols were followed. 

[klkaylor78]

2 hours ago, AussieBoyTX said:

Right now, the only ones from that list that are flying are Air Tahiti Nui via Vancouver & Los Angeles, Air France via Vancouver and French Bee via Vancouver (not on the list above).

The other airlines are not operating right now. You can explore the flight history for PPT here (among other places): https://flightaware.com/live/airport/NTAA

 

One thing that Air Tahiti Nui proposed way back in March was service to/from France via Martinique, making their flights effectively domestic.

 

EDIT: United has a flight scheduled from San Francisco starting tomorrow.

As who/what/when is flying is a very movable target today so good point - I was looking at who could fly and as you noted who is flying is a whole other question day by day.  

[dsgriggs]

I am curious, did PG pay for the return flights to the US, or did the passengers?  I am currently booked on the Oct. 14 sailing, so all of this is of particular interest to me.  Thanks so much to the person(s) on this cruise who are sharing information, I appreciate it!

[rallydave]

22 minutes ago, dsgriggs said:

I am curious, did PG pay for the return flights to the US, or did the passengers?  I am currently booked on the Oct. 14 sailing, so all of this is of particular interest to me.  Thanks so much to the person(s) on this cruise who are sharing information, I appreciate it!

Believe Round trip air from los Angeles to Papeete is included in the cruise fare. 

[Emdee]

25 minutes ago, rallydave said:

Believe Round trip air from los Angeles to Papeete is included in the cruise fare. 

You have the choice to arrange this on your own. We usually do. 

[MrRandal]

2 hours ago, dsgriggs said:

 Thanks so much to the person(s) on this cruise who are sharing information, I appreciate it!

 

There is no one on this thread that is/was on the cruise. The information here has been gleaned from various sources, including News reports, and a Cruise Critic article posted on this site today. My understanding, from a post on this cruise's roll call on Cruise Critic, is that there were only 16 International passengers on board, 5 Americans, including one from Hawaii, and 11 from France. The rest of the passengers were from French Polynesia. The person who posted indicated the PG staff arranged their flight home, I assume he was talking about his and his traveling companions flight. He may have meant all of the International passengers, he wasn't clear. For more information, you might want to read through the roll call. 

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by MrRandal

[dsgriggs]

1 hour ago, MrRandal said:

 

There is no one on this thread that is/was on the cruise. The information here has been gleaned from various sources, including News reports, and a Cruise Critic article posted on this site today. My understanding, from a post on this cruise's roll call on Cruise Critic, is that there were only 16 International passengers on board, 5 Americans, including one from Hawaii, and 11 from France. The rest of the passengers were from French Polynesia. The person who posted indicated the PG staff arranged their flight home, I assume he was talking about his and his traveling companions flight. He may have meant all of the International passengers, he wasn't clear. For more information, you might want to read through the roll call. 

 

Yes, sorry, that's where I read it, just confused which group.  Thanks!

[Adairs3]

This is from the Tahitian Tourism board as of this morning. I'm following the July 29th thread closely as I'm booked on the 14 day, August 29th Marquesas Islands cruise.  

 

Mr Dominique SORAIN, High Commissioner of the Republic, and Mr Edouard FRITCH, President of French Polynesia, announced this afternoon the results of the sampling of all passengers and crew members aboard the Paul Gauguin cruise ship . The results of the RT-PCR tests are all negative.

As a result, passengers will be able to disembark from the cruise ship within the next hours and join a place of confinement.
Prior to disembarkation, all passengers will be required to sign a declaration to respect a period of quarantine.

They will then be quarantined for a period of seven days, either at home for local residents or in an individual accommodation facility for non-residents.
This quarantine period will be monitored by the Public Health Surveillance Office (PHSO). 
 
In addition, the High Commissionner's sanitary platform will be in daily contact with all persons in quarantine in order to verify the evolution of their state of health, compliance with containment measures and their ongoing presence at the place indicated for quarantine.

In order not to take any risk, at the end of this observation period, each person monitored will be tested one more time by RT-PCR test.

The health protocol implemented and the early measures applied by the cruise liner made it possible to rapidly detect and isolate the confirmed case of Covid-19, limiting the chain of transmission aboard the ship.

Moving forward, this health protocol will be reinforced with the obligation for all cruise passengers to carry out a self-test before boarding the ship.

