Cruising Restart

[hvbaskey]

A good article from Cruise Critic Adam Coulter, UK Managing Editor

CLIA: More European Countries Allow Cruising Restart; No Date Yet for U.S. Cruising to Resume

 

 

[Lady Arwen]

We have 2 Europe cruises booked for spring 2021 and just praying they sail.  This article gives us a ray of hope.’ 

[sanger727]

I wonder how those lines would deal with a US cruiser who can't get into Europe to board the cruise? Refund, FCC, or too bad but not our fault so use your trip insurance...

[yorky]

The positive thing is that cruising has restarted in a limited fashion and it’s without a vaccine. That puts to bed the argument that there will be no cruising without one. The cruise industry will need to adapt and this is the start, even if no vaccine is found it’s clearly not intending dying on its feet. 

[Captain Rob]

I would be happy to do a round UK cruise for UK passport holders.

 

[Fouremco]

However, "For the twenty countries currently most affected by COVID-19 worldwide", the US has the 3rd highest mortality rate according to Johns Hopkins:

 

 

 

[FeliciaLee]

8 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

However, "For the twenty countries currently most affected by COVID-19 worldwide", the US has the 3rd highest mortality rate according to Johns Hopkins:

That is weird, on my site it shows US at #11.

[Fouremco]

1 minute ago, FeliciaLee said:

That is weird, on my site it shows US at #11.

You are looking at the Observed Case - Fatality Ratio instead of the Deaths Per 100,000 Population. Just click on the right-hand button to get the latter.

 

[FeliciaLee]

1 minute ago, Fouremco said:

You are looking at the Observed Case - Fatality Ratio instead of the Deaths Per 100,000 Population. Just click on the right-hand button to get the latter.

 

Thanks, now I see it. I wonder what happened with Chili.

[Threedrones]

6 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

You are looking at the Observed Case - Fatality Ratio instead of the Deaths Per 100,000 Population. Just click on the right-hand button to get the latter.

The case-fatality rate is a better indicator when looking at the fatality rate.

[Fouremco]

Just now, Threedrones said:

9 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

You are looking at the Observed Case - Fatality Ratio instead of the Deaths Per 100,000 Population. Just click on the right-hand button to get the latter.

The case-fatality rate is a better indicator when looking at the fatality rate.

A better indicator of what? 

[Pirateguy]

Be careful when you start to compare country against countries Stats . Unless every COVID death in each country has been recorded with the exact same criteria and expertise then you are Looking at an imbalanced picture. 
The most accurate comparison at this time is average deaths over 5 years against latest deaths. Sorry to be morbid but it’s too easy to look at league tables

[hvbaskey]

3 hours ago, Lady Arwen said:

We have 2 Europe cruises booked for spring 2021 and just praying they sail.  This article gives us a ray of hope.’ 

 

Most definitely!  this is how I feel - this article gives me “hope” for Spring 2021.  

 

I have already counted 2020 and Q1 2021 out of the picture - I have shifted hope for Q2 Spring 2021. 🐳

[Threedrones]

35 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

A better indicator of what? 

The fatality rate of the virus. If 100 people are tested and only 5 are found to have the virus, but all 5 die, would you say the case fatality rate is 5% or 100%.

[Threedrones]

14 minutes ago, UnorigionalName said:

 

If this were true the % positive rate would be lower.  It is not.

Explain why the rate would be lower

[Denny01]

Yes, obviously when you test more (what should have been done months ago in the US), there will be an increase in numbers of reported COVID cases, but the percentage of COVID-positive cases found by testing has increased, and increased by a large % which means COVID is increasing and is still not nearly in control. 

 

So look at the test-positives. According to my local Heath Dept, our county which had pretty low numbers in April/early May when we were practicing Stay-at-home, safe separation and using masks and COVID was measured as ‘Stable’, meaning it was not spreading at a rate that the medical orgs couldn’t handle. But after we opened up, our numbers are now measured as ‘Critical’, meaning it is spreading out of control. 

 

Anyone who thinks the death rate is how to measure the adverse impact of a Pandemic is missing the point. Our local COVID rate is now measured as Critical; our hospital Bed occupancy is measured as Critical; test positives are measured as Critical. The only ‘Stable’ is number of test rates. 

