Mandatory vaccination

[deliver42]

Viking Cruise Lines has started no vaccine, no cruise on all it's lines. River, ocean, and yacht. You must be at least 14 days after the final shot. There are NO exceptions. Masks will continue to be mandated also.

[HuliHuli]

16 hours ago, Stick93 said:

You do realize the vaccine is only 95% effective if we take what they are saying so the only guarantee to keep EVERYONE healthy is to not cruise...and hence this is where we are. 

There are no guarantees in life.  If 5% is too much of a risk for you, please don't cruise.  I'll join the 95%ers.

[winterbliss]

3 hours ago, HuliHuli said:

There are no guarantees in life.  If 5% is too much of a risk for you, please don't cruise.  I'll join the 95%ers.

How was this 95 per cent arrived at? So all the participants in these trials were purposely challenged with the pathogen and only 5 per cent ended up with the virus.... no....How else could one reasonably believe these numbers derived in such a short period of time. 

[HuliHuli]

12 minutes ago, winterbliss said:

How was this 95 per cent arrived at? So all the participants in these trials were purposely challenged with the pathogen and only 5 per cent ended up with the virus.... no....How else could one reasonably believe these numbers derived in such a short period of time. 

The mRNA-based Pfizerand Moderna vaccines were shown to have 94–95% efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, calculated as 100 × (1 minus the attack rate with vaccine divided by the attack rate with placebo). It means that in a population such as the one enrolled in the trials, with a cumulated COVID-19 attack rate over a period of 3 months of about 1% without a vaccine, we would expect roughly 0·05% of vaccinated people would get diseased.

Source: Polack FP Thomas SJ Kitchin N et al.

Safety and efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA covid-19 vaccine.

N Engl J Med. 2020; 383: 2603-2615

[macandlucy]

4 hours ago, HuliHuli said:

There are no guarantees in life.  If 5% is too much of a risk for you, please don't cruise.  I'll join the 95%ers.

Me too. But it's even more than 95% when you add in the prevention protocols.

 

Vaccine

PLUS 95% aerosols protection from a good mask

PLUS distancing

PLUS hand hygiene

PLUS preboarding testing.

 

Flu vaccines range in effectiveness from 20% in a bad year to about 60% in a good year. 

95% effective is measles levels of protection. It's huge. 

 

 

 

[zdcatc12]

4 hours ago, winterbliss said:

How was this 95 per cent arrived at? So all the participants in these trials were purposely challenged with the pathogen and only 5 per cent ended up with the virus.... no....How else could one reasonably believe these numbers derived in such a short period of time. 

I am in the Pfizer trial, that is basically what it was. You went out and did your normal everyday things and hopefully more of the placebos will actually catch the virus than the ones that get the real vaccine.

[coffeebean]

On 2/18/2021 at 11:51 PM, complawyer said:

again, hopefully when cruises start sailing, there has been enough vaccine to inoculate minors also

Trials still have to be done with children for the mRNA vaccines. It may be sometime before children will be able to sail if cruise lines mandate all passengers be vaccinated.

[macandlucy]

Most people on cruises are adults.

If All adults will be required to be vaccinated to sail,

Children will be protected through herd immunity.

[moto_italia]

Adult only cruises.  hmmmmm.....

[complawyer]

25 minutes ago, macandlucy said:

Most people on cruises are adults.

If All adults will be required to be vaccinated to sail,

Children will be protected through herd immunity.

are you willing to take that kind of a chance and bring a minor child aboard?  not me!!!

[sugcarol]

I live in Texas. On 2/3 we were averaging 20,000+ cases per week. Today we are averaging 4,900 cases per week. Was it just the masks? No. Was it just social distancing? No, was it just the vaccine? Maybe, but when you put them altogether, bingo. Go to Google and type Coronavirus and your state's name, then click on statistics and will give you a graph so you can compare the stats for your particular state to see how you are shaping up. The vaccine was the missing piece needed to control the spread, and now we have it. 

