CDC denies cruise sector's request to lift US sailing restrictions

[nocl]

3 minutes ago, voljeep said:

because the CDC doesn't have the expertise ... gotcha

No because there are difference between each of the cruise lines, each of the ships.  They have difference business structures and business processes.  The guidelines are intended to focus on meeting certain safety practices. Not on the specific ways those practices are put into place.  From the CDC point of it would not matter if those agreements were negotiated at the parent company, each cruise line individually or by each ship as long as they were done.  

[voljeep]

if this is about money, and believe me, it's always about the money - why doesn't Princess just provide a $ 100 million bond that covers the cost associated with any Port expenses incurred due to 'rona ?

[nocl]

26 minutes ago, stevenr597 said:

That is a good talking point, but it is not really based on any facts.

In medicine when one is faced with an unknown, one usually deal with it by trying to rule out the most severe consequences.  There were numerous reports of an unknown virus coming out of China, starting in the Fall, in addition to China taking efforts to suppress this information.  China, in addition, refused permission of our CDC to investigate.

This should have immediately been a cause for concern, and the CDC should have taken measures to isolate the potential for this new infection to migrate to our continent from China.  Instead the CDC and related organizations such as the World Health Organization and Dr. Fauci did their best to downplay the possible significance of events in China.

In respect to wearing of face coverings Fauci should have advised to do so, until it became clear that the virus (which facts suggested otherwise) was not transmitted by an airborne vector.  

In addition, instead of pushing for a quick and rapid test to detect the presence of this virus (which was almost immediately identified as a variant of the Coronavirus, he, the CDC, and the FDA held us with the belief that testing would only need to be limited.  Again they decided to believe in the best case, instead of the worst case scenario. 

We must not forget that this was not a new virus in the sense that we had already experienced several years previously both SARS and MERS, and in fact the World Health Organization in a study several years ago had predicted that we could be hit by a Pandemic from a variant of either Influenza or Coronavirus.

Then why did our CDC and Dr. Fauci error.  Nobody could doubt that these organizations are well trained and that Fauci is a brilliant investigator.  

But...Fauci also became a Washington Bureaucrat.   In a sense he forgot that he was a physician, and started to make decisions on his relationships and the political winds.  Fauci did not wish to call out WHO who clearly was having a symbiotic relationship with China, and he did not wish to go against politicians who said that there was nothing to worry about. 

In this case our leaders and scientists have failed us. 

 

Thank you for including this paragraph because you have just made my point.  At the start of the outbreak SARS and MERS were included in the determining the initial response and along with influenza(more SARS than MERS).  With SARS the patient was contagious only after symptoms developed.  There was a consistent set of symptoms.  They developed relatively quickly.  As such the countries moved to put in place the practices that were successful in controlling SARS.  Temperature checks, distancing, hand washing, etc.

 

The problem is that COVID19 is not SARS and those methods were not effective. The first change identified was the much longer incubation time, up to 14 days. Quite a bit different from SARS (2 to 7 days) That means that even if those methods were effective it would be much harder to limit it to a contained area.

 

Then a few months later the evidence was becoming clear that asymptomatic cases existed, but there was still uncertainty if those cases could spread the illness.  Took more time for that to be confirmed.  

 

Also during this same time it was recognized that patients were contagious while pre-symptomatic. Again dramatically different from SARS

 

Again thank you for including the comment on SARS

[Ride-The-Waves]

33 minutes ago, voljeep said:

because the CDC doesn't have the expertise ... gotcha

On the other hand cruise lines have all the expertise in the wold on COVID-19, employ epidemiologist and embark them on cruise ships.  I think we know what kind of "expertise" cruise lines have from their wonderful responses with the poster child being Diamond Princess and its 700 cases.

 

Cruise line just want to take your money and couldn't give a horse's pitute about you safety unless it impacts their profits.

[ontheweb]

43 minutes ago, voljeep said:

because the CDC doesn't have the expertise ... gotcha

And if the CDC had provided protocols in such detail instead of just a framework, you would have been among the first to complain about their overreaching power grab.

[voljeep]

3 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

And if the CDC had provided protocols in such detail instead of just a framework, you would have been among the first to complain about their overreaching power grab.

nope - at least the cruise lines could decide if they wanted to continue to cruise in the US

 

the way it is now - if there are 100 ships - there will 100 different 'policies and procedures' and what is to prevent the CDC from not accepting those when submitted - absolutely nothing ...

