Edge Transatlantic Testing positive for Covid

[Oville]

1 hour ago, VitaminSea53 said:

Sorry for your quarantine situation.  I am glad they are using IV cabins on your cruise.  Do you know if this is a policy change for all E class ships?  

It may be because the ship is sailing at 40% capacity. 
 

[Essiesmom]

19 hours ago, Babr said:

Only other person I know who has ocular migraines.

I inherited them from my mother.  Only kind I had for years, still have them.  With the ocular migraines, I have eye disturbance, but no headache. Occasional nausea.  Had regular migraines in the middle years, but not many.  EM

Edited May 1, 2022 by Essiesmom

[renroc13]

21 hours ago, bananavan said:

Up until yesterday every morning announcement from the Captain said that there were no cases of Covid in either the crew of the passengers. 
Yesterday he announced that there were two positive crew members and one passenger. The close contacts had been informed and were now part of the test every morning brigade. 
Last night my husband had a headache. He suffers from ocular migraines from time to time and we thought we should wait until morning before asking the Medical staff to come to our suite and test him. 
This morning we arrived in Madiera and the  headache was still a problem and had moved to his sinuses. 
Other than that he felt fine. We had noticed a few other diners in Luminae coughing and blowing their noses and there was a woman in the Retreat who was coughing pretty actively and not bothering to leave the area. 
So we called the Medical Department. They sent a nurse to the suite and she took his vitals and performed a PCR test. 
it seemed to take forever to get the results, but that was probably more due to our impatience. 

He tested positive. 
They then sent a Medical team to test me. I tested negative. 

They sent a hazmat suited and hooded employee to escort him to his home for the next 5+ days. 
He was placed in a C-3 Infinite balcony cabin on Deck 12. 
I thank the people who came before us and obviously helped enact the change from Ocean View for Isolation to at least a balcony. 
Tonight we both ordered room service and actually ordered the same food. 
We did the right thing just like JetBlue did. 
We have a lot of loose threads to take care of though. 
We have booked on Regal Princess for  May 7. We disembark the Edge on May 6. 
We have three weeks on the Regal and have our flight back home on May 29. 
I booked the flight on the very first day the flights opened. 
I paid an insanely low price for the First class return tickets. 
I need to find out our options. 
We disembarked a 60 day Cunard South America cruise on March 17, 2020. That was the day that the country shut down. "
When we entered the embarkation area on April 22 of this year  I could not stop crying. I was so joyous to be doing what we love. 
We have had some serious health issues this past year. We have no idea how much time anyone of us has left. So we are NOT ready to give up cruising. 
I just wish that there were a better way to handle the covid stuff. 
I mentioned on an earlier thread that when I had the flu in 2018, despite having the "Senior Citizen double trouble shot" and a bout of the flu in January at home, we were on the Queen Elizabeth World Cruise. I went to the Medical center and asked to be seen. I was quarantined to my suite and visited twice a day. We were off the coast of Australia. There were quite a few others who were ill as well. Not everyone went to the Medical Center. I have a feeling that this is the same on every voyage.
So I just wanted to update regarding the Covid situation on THIS Transatlantic.

Thank you for the update and I hope you both continue to do well. I would be in tears when we board as well in June. We have traveled around the world on Celebrity and had btb btb btb booked prior to shutdown to Japan and Asia. Have decided to try an eight day close to home as a first. Grounded after 25 years is tough.

 

Question….are you still able to get onboard early as we all did before Covid or are they rigid about boarding. We always checked in around 11am.

Karen

[RichYak]

5 hours ago, ace2542 said:

So once again it spreads from the crew to the passengers.

Or from the passengers to the crew.

Or the passenger got it at the airport.

Or the crew got it from a prior passenger.

Simply put, there's no way to draw any conclusion in the manner in which you did.

[LGW59]

5 hours ago, ace2542 said:

So once again it spreads from the crew to the passengers.

You have absolutely zero, zilch, nada, NO knowledge in the way of knowing this, very incendiary IMO.  It comes from everywhere, passengers flying in for the cruise, the staff replenishing the ship.  Does it not seem likely that on a ship with say 2000+ passengers flying in from all over the US/world, vs 1000 crew, the numbers would be reversed and the passengers may be the carriers?  None of us know.

