CDC Raises Cruise Travel Risk to Level 4 - Very High

[time4u2go]

8 minutes ago, hallux said:

I said it in previous threads - you can't look at the raw number, you need to look at the per capita rate.  It's a given that if more people are tested you're going to have more cases as a raw number.  New York is reporting tests that come back positive as a percent of total tests done.

You can find that information for every state, here:

 

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states/usa

[ZoeyVictoria]

Just now, time4u2go said:

That's a good point. 

It will likely zoom after Thanksgiving travel, and look even worse than it really is because of that extra testing.

[jean87510]

4 hours ago, greatdanemom said:

Cruise ships are elevated to a Level 4, yet schools are the “safest place for children to be” according to the CDC this week. Apparently the CDC Director has never spent a day with a Kindergarten class.

Actually the kids that I see in my neck of the woods in NJ all keep their masks on and have the concept of social distancing down.  I am a school nurse in various inner city schools and the kids and parents have been good.  I see more ADULTS including teachers pulling masks down to talk in school then the students.  I do agree with the statement re the schools based on my experience.  Ive been in person 4x a week and it has been working great.  

[BND]

6 hours ago, greatdanemom said:

Cruise ships are elevated to a Level 4, yet schools are the “safest place for children to be” according to the CDC this week. Apparently the CDC Director has never spent a day with a Kindergarten class.

Well, apparently infected children (with or without symptoms)  carry a very low load of the virus and don't transmit it well.  Adults carry a much higher load and can transmit it easily to others.  Unlike with the flu where children carry large loads and transmit it very easily.  So, that statement isn't wrong.

Edited November 22, 2020 by BND

[time4u2go]

51 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

But testing uncovers asymptomatic cases in which people have no symptoms and would be unware they had it. And the more you test for something the more you will find it.

That may help explain why the raw number of positive cases has gone up, but it doesn't explain why the positivity rate has gone up.

 

Also, as others have pointed out, hospitalizations are up in many areas.  That does not result from more testing.

Edited November 22, 2020 by time4u2go

[Junkhouse]

7 hours ago, time4u2go said:

That may help explain why the raw number of positive cases has gone up, but it doesn't explain why the positivity rate has gone up.

 

Also, as others have pointed out, hospitalizations are up in many areas.  That does not result from more testing.

Elon Musk got tested 4 times in one day using the same nurse and testing equipment. Two came back positive, two came back negative. So the numbers could be 100% higher or 100% less. Who are we to trust?

[Iamcruzin]

17 hours ago, hallux said:

All this does is further people's opinions that cruise ships are "petri dishes" and instill fear towards cruising in those people.  I agree that considering there are no cruises even allowed to sail there should have been no change in the recommendation.

Cruise ships had the reputation of being petri dishes long before COVID. Now with COVID passengers on board, the recent events have turned cruise ships into leper colonies with no place to dock.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Iamcruzin

[bretts173]

How ridiculous to say more testing more positives. Lets for example test evry person in Australia in one day.The numbers wont go up if there is no virus. The reason there is more testing is because more people are seek and feel they need to be tested.

 

[D C]

22 hours ago, sandebeach said:

I saw that yesterday. Not sure why the CDC decided at this time to raise to a Level 4, when no passenger cruises have cruised out of the US in months. Perhaps a reaction to the Seadream Covid cases?

My only guess is that someone high up at the CDC went on a cruise once and had a shi**y time and has a vendetta against cruising now.  

 

"We don't care what measures they take to make the ships safe...don't do it" is pure fear-mongering with no practical benefit.

 

 

[chengkp75]

24 minutes ago, D C said:

My only guess is that someone high up at the CDC went on a cruise once and had a shi**y time and has a vendetta against cruising now.  

 

"We don't care what measures they take to make the ships safe...don't do it" is pure fear-mongering with no practical benefit.

 

 

Ah, another of the "CDC has a vendetta against cruise lines" posts.  I love these.  If the CDC wanted to get rid of the cruise industry, all they had to do was to cancel the VSP (that ardent cruisers read fervently to find "their" ship's scores) and replace it with what they have been doing for a couple of centuries, and that is a full sanitation inspection and health interviews with passengers and crew, before allowing disembarkation, each and every time the ship enters US waters.

 

This is a travel advisory, just like the ones to Mongolia and other places noted in previous posts, and it is simply a recommendation, with absolutely no enforcement capability by the CDC.  I see this as a higher level of warning for potential cruise passengers as the possibility of cruises actually restarting comes closer with the CSO.  The ships will operate under the CSO, and passengers are further warned, but not prohibited, from sailing on those ships.