 

back and forth

 

pete and repeat

[nocl]

 

 

5 minutes ago, voljeep said:

nope - at least the cruise lines could decide if they wanted to continue to cruise in the US

 

the way it is now - if there are 100 ships - there will 100 different 'policies and procedures' and what is to prevent the CDC from not accepting those when submitted - absolutely nothing ...

 

back and forth

 

pete and repeat

We don't know because none have even been submitted.  Hard to see what might be acceptable when nothing is being submitted.

Edited March 26, 2021 by nocl

[KeepCalmBearOn]

8 minutes ago, Ride-The-Waves said:

I think we know what kind of "expertise" cruise lines have from their wonderful responses with the poster child being Diamond Princess and its 700 cases.

 

I think Diamond Princess did a great job. Out of 3,700 people on board in cramped quarters with no protective gear at all and not enough medical gear (respirators) they managed to keep the outbreak down to only 700 and only 14 deaths and the average age of those people was 78. We don't know what other underlying conditions they might have had.

 

The crew and staff of the Diamond Princess did all this when we knew virtually nothing about the disease. They deserve medals for what they did.

[voljeep]

2 minutes ago, nocl said:

 

 

We don't know because none have even been submitted.  Hard to see what might be acceptable when nothing is being submitted.

I am sometime asked to write a 'comfort letter' for a file to protect someone else's ass in case something goes awry , they can shift the blame.

 

This person/company wants me to write the letter - I simply tell them to draft up what they want me to say and I'll see if I can agree to that ... simple  I either agree or don't ... and have nearly lost clients over that

 

CDC writes the regs and not 'guidelines' ... EOD

[ebeluga]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

if this is about money, and believe me, it's always about the money - why doesn't Princess just provide a $ 100 million bond that covers the cost associated with any Port expenses incurred due to 'rona ?

For the cruise lines, it is about the money.  For the government, it’s also about money but in the ways that we have pumped trillions of $$ to revive the economy due to the shutdown, do they want to increase any avoidable risk of  more taxpayers $$ for more reliefs were it to have more shutdown due to the variants and mutations still going on?

[nocl]

33 minutes ago, voljeep said:

I am sometime asked to write a 'comfort letter' for a file to protect someone else's ass in case something goes awry , they can shift the blame.

 

This person/company wants me to write the letter - I simply tell them to draft up what they want me to say and I'll see if I can agree to that ... simple  I either agree or don't ... and have nearly lost clients over that

 

CDC writes the regs and not 'guidelines' ... EOD

Actually in this case they have written an order (which one might call a regulation except it has an expiration date which regulations usually do not have).  In that order they have provided a framework of guidelines.  Just as the FDA provides the industry with guidance documents.

 

It is up to the industry to determine exactly how they are going to meet that guidance.

 

But again none have been submitted.  So we have no way of knowing what they will accept or not.

[Bgwest]

2 hours ago, stevenr597 said:

That is a good talking point, but it is not really based on any facts.

In medicine when one is faced with an unknown, one usually deal with it by trying to rule out the most severe consequences.  There were numerous reports of an unknown virus coming out of China, starting in the Fall, in addition to China taking efforts to suppress this information.  China, in addition, refused permission of our CDC to investigate.

This should have immediately been a cause for concern, and the CDC should have taken measures to isolate the potential for this new infection to migrate to our continent from China.  Instead the CDC and related organizations such as the World Health Organization and Dr. Fauci did their best to downplay the possible significance of events in China.

In respect to wearing of face coverings Fauci should have advised to do so, until it became clear that the virus (which facts suggested otherwise) was not transmitted by an airborne vector.  

In addition, instead of pushing for a quick and rapid test to detect the presence of this virus (which was almost immediately identified as a variant of the Coronavirus, he, the CDC, and the FDA held us with the belief that testing would only need to be limited.  Again they decided to believe in the best case, instead of the worst case scenario. 

We must not forget that this was not a new virus in the sense that we had already experienced several years previously both SARS and MERS, and in fact the World Health Organization in a study several years ago had predicted that we could be hit by a Pandemic from a variant of either Influenza or Coronavirus.

Then why did our CDC and Dr. Fauci error.  Nobody could doubt that these organizations are well trained and that Fauci is a brilliant investigator.  

But...Fauci also became a Washington Bureaucrat.   In a sense he forgot that he was a physician, and started to make decisions on his relationships and the political winds.  Fauci did not wish to call out WHO who clearly was having a symbiotic relationship with China, and he did not wish to go against politicians who said that there was nothing to worry about. 

In this case our leaders and scientists have failed us. 

 

Brilliant analysis!!