[BirdTravels]

1 hour ago, sugcarol said:

I live in Texas. On 2/3 we were averaging 20,000+ cases per week. Today we are averaging 4,900 cases per week. Was it just the masks? No. Was it just social distancing? No, was it just the vaccine? Maybe, but when you put them altogether, bingo. Go to Google and type Coronavirus and your state's name, then click on statistics and will give you a graph so you can compare the stats for your particular state to see how you are shaping up. The vaccine was the missing piece needed to control the spread, and now we have it. 

It is that we are finally over the outcome of those who "knew better" and held/went to Thanksgiving parties that took the virus to Christmas Parties (because they "knew better") who caught COVID and took it to New Years parties. 

[BirdTravels]

2 hours ago, complawyer said:

are you willing to take that kind of a chance and bring a minor child aboard?  not me!!!

The administrations are ensuring that all kids will be back in school soon. A vaccinated cruise ship is a lot safer than an unvaccinated school. 

[BirdTravels]

On 2/19/2021 at 4:56 PM, Stick93 said:

When they find out the COVID shot last 4 months and a new variant is out - what will they do then?  The vaccine is one step in getting back. It’s not the only and probably won’t be the solution. Everyone wants a quick fix - but that is not happening. 

That's exactly what is going to happen. Do you think that the vaccine manufacturers are sitting back collecting the profits of the current worldwide sales? No, they are working on trials for boosters to increase/restore immunity with broader coverage of variants. While you don't know, the vaccine manufacturers know what is happening with their Phase 1 trial candidates. 

[Stick93]

1 hour ago, BirdTravels said:

That's exactly what is going to happen. Do you think that the vaccine manufacturers are sitting back collecting the profits of the current worldwide sales? No, they are working on trials for boosters to increase/restore immunity with broader coverage of variants. While you don't know, the vaccine manufacturers know what is happening with their Phase 1 trial candidates. 

Hahahah - the people getting the vaccine are all part of the trial. They don’t know how long it will help or what this will do long term. Anyone who has taken the vaccine is in Phase one. 

[macandlucy]

3 hours ago, complawyer said:

are you willing to take that kind of a chance and bring a minor child aboard?  not me!!!

I don’t have minor children, and I might feel differently if I did, so I understand your reticence. But that is one of the main reasons any society works to create herd immunity through vaccination—to protect those who are too young or too weak to take vaccines. Also, the science does show that kids are not primary drivers of infection and don’t tend to get very sick if they do get infected.

 

I think you should make decisions based on what you believe is best for your family. 

[winterbliss]

1 hour ago, Stick93 said:

Hahahah - the people getting the vaccine are all part of the trial. They don’t know how long it will help or what this will do long term. Anyone who has taken the vaccine is in Phase one. 

Pretty much.

[coffeebean]

10 hours ago, moto_italia said:

Adult only cruises.  hmmmmm.....

Sign me up!

[coffeebean]

On 2/19/2021 at 9:44 AM, macandlucy said:

.............Personally, I would not cruise unless I had been vaccinated. And if I'm vaccinated, I don't care, on a personal level, whether everyone is vaccinated or not. With everything I am already doing, prevention-wise, plus a vaccine, that's more than enough layers of protection for me to feel it's safe enough.......................

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with you about feeling safe, having had both shots of the Moderna vaccine. The reason I would prefer everyone on board to be vaccinated is not for my safety, it is the question of how the cruise line or debarking ports will handle an outbreak on board.  Will passengers be detained from disembarking if unvaccinated people are sickened while on board. That is the concern I have.

Edited February 21, 2021 by coffeebean

[hallux]

7 hours ago, macandlucy said:

But that is one of the main reasons any society works to create herd immunity through vaccination—to protect those who are too young or too weak to take vaccines.

