Norovirus Outbreak Hits Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship

[maggie cruises]

Soooo - you have 500 sick people and many perhaps carrying the germ, and you are dumping them on shore. - Way to go RC - infect the people on shore - should let healthy people off - keep sick people on board until they are well - past contamination time. - then let them leave.

Could move all ill people to one floor so deep cleaning could go on.

Would not want to be the agents, shore staff or taxi drivers handlling that ship!

They have a couple of days to the sick people get better before they have to leave.

Wonder how they will handle this.

Imagine being very ill, needing a washoom asap and being in a line to disembark!?!?!?

 

Very good points. Now this inquiring mind would like to ask a few hypothetical questions if I may:

 

1. Could the NJ port actually refuse to let the ship dock and disembark due to this outbreak?

 

2. Could the ship be ordered to drop anchor in the harbor or further out and basically quarantine themselves until the CDC or whomever clears the ship of illness?

 

3. If 1 or 2 above do not happen, could violently ill pax be forced off?

 

4. If a violently ill pax cannot leave their cabin, what will rccl do? call an ambulance?

 

5. Can well pax be forced to stay aboard until the ship is cleared if it is quarantined? After all they did not expect to disembark until Friday anyway. Just sayin'

 

6. If #5 does occur are those well pax actually being put in harms way?

 

7. Will customs even clear these pax? Did they reach a foreign port? Isn't St Thomas part of the US Virgin Islands? I am not sure but did they go elsewhere out of the US before this cruise was de facto cancelled? I am asking this to find out if customs will even be required.

 

8. with regard to #7 above, will ill pax even be allowed to disembark? My thoughts are going to the medical quarantine facilities at Ellis Island. Great museum BTW and I am not sure if it has reopened after Superstorm Sandy damage.

 

 

I have more questions but at the moment can't think of what I wanted to post, however, any thoughts on the above?

 

It is just food for thought what I have asked above, but also known as "fodder" for intelligent debate LOL

 

oh and IMHO....FULL REFUND

[ahecht]

Only 284 people got sick. Still a lot but not as many as 500

 

Sent from my MB886 using Forums mobile app

 

645 people, actually: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/outbreak/2014/january21_explorer_seas.htm

[ryano]

Soooo - you have 500 sick people and many perhaps carrying the germ, and you are dumping them on shore. - Way to go RC - infect the people on shore - should let healthy people off - keep sick people on board until they are well - past contamination time. - then let them leave.

Could move all ill people to one floor so deep cleaning could go on.

Would not want to be the agents, shore staff or taxi drivers handlling that ship!

They have a couple of days to the sick people get better before they have to leave.

Wonder how they will handle this.

Imagine being very ill, needing a washoom asap and being in a line to disembark!?!?!?

 

Wow ^

[maggie cruises]

Why do you say stay away from Holland America? I am going on their ship in 2 weeks:(

 

the poster you quote is also cruising HAL in the future as well. I think they were referring to the bad luck the other poster was talking about and they don't want that bad luck spread to them.

[styles27]

Only 284 people got sick. Still a lot but not as many as 500

 

Sent from my MB886 using Forums mobile app

 

 

What's the source of this info?

[styles27]

Somewhere someone suggested gloves at the buffet lines.

Unless you have a clean , gloved-person "gloving" each person as they enter the line, ( think of those movies where. The scrub nurse holds the gloves out for the surgeon, or remember Mash episodes) and then monitors to ensure that no one touches their nose or mouth or a chair with their gloved hands, this is futile. As soon as you touch the outside of the glove to put it on it is just as contaminated as your hand.

 

The contaminated glove then touched the silverware, the serving spoons , stacks of trays

 

Wearing gloves will do nothing except provide a false sense of security

. Yes, the servers wear them, but they are not( I hope!,) rubbing their nose , scratching themselves or putting their hands to their mouth or even rubbing their chins.

 

And, yes, this happens to be a subject in which I can speak with knowledge

 

Agree 100%.

 

 

Last Monday I spent most of the day at the ER in the children's hospital in Providence, RI with my daughter and grandson.