[voljeep]

from this morning 

 

DeSantis pushes CDC to let Florida cruise ships sail again (msn.com)

[Ride-The-Waves]

3 hours ago, stevenr597 said:

That is a good talking point, but it is not really based on any facts.

In medicine when one is faced with an unknown, one usually deal with it by trying to rule out the most severe consequences.  There were numerous reports of an unknown virus coming out of China, starting in the Fall, in addition to China taking efforts to suppress this information.  China, in addition, refused permission of our CDC to investigate.

This should have immediately been a cause for concern, and the CDC should have taken measures to isolate the potential for this new infection to migrate to our continent from China.  Instead the CDC and related organizations such as the World Health Organization and Dr. Fauci did their best to downplay the possible significance of events in China.

In respect to wearing of face coverings Fauci should have advised to do so, until it became clear that the virus (which facts suggested otherwise) was not transmitted by an airborne vector.  

In addition, instead of pushing for a quick and rapid test to detect the presence of this virus (which was almost immediately identified as a variant of the Coronavirus, he, the CDC, and the FDA held us with the belief that testing would only need to be limited.  Again they decided to believe in the best case, instead of the worst case scenario. 

We must not forget that this was not a new virus in the sense that we had already experienced several years previously both SARS and MERS, and in fact the World Health Organization in a study several years ago had predicted that we could be hit by a Pandemic from a variant of either Influenza or Coronavirus.

Then why did our CDC and Dr. Fauci error.  Nobody could doubt that these organizations are well trained and that Fauci is a brilliant investigator.  

But...Fauci also became a Washington Bureaucrat.   In a sense he forgot that he was a physician, and started to make decisions on his relationships and the political winds.  Fauci did not wish to call out WHO who clearly was having a symbiotic relationship with China, and he did not wish to go against politicians who said that there was nothing to worry about. 

In this case our leaders and scientists have failed us. 

 

You appear to be conflating Dr Fauci with the guidance put out by his overseers, namely he who shouldn't be mention and Pence's "task force."  Fauci was ordered to not counter the hogwash coming out of the White House and the so-called Task Force briefings.  Politics and sedition over science.  Not what is expected from any government official.  Lets do not kid ourselves, the first few months of "management" and "leadership" were horrific political failures which led to rapid growth of COVID-19 infections and transmissions across America.  550,000 deaths is a big number no matter how you want to wrap it.  It exceeds US combat deaths during WWII!!!

 

The result made us all less safe and more vulnerable to COVID-19.  Cruise lines want to cash in on those lies for their own profit irregardless of everyone's health.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Ride-The-Waves

[rabin1]

Our Governor here in Florida had a discussion/meeting with all the major cruise lines today. He is calling for the CDC to rescind the non sail orders. You can read about it on WPLG Channel 10 Miami. Maybe with some politicians attempting to do something things might start moving. He has a big mouth and a bad temper. Not that this matters but I think he wants to run for President & this would for sure make him well known.. Maybe he will really try to do this for Florida. Too many jobs lost with no cruising.

Kathy

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by rabin1

[oskidunker]

He is already quite well known. 

[nocl]

52 minutes ago, rabin1 said:

Our Governor here in Florida had a discussion/meeting with all the major cruise lines today. He is calling for the CDC to rescind the non sail orders. You can read about it on WPLG Channel 10 Miami. Maybe with some politicians attempting to do something things might start moving. He has a big mouth and a bad temper. Not that this matters but I think he wants to run for President & this would for sure make him well known.. Maybe he will really try to do this for Florida. Too many jobs lost with no cruising.

Kathy

 

Cruising contributes less than 1% ( .8% actually) of Florida's GDP so while it impacts fees received by the port and effects the people that work directly in the industry.  It is a drop in the bucket compared to Florida's land based tourism.

 

Will be interesting to see on what grounds are used in the law suite, if one even gets filed.

[ontheweb]

7 hours ago, voljeep said:

nope - at least the cruise lines could decide if they wanted to continue to cruise in the US

 

the way it is now - if there are 100 ships - there will 100 different 'policies and procedures' and what is to prevent the CDC from not accepting those when submitted - absolutely nothing ...

 

back and forth

 

pete and repeat

The largest ship we ever sailed on was the massive NCL Epic; the smallest was the former Ocean Princess with under 700 passengers. Do you not see how one size fits all would apply to these very different cruise ships?

[Bgwest]

2 hours ago, nocl said:

Cruising contributes less than 1% ( .8% actually) of Florida's GDP so while it impacts fees received by the port and effects the people that work directly in the industry.  It is a drop in the bucket compared to Florida's land based tourism.