 

 

[AussieBoyTX]

There is a substantial update today by AFP/Huffpost (in French): https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/entry/covid-19-en-polynesie-tous-les-autres-passagers-du-paquebot-paul-gaugin-sont-negatifs_fr_5f28ff5bc5b656e9b09f9e03

 

Highlights:

 

• On this ship, which returned to Papeete on Sunday with its 148 passengers and 192 crew members, all the tests conducted on the 339 people on board were negative.
• The American tourist who tested positive (asymptomatic) was tested positive on July 31, four days after her arrival in French Polynesia. In the meantime, she is with her mother who had boarded the liner
• All the people with whom she had been in contact would be tested, especially in Bora Bora where the liner stopped.
• From now on, passengers will also have to test negative before boarding a cruise ship.
• The Polynesian president also wants tourism to resume, a vital economic sector for this community. 
• The Ponant company, which manages the Paul Gauguin, offered its passengers a full refund, a 15-day cruise to the Marquesas Islands, or a credit note increased to 120% for a subsequent cruise.

[AussieBoyTX]

1 minute ago, Adairs3 said:

Moving forward, this health protocol will be reinforced with the obligation for all cruise passengers to carry out a self-test before boarding the ship.

 

 

Four more days in FP. Sounds "horrible."

[klkaylor78]

I find it interesting that PG is listing a new requirement for a negative PCR test before boarding. As a person who is scheduled to be on PG in Dec we were provided links (which I have previously provided)  which delineated a PCR preboarding test requirement. The PG document did not specify a time line (how long before boarding) but the Ponant document states within 3 days.  As I have stated before the turn around times and logistics of multiple test while traveling maybe the limiter for cruising.  Most folks are still isolating somewhat pre travel, are testing in that mode, then move to the high mix environment of travel (airport, buses, cabs, dining out) prior to getting to the ship after testing. For me the logic is that the risk of picking up Covid 19 is during the pre embarkation travel.  Pre embarkation testing and isolation may be the only solution. This is similar to what the US profession sports are doing.  Enter the bubble, isolate in the bubble, test in the bubble, join when negative.  The issues are how long and how to be an important enough person or group to get 24hr turn around on testing.  

 

Everyone should also remember that all tests - to include PCR/Antigen/Antibody Covid-19 tests have a false positive rate so....

no test is 100% sensitive(positive when infected) or 100% specific (negative when not infected.)  Dealing with the "false" results are part of disease detection. The good news is that PCR is very sensitive so (95-98%, antigen testing less so (can be as low as 70%) so my question that I have yet to find the answer to is what type of test is the FP mandated take home test? If all passenger tests of those on board upon arrival in Tahiti were negative was that positive test a false positive or was that person not tested on the ship as they reportedly move to the hospital. It would be interesting to see is the incident person tested positive again by PCR at the hospital  or secondly did they become symptomatic or have antibodies at 3+wks. 

 

 

 

 

 

[klkaylor78]

There is a thread on this topic as well under the PG Roll Call section - so I did not provide the source documents on this thread

So here they are:

This is the FP air tourism site for requirements for air travel

https://tahititourisme.com/en-us/covid-19/

This is the PG covid testing requirement

https://www.pgcruises.com/travel-advisory

This is the Ponant Safe Covid Manifesto 

https://en.calameo.com/read/000132423bdb3b0a1a579?authid=k4a19tLoX9rj

 

Let me again see if the moderators would consider merging these threads as there is better real time data on the roll call one and better long term questions/concerns/answers in this thread.

[Mercruiser]

18 minutes ago, klkaylor78 said:

 so my question that I have yet to find the answer to is what type of test is the FP mandated take home test? 

 

 

There is a picture of the "Genelife" test kit here on the Tahiti newspaper web site:

https://www.tahiti-infos.com/Fin-du-test-Covid-obligatoire-a-l-entree-en-Polynesie-pour-les-moins-de-six-ans_a193185.html

 

However, we cannot be absolutely sure if this is the actual test being used in FP, or just a stock photo.

[Petoonya]

An Air Tahiti Nui flight attendant has tested positive according to this source, but I can find no other news outlet carrying the story. Maybe it's misinformation. Or if it is so maybe he/she has not been retested to prove the flight he/she really does have it. Fingers crossed this info is incorrect.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/422805/tahiti-flight-attendant-tests-positive-for-covid-19

[klkaylor78]

On 8/4/2020 at 8:37 AM, Mercruiser said:

 

There is a picture of the "Genelife" test kit here on the Tahiti newspaper web site:

https://www.tahiti-infos.com/Fin-du-test-Covid-obligatoire-a-l-entree-en-Polynesie-pour-les-moins-de-six-ans_a193185.html

 

However, we cannot be absolutely sure if this is the actual test being used in FP, or just a stock photo.

Actually that answered my question - the 4 day test is a PCR not antigen - slower to run (2-??? days) but more acurate than the quick (15-20 min but only 70% positive predictive value test). Thanks!