 

And, again, it is not about the collective "you" who feel that they can make a rational decision about the threat to their health and decide to cruise, the CDC really doesn't care about whether you get covid on the ship or not.  They care about the "we", the rest of the US population, who could be infected by someone who had been on a cruise, and who returned to the US and spread it.

[D C]

2 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Ah, another of the "CDC has a vendetta against cruise lines" posts.  I love these.  If the CDC wanted to get rid of the cruise industry, all they had to do was to cancel the VSP (that ardent cruisers read fervently to find "their" ship's scores) and replace it with what they have been doing for a couple of centuries, and that is a full sanitation inspection and health interviews with passengers and crew, before allowing disembarkation, each and every time the ship enters US waters.

 

This is a travel advisory, just like the ones to Mongolia and other places noted in previous posts, and it is simply a recommendation, with absolutely no enforcement capability by the CDC.  I see this as a higher level of warning for potential cruise passengers as the possibility of cruises actually restarting comes closer with the CSO.  The ships will operate under the CSO, and passengers are further warned, but not prohibited, from sailing on those ships.

 

And, again, it is not about the collective "you" who feel that they can make a rational decision about the threat to their health and decide to cruise, the CDC really doesn't care about whether you get covid on the ship or not.  They care about the "we", the rest of the US population, who could be infected by someone who had been on a cruise, and who returned to the US and spread it.

The "spread it to the rest of the population" ship has long since sailed.   It seems that the virus has been managing to spread throughout the US and the rest of the world well enough without needing the odd cruise ship case to help things along. 

 

Given the proposed protocols in the us and those being implemented elsewhere, it's a completely baseless advisory imho. 

[Blizzard54]

47 minutes ago, D C said:

My only guess is that someone high up at the CDC went on a cruise once and had a shi**y time and has a vendetta against cruising now.  

 

"We don't care what measures they take to make the ships safe...don't do it" is pure fear-mongering with no practical benefit.

 

 

Keep in mind that when the Princess ship arrived in the Bay Area,  someone said he did not want the ship to dock because it would make his numbers look bad.

[Milwaukee Eight]

47 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

And, again, it is not about the collective "you" who feel that they can make a rational decision about the threat to their health and decide to cruise, the CDC really doesn't care about whether you get covid on the ship or not.  They care about the "we", the rest of the US population, who could be infected by someone who had been on a cruise, and who returned to the US and spread it.

This. Very well stated. 
 

Thanks

[bouhunter]

44 minutes ago, D C said:

The "spread it to the rest of the population" ship has long since sailed.   It seems that the virus has been managing to spread throughout the US and the rest of the world well enough without needing the odd cruise ship case to help things along. 

 

Given the proposed protocols in the us and those being implemented elsewhere, it's a completely baseless advisory imho. 

Very well put.   A few cases from a cruise ship making a difference when there are 200,000 cases per day in the US?   Whatever the CDC policy, the cruise lines are terrified of setting sail again and having a quarantined prison ship.  That is the primary reason we won't see ships sailing for a while, not the CDC.  But that won't stop the diehards at cruise critic from blaming the CDC for stopping their "cruising lifestyle".

[Iamcruzin]

2 hours ago, bretts173 said:

How ridiculous to say more testing more positives. Lets for example test evry person in Australia in one day.The numbers wont go up if there is no virus. The reason there is more testing is because more people are seek and feel they need to be tested.

 

There are also those who are undergoing medical procedures and need to be tested as well as those traveling or returning to work after traveling. However I agree the majority must have symptoms  or they wouldn’t be an increase in positive cases.

 

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, D C said:

The "spread it to the rest of the population" ship has long since sailed.   It seems that the virus has been managing to spread throughout the US and the rest of the world well enough without needing the odd cruise ship case to help things along

 

2 hours ago, bouhunter said:

A few cases from a cruise ship making a difference when there are 200,000 cases per day in the US?

Regardless of the situation within the US, the CDC does not have any jurisdiction over that, so they are concentrating, as they should, on areas where they do have jurisdiction, disease entering the country.

[suzyluvs2cruise]

1 hour ago, Iamcruzin said:

There are also those who are undergoing medical procedures and need to be tested as well as those traveling or returning to work after traveling. However I agree the majority must have symptoms  or they wouldn’t be an increase in positive cases.

 

 

With so many more testing there can be people who are asymptomatic and test positive.  Here in CA there are lines for testing. I think in part due to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. 

[D C]

4 hours ago, bretts173 said:

How ridiculous to say more testing more positives. Lets for example test evry person in Australia in one day.The numbers wont go up if there is no virus. The reason there is more testing is because more people are seek and feel they need to be tested.