 

Will be interesting to see on what grounds are used in the law suite, if one even gets filed.

Unless, of course, YOUR livelihood and being able to feed and clothe YOUR is part of that “drop in the bucket”. 
Such an analysis speaks to someone becoming very  high minded and full of themself. 

[stevenr597]

10 hours ago, nocl said:

Thank you for including this paragraph because you have just made my point.  At the start of the outbreak SARS and MERS were included in the determining the initial response and along with influenza(more SARS than MERS).  With SARS the patient was contagious only after symptoms developed.  There was a consistent set of symptoms.  They developed relatively quickly.  As such the countries moved to put in place the practices that were successful in controlling SARS.  Temperature checks, distancing, hand washing, etc.

 

The problem is that COVID19 is not SARS and those methods were not effective. The first change identified was the much longer incubation time, up to 14 days. Quite a bit different from SARS (2 to 7 days) That means that even if those methods were effective it would be much harder to limit it to a contained area.

 

Then a few months later the evidence was becoming clear that asymptomatic cases existed, but there was still uncertainty if those cases could spread the illness.  Took more time for that to be confirmed.  

 

Also during this same time it was recognized that patients were contagious while pre-symptomatic. Again dramatically different from SARS

 

Again thank you for including the comment on SARS

Thanks for your reply.  I did not mean to suggest that the Covid was exactly the same disease as SARS or MERS, just that they came from the same virus.  What I tried to stress is that in medicine, one is wise to always consider the worst case scenario to avoid any unpleasent surpises.  

The CDC had set up a series of measures in respect to how to manage potential transmission  by an unknown pathogen. 

For some reason the CDC and Fauci  were very complacent when stories of an unknown illness was starting to occur in Wuhan Province.  This complacency was in spite of warings that they had received from the Government of Taiwan.  In addition, the fact that the Government of China refused to permit CDC investigators into an area where we had been funding research in a biological lab which was working on viral research in the same area should have triggered even more alarms.

In addition, once evidence began to accumulate that this pathogen had migrated to the United States, and we had begun to observe a large number of unexplained "Flu-Like " Illnesses, the CDC should have followed their playbook and at the very least ordered mask wearing in the areas affected by this pathogen, until they could have established that its transmission was not by an airborn vector.  

But...they did the exact opposite.

One can only assume that they had become too complacent in respect to the good will of the Government of China and the integrity of the World Health Organization.  

The bottom line is that our experts let us down.  These experts were very lucky in respect to their management which had serious deficiencies in both the Ebola and H1N1 outbreaks.  Their luck ran out with the Coronavirus. 

[HappyInVan]

22 minutes ago, stevenr597 said:

 

Are these numbers individuals who test postiive, many of which may have mild symtpoms or be symptomatic or with moderate to severe symtpoms of Covid. 
 

 

Here you are pattering on about MERS and SARS. You're not an expert on Epidemiology. Nor are you an expert on the long-haul casualties of covid19. What do you know about the 'facts'?

 

The UK variant is currently ravaging Europe, after doing a job on the UK. Ontario is doubling its cases as the UK variant becomes dominant. The USA is just weeks behind Europe, as in the second wave.

 

You should be grateful that the CDC today has an eye on the ball.

 

Where did the UK variant start? First identified in Kent. Took root in this resort island of 40k...

 

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-uk-variant/

 

From its humble beginnings, this variant will infect millions and kill hundreds of thousands.

 

The vax-resistant strains are next. The next big one could be 'Made in Florida', courtesy of the people of Florida.

 

[GonzoWCS]

8 hours ago, voljeep said:

from this morning 

 

DeSantis pushes CDC to let Florida cruise ships sail again (msn.com)

Watching closely for sure

[GonzoWCS]

23 minutes ago, HappyInVan said:

 

Here you are pattering on about MERS and SARS. You're not an expert on Epidemiology. Nor are you an expert on the long-haul casualties of covid19. What do you know about the 'facts'?

 

The UK variant is currently ravaging Europe, after doing a job on the UK. Ontario is doubling its cases as the UK variant becomes dominant. The USA is just weeks behind Europe, as in the second wave.

 

You should be grateful that the CDC today has an eye on the ball.

 

Where did the UK variant start? First identified in Kent. Took root in this resort island of 40k...

 

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-uk-variant/

 

From its humble beginnings, this variant will infect millions and kill hundreds of thousands.

 

The vax-resistant strains are next. The next big one could be 'Made in Florida', courtesy of the people of Florida.