 

He had a rash that his Pediatrician wanted cultured.

 

The infectious disease doctor came into the examination room...washed her hands and put on a pair of gloves (so far so good, right?)

 

She then proceeded to pull out the stool from under the counter with her gloved hands.

 

She then rolled the stool over to my grandson and was going to touch his rash with those now soiled gloves.

 

I stopped her and she wasn't too pleased that I did...especially since another ER doc and a couple of RN's were in the room with us.

 

 

SO if an infectious disease doctor can be so careless I don't hold much faith in the glove wearing staff or passengers on board a cruise ship.

 

 

People make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes can be very costly.

[pkexton]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread but what about the pre-paid parking fees that have already been paid - I wonder if people will be given information on refunds for that.

 

Pat

[knittinggirl]

Agree 100%.

 

 

Last Monday I spent most of the day at the ER in the children's hospital in Providence, RI with my daughter and grandson.

 

He had a rash that his Pediatrician wanted cultured.

 

The infectious disease doctor came into the examination room...washed her hands and put on a pair of gloves (so far so good, right?)

 

She then proceeded to pull out the stool from under the counter with her gloved hands.

 

She then rolled the stool over to my grandson and was going to touch his rash with those now soiled gloves.

 

I stopped her and she wasn't too pleased that I did...especially since another ER doc and a couple of RN's were in the room with us.

 

 

SO if an infectious disease doctor can be so careless I don't hold much faith in the glove wearing staff or passengers on board a cruise ship.

 

 

People make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes can be very costly.

Sounds she meant the gloves for her protection, not her patients. At our local pharmacy last fall, we had a girl give us our flu shots w/o gloves. When we asked her about the gloves, she said she's supposed to wear them but doesn't. I brought it up to our local doctor and they said they don't use gloves when giving flu shots either. I figure when there's a bare needle, use the gloves. If they don't use gloves, I consider them HIV positive and don't care. If they get sloppy with one patient, they also got sloppy w/ an HIV positive patient too.

Edited January 28, 2014 by knittinggirl

[maggie cruises]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread but what about the pre-paid parking fees that have already been paid - I wonder if people will be given information on refunds for that.

 

Pat

 

I would think that travel insurance will cover the last 2 days if a pax drives away in his car early because the cruise was interrupted.

 

but a good point is being made and while the parking lot has no responsibility here, RCCL may just want to throw in a little extra in the name of goodwill but this expense is a tough one to hash out.

[Sherlock43031]

Agree 100%.

 

 

Last Monday I spent most of the day at the ER in the children's hospital in Providence, RI with my daughter and grandson.

 

He had a rash that his Pediatrician wanted cultured.

 

The infectious disease doctor came into the examination room...washed her hands and put on a pair of gloves (so far so good, right?)

 

She then proceeded to pull out the stool from under the counter with her gloved hands.

 

She then rolled the stool over to my grandson and was going to touch his rash with those now soiled gloves.

 

I stopped her and she wasn't too pleased that I did...especially since another ER doc and a couple of RN's were in the room with us.

 

 

SO if an infectious disease doctor can be so careless I don't hold much faith in the glove wearing staff or passengers on board a cruise ship.

 

 

People make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes can be very costly.

 

 

medical folks wearing gloves is not to protect the patient but to protect themselves.

[mo&fran]

Thanks again.

 

I am very pleased to read that the Explorer should be getting into port earlier. There has been much angst here about people who cannot drive at night. ;)

 

Last I looked, we were about 800 nm out, cruising AT 21 KTS in calm seas. My forecast is if this continues we should be there by noon.

Temps are starting to cool, but balcony is still comfy.

Still haven’t heard about hotel arrangesments, but have been in touch with our TA , and he told me:

I checked and RCCL used the following hotels for the pre/post for your cruise

Hilton EWR PENN Station (GATEWAY CENTER - RAYMOND BOULEVARD NEWARK, NJ 07102-5107)

and

Westin New York at Times Square

I am not familiar with the area, so we will see what will happen. DW has researched are hotels And will show her this when I get back to room.