Except, again, it has not yet been proven that the vaccine will prevent someone from carrying the virus and passing on to someone else.  In fact - some reports are that people carrying a certain vaccine (I think the Pfizer one is the one I heard about) actually CAN carry and pass on the virus.  This means that if they allow unvaccinated children to mix with vaccinated people they STILL run the risk of contracting the virus.

[coffeebean]

On 2/19/2021 at 10:00 AM, jezabel80 said:

There's so many if's with the future of cruising.  What if,  you have a cruise booked for later this year (if it's  even is able to go) or next year, and you are booked, but  you were still unable to get a vaccine?  Will they give you your money back?   What if they only sail at 50% capacity, and people are already booked?   Who's reservations do they cancel?  There's just so many things the cruise lines have to work out.   Hopefully,  everything will fall into place, and we can get on living.

First come first served comes to mind if bookings are over capacity.

[coffeebean]

On 2/19/2021 at 10:44 AM, Buford T Justiice said:

I believe any vaccination proof will simply be self certification. Unless folks think that a random piece of paper from a city / town / county / state / province means something. Cruise lines don't have the manpower to do verification. Its simply a legal liability measure and perhaps a coming CDC directive to the cruise lines.

There may be "digital vaccine passports" in our future. Before anyone gets all up in arms about this, the article is an opinion piece. Personally, I would embrace this concept. Here is an article.....

 

Digital Vaccine Passports MAY be in our future

[coffeebean]

On 2/19/2021 at 10:47 AM, BoozinCroozin said:

Age discrimination comes into play as a requirement. Yes, within the next 3-4 months all Groups will be eligible to get the vaccine. However, there is only one vaccine for 16 and older and no vaccine for under 16. They will have an extremely difficult time against lawsuits for families that have booked cruises with children under 16 and tell them they cannot go. Yes, children can be carriers and so can 99yo Grandma Maude who got the vaccine 3 weeks ago. Because of the number of people this would affect, it would move from just a simple complaint to Class Action. It is very easily solved by "In order to sail all passengers that are eligible to be vaccinated must be vaccinated." It would be far less costly to go with that statement. Plus, if children under 16 can go to in-person school without a vaccine, they can surely go on a cruise without one as well.

 

Group 3 begins next week (02/24). Group 4 will probably follow in about 6-8 weeks after. Group 5 will probably be starting by July 1 as Novavax, J&J, and the current ones ramped up massive production.

There is evidence now that those folks who have been vaccinated may not transmit the virus because their viral load is very low. That is some of the best news to come as of late and I'm so relieved to hear that. Dr. Fauci made that annoucement about a week ago when I saw him interviewed. Sooooo, 99 year old Grandma Maude may not be a threat to anyone, even if she does have the virus. There has been directive from the CDC that folks who have been vaccinated and do test positive two weeks after vaccination, do not have to quarantine and that is because they can not transmit the virus.

 

Bottom line, kids who are not able to be vaccinated because there is not approval for kids under 16 to be vaccinated, should not be able to sail. This is strictly my opinion about no sail for kids. Sorry if that offends the parents out there but I would love to see the ships kept as safe as possible from any kind of an outbreak. That is the only way cruise lines will be able to operate again and that is also my opinion.

[coffeebean]

On 2/19/2021 at 11:46 AM, prov2727 said:

I think that could be a very real issue. Now, we know there are some people who are asymptomatic but with the vaccine, we are creating millions who can spread the virus never knowing that they are doing so.

As I said in an earlier post, it is looking more and more like those people who have been vaccinated carry a much lower viral load if they do become infected. Hence, there they do not transmit the virus to others. I'm waiting for the final word on this from the CDC. This is really encouraging news for all of us.

[coffeebean]

On 2/19/2021 at 12:02 PM, ArthurUSCG said:

 

 

On 2/19/2021 at 2:20 PM, Laszlo said:

 

On 2/19/2021 at 4:46 PM, Stick93 said:

 

Please ignore above. I haven't figured out how to delete those.