 

Spot on with the Kent observation.  As for the "Made in Florida" think it might be a swirl from colleges...

 

[nocl]

3 hours ago, Bgwest said:

Unless, of course, YOUR livelihood and being able to feed and clothe YOUR is part of that “drop in the bucket”. 
Such an analysis speaks to someone becoming very  high minded and full of themself. 

Just pointing out reality.  For most of the people working the ports themselves such as the union long shore men there is plenty of work on the cargo side that generates far more impact on the states economy than the cruise industry.

 

For those around the ports those areas get more spending from land travelers than from the pass through cruise passengers.  The hotels, dining establishments, etc are more dependent upon the recovery of the land based tourism.

 

So that pretty much brings it does to the people that work part time in the terminals and those providing support services to the ships themselves Many of those services (fueling for example) also service cargo ships. Cargo impacts the states economy 10X the impact of the cruise industry.

 

So exactly how many have their income totally dependent upon the cruise industry in those ports?

 

Probably not as many as you think.

 

There has been a lot more impact on the land side around Disney (which brings in far more money to the state than the entire cruise industry) when it was shutdown that around the cruise ports. 

 

 

[nocl]

2 hours ago, stevenr597 said:

Thanks for your reply.  I did not mean to suggest that the Covid was exactly the same disease as SARS or MERS, just that they came from the same virus.  What I tried to stress is that in medicine, one is wise to always consider the worst case scenario to avoid any unpleasent surpises.  

The CDC had set up a series of measures in respect to how to manage potential transmission  by an unknown pathogen. 

For some reason the CDC and Fauci  were very complacent when stories of an unknown illness was starting to occur in Wuhan Province.  This complacency was in spite of warings that they had received from the Government of Taiwan.  In addition, the fact that the Government of China refused to permit CDC investigators into an area where we had been funding research in a biological lab which was working on viral research in the same area should have triggered even more alarms.

In addition, once evidence began to accumulate that this pathogen had migrated to the United States, and we had begun to observe a large number of unexplained "Flu-Like " Illnesses, the CDC should have followed their playbook and at the very least ordered mask wearing in the areas affected by this pathogen, until they could have established that its transmission was not by an airborn vector.  

But...they did the exact opposite.

One can only assume that they had become too complacent in respect to the good will of the Government of China and the integrity of the World Health Organization.  

The bottom line is that our experts let us down.  These experts were very lucky in respect to their management which had serious deficiencies in both the Ebola and H1N1 outbreaks.  Their luck ran out with the Coronavirus. 

I guess pretty much every other country in Europe was the same.  Add in South America, the middle east, Russia etc.

 

The only places that were able to control did things that were total lockdowns (China, New Zealand, Australia) or were cultures for which mask wearing was common even during normal years (Japan, etc). They all have very effective contract tracing.  Gee these seem to be the same things that many complain about even with the lighter level put in place here.

 

We as a country have a population that refuses to cooperate with contact tracing with half of those contacted refusing to provide any information.  That think mask wearing is a political statement. etc.

 

Contact tracing and other such execution activities are the responsibility of the states (usually at county level).  Those functions were totally understaffed (those functions have been reduced for years) since they are not really used except for mostly food related illness source tracking.

 

All of the countries started with the same playbook.  What was learned from the last outbreak with SARS.  So if you consider what was done here was a failure I guess you would have preferred the Chinese approach with total lockdowns, forced testing, people dragged out of their homes. 

 

Or the lock down approach in Australia where all traffic to/from the country was basically stopped.  Even Australian citizens outside of the country have to compete for the few seats on planes to return home then placed into quarantine hotels.  Travel locked downs actually enforced compared to out recommendations.

 

Even if the CDC wanted to they have no enforcement power into the states.  The initial mask was not needed was before there was information about the airborne transfer and when there was a shortage of masks in the medical community that truly needed them. Unfortunately everyone including our medical community is used to running on a JIT supply system.  Which does not work when your demand increases 20X and when your major supplier is in a foreign country who is not shipping because they are using their production for their own needs.

 

Even when the recommendations were made for masks there was wide spread opposition in the general public, many states and for that matter portions of the executive branch.

 

The CDC made the recommendation for general mask use on April 3rd.  At that time we had just finished a two week period where cases went from 1500 per day to around 20k.  Still very early in the outbreak.  Might have worked if everyone had followed that advice, but quite a percentage did not, and continued to avoid doing so where ever possible.

 

As the saying goes hind site is 20/20 and it is very easy to criticize and say how bad someone else is doing when you are not the one with the responsibility.

Edited March 27, 2021 by nocl