 

 

1 hour ago, Iamcruzin said:

There are also those who are undergoing medical procedures and need to be tested as well as those traveling or returning to work after traveling. However I agree the majority must have symptoms  or they wouldn’t be an increase in positive cases.

 

 

Test positivity rates are generally in the ~10% or less rate in the US.  So for every 100 people being tested, ~90 of them are negative.   

 

My takeaway is that nearly a year into this virus, we're still absolutely horrible at figuring out who needs to get tested based on being a probable positive.   It also shows that the vast majority of testing is being done on a "just in case" or an "abundance of caution" basis.   These are the "my cousin's brother-in-law has covid and I saw my cousin in passing last week, I better get tested" cases, along with the precautionary pre-procedure tests and everything else.   My DW is tested every week for work without regard to her personal history. 

 

 

The downside to more testing is more wrong answers.  If you tested everyone in Australia in one day, there would undoubtedly be a lot of positives, with the vast majority of those being false.  The more healthy your population, the higher chance there is of a positive being false.  If a test is 99% "accurate" and the population has only 1% covid positive people, then there will be a 50/50 chance that a positive result is real.  i.e. for every 100 people tested in that population, there will be 1 true positive and one false positive.  

 

Plus, the medical authorities don't consider false positives as possible.  Those people are merely labeled asymptomatic. 

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by D C

[firefly333]

Personally I just thought how stupid cdc is. They look like idiots and flexing their muscles for publicity. If there were some cruises people could go on it would make sense but there arent... just one more publicity grab. They show a need to be in the news. Very needy.

 

I've seen the warning 3 times on tv, and even one station mentioned, there arent any cruises going to warn about. Publicity hounds. Trying to smear cruises. They must have little else to do these days.

[Roger88]

To avoid all the possible cruise risks, just purchase a full coverage insurance and make sure to take a covid test just to show it in case anyone will try to take your money in any possible case. I think insurance is very important these days 

[S.A.M.J.R.]

2 hours ago, D C said:

Test positivity rates are generally in the ~10% or less rate in the US.  So for every 100 people being tested, ~90 of them are negative.   

Actually, it's pretty much split.  24/52 (including DC and Puerto Rico) are below 11%, the rest above.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/testing-positivity

 

Also the CDC has most countries on the "Level 4" status they've put Cruising on. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/map-and-travel-notices.html#travel-2

 

And I read in USA Today (can't find the article now) that CDC has recommended against taking international flights AS WELL AS cruises.  

[D C]

5 minutes ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

Actually, it's pretty much split.  24/52 (including DC and Puerto Rico) are below 11%, the rest above.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/testing-positivity

 

Also the CDC has most countries on the "Level 4" status they've put Cruising on. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/map-and-travel-notices.html#travel-2

 

And I read in USA Today (can't find the article now) that CDC has recommended against taking international flights AS WELL AS cruises.  

Something is seriously amiss with the data one way or the other.  Ignoring Puerto Rico at 100% positive tests, I picked a handful of others and none of the state reports are anywhere close to the positivity rate at that link.  

For example: JHU has Pennsylvania at ~25% while PA says 11.1% for the past 7 days. 

[S.A.M.J.R.]

1 minute ago, D C said:

Something is seriously amiss with the data one way or the other.  Ignoring Puerto Rico at 100% positive tests, I picked a handful of others and none of the state reports are anywhere close to the positivity rate at that link.  

For example: JHU has Pennsylvania at ~25% while PA says 11.1% for the past 7 days. 

It's got to come down on how the states vs JHU calculates positivity rate. My state (KY) is usually 3-4% below JHU.  I don't understand why there's a discrepancy.  It's a simple mathematical formula.

 

%positive = number positive/number tested * 100 

 

Then take the % positive for the last 7 days and average them.  

[D C]

7 minutes ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

It's got to come down on how the states vs JHU calculates positivity rate. My state (KY) is usually 3-4% below JHU.  I don't understand why there's a discrepancy.  It's a simple mathematical formula.

 

%positive = number positive/number tested * 100 

 

Then take the % positive for the last 7 days and average them.  

Maybe it's the decimal point and the x100 that's tripping them up??  🙂

 

 

I think counting has been very sloppy.  Michigan was (maybe still is) counting PCR and antibody tests as separate positives.  If you test positive in both, or twice otherwise, you're 2 data points.   

[Blizzard54]

15 minutes ago, D C said:

Something is seriously amiss with the data one way or the other.  Ignoring Puerto Rico at 100% positive tests, I picked a handful of others and none of the state reports are anywhere close to the positivity rate at that link.  

For example: JHU has Pennsylvania at ~25% while PA says 11.1% for the past 7 days. 

The last time I looked South Dakota was 52% positive tests.