Edited May 1, 2022 by LGW59

[Babr]

29 minutes ago, Essiesmom said:

I inherited them from my mother.  Only kind I had for years, still have them.  With the ocular migraines, I have eye disturbance, but no headache. Occasional nausea.  Had regular migraines in the middle years, but not many.  EM

I also have the visual disturbance without significant pain. Still rather unsettling even though I know what is happening.

[jwlane]

5 hours ago, ace2542 said:

So once again it spreads from the crew to the passengers.

Thanks to the others who save me from pointing out how ridiculous this is.

[ace2542]

24 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

You have absolutely zero, zilch, nada, NO knowledge in the way of knowing this, very incendiary IMO.  It comes from everywhere, passengers flying in for the cruise, the staff replenishing the ship.  Does it not seem likely that on a ship with say 2000+ passengers flying in from all over the US/world, vs 1000 crew, the numbers would be reversed and the passengers may be the carriers?  None of us know.

But how long once in the crew would it take to pass completely through the crew. And I bet you not all crew have been wearing masks either. A crew test once a week not every day?

 

Watch a thing online if you can find it called cruising with Susan Calman she has bee on Royal and Princess very recently weeks ago I think and not all the crew in those filming's are wearing masks.

Edited May 1, 2022 by ace2542

[ace2542]

31 minutes ago, RichYak said:

Or from the passengers to the crew.

Or the passenger got it at the airport.

Or the crew got it from a prior passenger.

Simply put, there's no way to draw any conclusion in the manner in which you did.

But it will linger in the crew from one cruise to the next? What they could do about that I have no idea.

[RichYak]

3 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

But it will linger in the crew from one cruise to the next? What they could do about that I have no idea.

Positive crew are placed into isolation to end that cycle of spread, same as passengers. The most likely scenario is passengers bring covid onto the ship, pass it onto crew, who then pass it on to each other, and occasionally onto other passengers. Then repeat for the next cruise. Are there other ways? Of course. Neither you nor I should make any definitive statement like the one you made earlier.

[cangelmd]

18 minutes ago, RichYak said:

Positive crew are placed into isolation to end that cycle of spread, same as passengers. The most likely scenario is passengers bring covid onto the ship, pass it onto crew, who then pass it on to each other, and occasionally onto other passengers. Then repeat for the next cruise. Are there other ways? Of course. Neither you nor I should make any definitive statement like the one you made earlier.

This is correct, the crew live in a bubble. Not that it doesn’t get passed between crew members or crew to passengers, but passenger to passenger and passenger to crew is by far more likely.

Celebrity needs to reinstate masking, stop any service of drinks at a bar (all waitstaff), stop counter service at Al Bacio. As long as they are sailing at near capacity, there’s not much more they can do to enforce social distancing, but they could take a few steps.

Then again, none of us actually know how many people are getting infected. And does it truly matter, how many serious illnesses have there been?

[VitaminSea53]

It is also very possible to be exposed to COVID from the passengers who occupied your cabin on the prior cruise.  Not everyone realizes that they are Positive (or they choose not to report to medical on board).  You get into your cabin maybe 6 hours after the previous cruisers have left.  The place ‘looks’ clean but is it.  This is on the CDC website: 

When accounting for both surface survival data and real-world transmission factors, the risk of fomite transmission after a person with COVID-19 has been in an indoor space is minor after 3 days (72 hours), regardless of when it was last cleaned ^{8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15}.

[cruisingguy007]

1 hour ago, cangelmd said:

This is correct, the crew live in a bubble. Not that it doesn’t get passed between crew members or crew to passengers, but passenger to passenger and passenger to crew is by far more likely.

Celebrity needs to reinstate masking, stop any service of drinks at a bar (all waitstaff), stop counter service at Al Bacio. As long as they are sailing at near capacity, there’s not much more they can do to enforce social distancing, but they could take a few steps.

Then again, none of us actually know how many people are getting infected. And does it truly matter, how many serious illnesses have there been?