Francis

[TheMiz]

Agree 100%.

 

 

Last Monday I spent most of the day at the ER in the children's hospital in Providence, RI with my daughter and grandson.

 

He had a rash that his Pediatrician wanted cultured.

 

The infectious disease doctor came into the examination room...washed her hands and put on a pair of gloves (so far so good, right?)

 

She then proceeded to pull out the stool from under the counter with her gloved hands.

 

She then rolled the stool over to my grandson and was going to touch his rash with those now soiled gloves.

 

I stopped her and she wasn't too pleased that I did...especially since another ER doc and a couple of RN's were in the room with us.

 

 

SO if an infectious disease doctor can be so careless I don't hold much faith in the glove wearing staff or passengers on board a cruise ship.

 

 

People make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes can be very costly.

 

 

I believe some thing the gloves are to protect them not the person them are treating.

 

 

I remember many many years ago my mother would refuse to shake hands with a doctor and a doctor was shocked that she refused to shake hands until she said I don't know where your hands have been etc.

[maggie cruises]

Sounds she meant the gloves for her protection, not her patients. At our local pharmacy last fall, we had a girl give us our flu shots w/o gloves. When we asked her about the gloves, she said she's supposed to wear them but doesn't. I brought it up to our local doctor and they said they don't use gloves when giving flu shots either. I figure when there's a bare needle, use the gloves. If they don't use gloves, I consider them HIV positive and don't care. If they get sloppy with one patient, they also got sloppy w/ an HIV positive patient too.

 

You should have asked her if she was concerned about YOU being hiv positive. that would have given her a scare.

[Trainman-2]

Hopefully the Polar Vortex will swoop down on the port and freeze all of the germs! :eek:

Edited January 28, 2014 by Trainman-2

[JB3]

645 people, actually: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/outbreak/2014/january21_explorer_seas.htm

 

& those are only the people who reported being sick.

[bythehex]

Oh my!

 

Just an FYI........ Noro is everywhere, not just on cruise dining room menus. The CDC reports 21 million cases in the USA last year. Cruise ships get nailed in the winter because of close quarters. The best anyone can do to prevent the spread of Noro is to wash their hands completely and keep their hands away from their mouths, noses and eyes. If you are on a ship and Noro rears its ugly head, and it does way more often than anyone would like to admit, these precautions are even more important. Also avoid touching everything. You might want to stay away from the buffet. On our last cruise the buffet went to servers only handling the food (with gloves) and I watched a woman grab a handful of cookies because she could not wait for the server to give me my piece of pie. Additionally, if you are sick with Noro and about to board a cruise, for the protection of everyone else involved, stay home! Here is a link from the CDC about Noro:

 

http://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/downloads/keyfacts.pdf

 

 

Bingo! Norovirus is EVERYWHERE. It might not have originated with the food or the crew. According to the CDC symptoms can develop as early as 12 hours after exposure, and it takes a very small amount of the virus to effect someone. What if someone stayed at a hotel before embarking and picked it up there without knowing? Or, if one of the baggage handlers at the port transmitted it via the luggage? What if someone took a cab to the port and the previous passenger left the virus in the cab? Or someone went to the market to buy their bottled water or soda and picked it up from the handle of their shopping cart?

 

It's become so easy to finger point at who's responsible, but the fact is that viruses like this crop up everywhere - in schools, in supermarkets, businesses, etc. There's no way to find out where this originated, but the important thing now is to clean the ship as best as they can and hope they can prevent it from spreading any more.

 

So hand wash, use the hand sanitizer, and be as clean as you possibly can, and you can rest assured that at least you are doing your own part in helping.

[CruiseeCrazee]

The latest from plague-ship hubby as of last night is that as well as the $400 OBC we already knew about, pax are getting 100% back (in one form or another) on their cruise fare - 50% refunded by check soon, 50% as a voucher to be used toward a future cruise. As he put it, "The half back as check was added after a 'all-hands' meeting with the Captain [yesterday] morning at 10 AM where he caught holy fire and fury". Apparently there was quite a lot of shouting.