[Mercruiser]

3 hours ago, Petoonya said:

An Air Tahiti Nui flight attendant has tested positive according to this source, but I can find no other news outlet carrying the story. Maybe it's misinformation. Or if it is so maybe he/she has not been retested to prove the flight he/she really does have it. Fingers crossed this info is incorrect.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/422805/tahiti-flight-attendant-tests-positive-for-covid-19

The story appeared in the Tahiti newspaper

https://www.tahiti-infos.com/Un-personnel-navigant-teste-positif-au-Covid_a193215.html

 

Here is a related story

https://www.tahiti-infos.com/Apres-le-cas-Covid-Air-Tahiti-Nui-veut-rassurer_a193219.html

 

What I've noticed these last couple of days is that a story appears in Tahiti Infos, the Tahiti newspaper web site. Then an English version of it appears on RNZ and a few others. Tahiti Infos seems to have had all of the PG Covid stories first.

Edited August 5, 2020 by Mercruiser

[Petoonya]

@Mercruiser

Thanks very much for the info 🙂

[MrRandal]

On 8/5/2020 at 2:26 PM, Mercruiser said:

The story appeared in the Tahiti newspaper

https://www.tahiti-infos.com/Un-personnel-navigant-teste-positif-au-Covid_a193215.html

 

Here is a related story

https://www.tahiti-infos.com/Apres-le-cas-Covid-Air-Tahiti-Nui-veut-rassurer_a193219.html

 

What I've noticed these last couple of days is that a story appears in Tahiti Infos, the Tahiti newspaper web site. Then an English version of it appears on RNZ and a few others. Tahiti Infos seems to have had all of the PG Covid stories first.

 

There is actually a button on the top right of the Tahiti Infos website to select Language. The story was translated, but the bulletin that was put out by ATN did not translate.

[npcl]

On 8/5/2020 at 11:48 AM, klkaylor78 said:

Actually that answered my question - the 4 day test is a PCR not antigen - slower to run (2-??? days) but more acurate than the quick (15-20 min but only 70% positive predictive value test). Thanks!

Keep in mind that even with PCR there is a high false negative rate with COVID.  According to one study the best rate with PCR is 20% false negative depending upon day of infection.  It will miss almost all infections on day 1, miss 67% on day 4 that drops to 20% on day 8 then starts to worsen again.  ON average on the first day of symptoms you will still get a 38% false negative rate.

 

So while testing is a good step, it is not certain to catch every infection.  Thus the approach being taken to quarantine the passengers for 7 days then retest is a good approach.

 

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-1495

 

Variation in False-Negative Rate of Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction–Based SARS-CoV-2 Tests by Time Since Exposure

 

Over the 4 days of infection before the typical time of symptom onset (day 5), the probability of a false-negative result in an infected person decreases from 100% (95% CI, 100% to 100%) on day 1 to 67% (CI, 27% to 94%) on day 4. On the day of symptom onset, the median false-negative rate was 38% (CI, 18% to 65%). This decreased to 20% (CI, 12% to 30%) on day 8 (3 days after symptom onset) then began to increase again, from 21% (CI, 13% to 31%) on day 9 to 66% (CI, 54% to 77%) on day 21.

[susiesan]

What is the status of the pax from the first cruise? Are they still in Papeete or have they been flown home? Were anymore cases found in either the pax or crew?

[Adairs3]

I haven't heard anything either and I've been getting all the notifications from Paul Gauguin and the Tahiti Tourism board. I wonder as well...

[Tahitianbigkahuna]

4 hours ago, susiesan said:

What is the status of the pax from the first cruise? Are they still in Papeete or have they been flown home? Were anymore cases found in either the pax or crew?

All crew/officers were negative and negative a second time after the 7 day re-test

[klkaylor78]

did the person who tested positive on the "four day test" every have symptoms or test positive for test after being quarantined?

[Covepointcruiser]

Why were folks from the U.S. on that cruise or even, for that matter, in Tahiti??   The U.S. has said that only essential overseas travel should be taken.   As much as I love FP and the idea of a vacation, I don’t believe anyone would think my travel as a tourist was essential.  

[rallydave]

6 minutes ago, Covepointcruiser said:

Why were folks from the U.S. on that cruise or even, for that matter, in Tahiti??   The U.S. has said that only essential overseas travel should be taken.   As much as I love FP and the idea of a vacation, I don’t believe anyone would think my travel as a tourist was essential.  

Because it was only a recommendation and not rule or law. And leaving th US we are not checked out going they immigration like many outside the US have to do.