 

If the crew lives in a bubble and masks 100% of the time (as they do and we all see), then why are they still contracting covid? Shouldn't the masks/vaccines make them nearly bulletproof? How effective are the protocols? What if they were dropped all together, would there be a statistical significance or would it be much the same? Passengers are already free to board/roam the ship when they have colds and such; plus with vaccines, boosters and high numbers of society (especially children at 75%+) already having had covid at least once, and most developing none to minor symptoms, maybe it's time to treat covid pragmatically instead of hysterically?  

[360Guy]

Very sorry to hear this news and hope that your DH recovers quickly and that you stay negative.   We just disembarked the Silhouette 9 night RT Southampton.  90% full and my partner tested positive Day 6.  Now in London awaiting medical recovery certificate.  Learned a lot about COVID return to travel.  We may be here for a while but at this point have moved flights to Wednesday from today.   I can share a lot about this experience; fortunately we stayed on deck 11 in our veranda and have been masked up 7/24 since day 6 and also before whenever we left our stateroom…don’t know when or where..doesn’t matter.  Crew was already stretched to the max with 2700 onboard…almost zero masking and lots of coughs.  We think we did the right thing but have heard that people didn’t bother reporting….UK has no quarantine, test to return, etc.   We loved the crew and it was our 2nd cruise since January Eclipse South America just before.   I wish you well.  You may want to explore COVID Recovery Certificate in order to return.  I think it is good the ship is only half full I think you said.  By Day 6 they were swamped with cases and we think deck 3 was either full or they triaged more acute cases…just a guess.   

[RichYak]

1 hour ago, cruisingguy007 said:

If the crew lives in a bubble

The crew does not live in a bubble. Most of them face passengers every day.

[cruisingguy007]

1 minute ago, RichYak said:

The crew does not live in a bubble. Most of them face passengers every day.

 

But they wear masks 100% of the time and some folks seem to suggest that masks are the answer to all the problems, even though plenty of folks have said they wore masks everywhere and the crew does too, yet covid persists, even among the ardent mask wearers. Maybe it's time to realize that trying to control the uncontrollable is a futile effort and not making a statistical difference and not worth the stress/hassle.  

[360Guy]

1 hour ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by 360Guy

[360Guy]

On 4/30/2022 at 8:24 PM, plucasana said:

Very sorry, that your husband tested positive. Thank you for sharing your experience and for protecting the other passengers by isolating. 

Absolutely bananavan…thank you both for doing the right thing for the common good of your fellow travelers and crew.  Your actions may likely saved others possible serious illness or worse.   

[cangelmd]

3 hours ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

If the crew lives in a bubble and masks 100% of the time (as they do and we all see), then why are they still contracting covid? Shouldn't the masks/vaccines make them nearly bulletproof? How effective are the protocols? What if they were dropped all together, would there be a statistical significance or would it be much the same? Passengers are already free to board/roam the ship when they have colds and such; plus with vaccines, boosters and high numbers of society (especially children at 75%+) already having had covid at least once, and most developing none to minor symptoms, maybe it's time to treat covid pragmatically instead of hysterically?  

Honestly, I’m close to agreeing with you, but there are people who cannot yet be vaccinated, and maybe more importantly there are a solid minority of people who cannot muster a decent immune response. Solid organ transplants and persons who have just completed chemo particularly develop Abs at well less than 50%, and that response is short lived and not bolstered by boosters. I would like to know that those persons can cruise because there may not be many cruises in their futures.

Realistically, until we have better vaccines this may not be a vacay for high risk people, however.

 

Nothing, absolutely nothing will prevent Covid from spreading, if you don’t believe that just watch China over the next few weeks. BUT, some simple actions would decrease the chance of a given person catching Covid and allowing for longer cruises and some safety for high risk persons. Right now, I’m going on Apex in 2 weeks, and I’m very concerned about my traveling party getting through this trip without an infection - I got mine on Edge in late March, so I’m probably ok.

[cangelmd]

2 hours ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

But they wear masks 100% of the time and some folks seem to suggest that masks are the answer to all the problems, even though plenty of folks have said they wore masks everywhere and the crew does too, yet covid persists, even among the ardent mask wearers. Maybe it's time to realize that trying to control the uncontrollable is a futile effort and not making a statistical difference and not worth the stress/hassle.  