 

RCCL is apparently allotting hotel rooms to passengers which they've already obtained or are in the process of obtaining; passengers have to file a request of some sort for a room if they need it. Hubby says that the rumour among passengers is that hotels for Wednesday night aren't hard to get, but hotels for Thursday night are much harder.

[knittinggirl]

You should have asked her if she was concerned about YOU being hiv positive. that would have given her a scare.

Actually, I told the nurse that she'd use gloves if the patient was HIV positive, and that was met with silence.

[Retiringworkingstiff]

Only 284 people got sick. Still a lot but not as many as 500

 

Sent from my MB886 using Forums mobile app

Not sure where you got your info from.

 

Last I heard, total # of people sick on EOS is roughly 600.

[JosieCat-MN]

I'm just curious. What would happen if you got sick with Noro like the day before the ship got back into it's home port and were still sick the next day. You couldn't really travel.

Edited January 28, 2014 by JosieCat-MN

[Retiringworkingstiff]

Very good points. Now this inquiring mind would like to ask a few hypothetical questions if I may:

 

1. Could the NJ port actually refuse to let the ship dock and disembark due to this outbreak?

 

2. Could the ship be ordered to drop anchor in the harbor or further out and basically quarantine themselves until the CDC or whomever clears the ship of illness?

 

3. If 1 or 2 above do not happen, could violently ill pax be forced off?

 

4. If a violently ill pax cannot leave their cabin, what will rccl do? call an ambulance?

 

5. Can well pax be forced to stay aboard until the ship is cleared if it is quarantined? After all they did not expect to disembark until Friday anyway. Just sayin'

 

6. If #5 does occur are those well pax actually being put in harms way?

 

7. Will customs even clear these pax? Did they reach a foreign port? Isn't St Thomas part of the US Virgin Islands? I am not sure but did they go elsewhere out of the US before this cruise was de facto cancelled? I am asking this to find out if customs will even be required.

 

8. with regard to #7 above, will ill pax even be allowed to disembark? My thoughts are going to the medical quarantine facilities at Ellis Island. Great museum BTW and I am not sure if it has reopened after Superstorm Sandy damage.

 

 

I have more questions but at the moment can't think of what I wanted to post, however, any thoughts on the above?

 

It is just food for thought what I have asked above, but also known as "fodder" for intelligent debate LOL

 

oh and IMHO....FULL REFUND

Excellent post, refreshing to say the least!

[LMaxwell]

I'm just curious. What would happen if you got sick with Noro like the day before the ship got back into it's home port and were still sick the next day. You couldn't really travel.

 

You're still put off the ship. It is up to you to make the best arrangements for your situation. This, again, shows why having travel insurance is a good idea. You may be compensated for trip changes/interruptions depending on the type of policy you have.

[Laszlo]

I'm just curious. What would happen if you got sick with Noro like the day before the ship got back into it's home port and were still sick the next day. You couldn't really travel.

 

It would sure make for a rough time trying to pack up:eek:

[vivianmarie244]

I know someone said it earlier on this post but please don't assume that anyone not using the hand sanitizer is nasty. I have very sensitive hands and hand sanitizer makes it much worse. My kids just had some sort of stomach virus and my hands are broken out now from using the stuff. Painfully so! But I was trying my best to not get it by washing my hands thoroughly often and use hand sanitizer. You know as much as the kids wash their hands, they are still constantly touching their face and then touching something else like the remote! :eek: But anyway, those people you see who are not using the sanitizer may be in the same situation or worse.

 

All that being said, I will absolutely use the hand sanitizer and wash my hands thoroughly when we are on our cruise. I will just have to deal with the pain. :(

[mo&fran]

10 am position 1/28/2014 Exos.

Traveling North 345 degs, 21.5 kts. Calm seas

575 nm to Bayonne

550 nm easts of Ga SC state line at coast

ETA 26 hrs

N 31 59.613

W070 20.638