Sorry, they aren’t wearing their masks 100%, but I’m not sure it’s really a vacation if you did!

 I’m hoping the US will stop requiring negative test for entry and cruises will only require vaccine to border, no more testing. I think reinstating masking onboard would help to reduce the current spike and stabilize crew numbers, but I know requiring it long term is unrealistic.

We are in the adjusting period to endemic and it is messy.

 

[helen haywood]

3 hours ago, cruisingguy007 said:

But they wear masks 100% of the time

The crew does not wear masks 100% of the time.  I have seen many bartenders with their mask lowered until a passenger comes up to the bar.  I have seen many waiters pulling their mask down when someone has asked them to repeat themselves several times.  I’ve seen plenty of passengers asking staff to lower their mask for a picture.  To say nothing of what they do off duty.  I certainly hope no one expects them to be off duty, eating, sleeping, etc with a mask on!

[cruisingguy007]

Just now, helen haywood said:

The crew does not wear masks 100% of the time.  I have seen many bartenders with their mask lowered until a passenger comes up to the bar.  I have seen many waiters pulling their mask down when someone has asked them to repeat themselves several times.  I’ve seen plenty of passengers asking staff to lower their mask for a picture.  To say nothing of what they do off duty.  I certainly hope no one expects them to be off duty, eating, sleeping, etc with a mask on!

 

I hope they get to remove them all the time, just like passengers. Individuals should be free to make their own choices. Once the testing and quarantine nonsense ends, I'm sure they will be free to breathe easy like everyone else. I feel bad they have to wear them, it's so hot out sometimes and must be miserable, especially heading into summer.    

[hcat]

I believe  there is a misplaced reliance upon masking..esp the plain paper styles.

Yes, we wear them..but do they really stop the spread?  Social distancing, handwashing probably good ideas,  Wish someone had all the answers !

[ace2542]

11 hours ago, cangelmd said:

Realistically, until we have better vaccines this may not be a vacay for high risk people, however

We will never have better vaccines until  the days of the star trek type medicine which is probably hundreds of years away unfortunately. What we have now is as good as it going to get. They may be able to develop a vaccine that target the centre of virus that doesn't mutate to cover future variants but beyond that nothing further from what I understand.

[360Guy]

13 hours ago, cangelmd said:

Sorry, they aren’t wearing their masks 100%, but I’m not sure it’s really a vacation if you did!

 I’m hoping the US will stop requiring negative test for entry and cruises will only require vaccine to border, no more testing. I think reinstating masking onboard would help to reduce the current spike and stabilize crew numbers, but I know requiring it long term is unrealistic.

We are in the adjusting period to endemic and it is messy.

 

It is messy…we are in quarantine waiting to fly home hopefully this week….my thoughts:  

1. Pray (if you do) that the US drops the test to return policy by the end of your cruise.

2.  Bring lateral flow test kits to test on board or once you are off ship.   Extras…not cheap in UK and hard to find.  These are not the proctored version you use to fly. We used them when my partner thought he had a cold.  He was positive and we called medical. Quarantine till disembarkation.  Some chose to ignore symptoms and continue to go out and about unmasked.  The British have moved on and have zero mask, quarantine or return to travel…some reported sick and others did not. Reality.

3.  Read up on peoples experiences in quarantine.  Decide if you can tolerate that or not.  Medical was very good IMHO but partner had mild symptoms.  They may move you to deck 3 no veranda. Depends on case count and symptoms.  Not consistent by ship.

4.  Read all you can about COVID Recovery Certificate.   If you test positive and need to return to the US soon after disembarkation you may have to get the airline or your TA to adjust your flight(s).  Negative test or the certificate is the only way to get home at the moment.

 

Not trying to do anything other than share our experience…to date.  Will deal with Celebrity on refund, hotel and meals when we get home and will be so thankful and grateful when we do.   London is not a bad place to hang out in at all and from my perspective this is all 1st world problem stuff.  Crew were wonderful on Silhouette.  Will cruise again eyes wide open.