 

The world has not blocked US travelers because they don’t like us (At a minimum, they Love our $$‘s!) its because they want to protect themselves from a country which hasn’t faced up to being in the middle of a Pandemic. 

 

And we all knew as soon as we saw this thread we’d get into these useless back-forths with the same few who keep posting the same bad-data or thrashing through trying to find some spreadsheet that makes them feel better about ignoring reality.

 

Few, if anyone really believes them. We are interested in our refunds, when a vaccine will be available and when can we get back to cruising........safely, not thinking such Silly ideas such as “Oh, I have a low chance of dying by standing within 6-ft of someone-I may get very ill and in the hospital, but I won’t die, so no problem!!”. 

 

Den

[UnorigionalName]

4 minutes ago, Threedrones said:

Explain why the rate would be lower

 

So say you have 2 different populations, A and B. 

 

Let's say A has 100,000 people, has tested 10,000 people and 500 people test positive for COVID.  

 

Let's say B has 100,000 people, has tested 2,0000 people and 50 people test positive for COVID.  

 

So you go, the number of people positive in population A is higher because they did more testing!   But the degree of more testing does not equal the degree of increase in cases. 

 

For only 5x more testing, you have 10x more cases.  The % test positivity in A is 5%, and the % test positivity in B is 2.5%. 

 

So if you assume the bias for who to test in each population is approximately the same, you would expect population A to have about double the total number of cases as population B.

 

 

[Denny01]

19 minutes ago, Threedrones said:

Explain why the rate would be lower

Not lower, just not increasing as it is: Example: a disease infects 1% of a population. You test 100; 1 would test positive for 1% Test-Positive rate; you test 10,000, 100 would test positive (increase in cases found) but The Test-Positive rate would still be 1%. And the spread would be considered ‘Stable’. In my county’s data, the Test-Positive in April and May was less than 5%; although we’ve had more testing and therefore more cases found, yes because of more testing is part of the reason, but the test-positive is 15%, meaning COVID Is now ‘Critical’ and is out of control. 

 

Den

Edited July 22, 2020 by Denny01

[pumpkin 11]

Who cares about the numbers! It isn't like politicians are actually using them to base their decisions on! They're all arbitrary.

[Fouremco]

2 hours ago, Fouremco said:

A better indicator of what? 

 

1 hour ago, Threedrones said:

The fatality rate of the virus. If 100 people are tested and only 5 are found to have the virus, but all 5 die, would you say the case fatality rate is 5% or 100%.

You are making a totally circular argument. You still haven't explained why you think that the Observed Case - Fatality Ratio is a better indicator than the Deaths Per 100,000 Population.

[Denny01]

2 hours ago, Threedrones said:

The fatality rate of the virus. If 100 people are tested and only 5 are found to have the virus, but all 5 die, would you say the case fatality rate is 5% or 100%.

“I” wouldn’t say either.....this type of info is presented by the experts and medical professionals and the way death rates are presented are by the % of those that contract the disease. When they say some Cancer has an 50% recovery or 50% death rate, they obviously don’t mean the entire population, they mean the % of those who contract that disease. that’s how All rates have been presented since......well, since we quit using Roman Numerals. 

 

Why would they present the % of a population??? I have a feeling all those that keep throwing around death rates of entire populations know better, but for some reason they now think COVID should be treated differently. Science can be sooooo difficult when we try to ignore it.

 

den

Edited July 22, 2020 by Denny01

[hcat]

We heard there is more  support money  for Covid cases so many who die from other causes get  added  to Covid "#s.

 

Active cases and recoveries  are good indicators of the  curent situation.

[markeb]

42 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

 

You are making a totally circular argument. You still haven't explained why you think that the Observed Case - Fatality Ratio is a better indicator than the Deaths Per 100,000 Population.

 

7 minutes ago, Denny01 said:

“I” wouldn’t say either.....the way death rates are presented are by the % of those that contract the disease. When they say some Cancer has an 50% recovery or 50% death rate, they obviously don’t mean the entire population, they mean the % of those who contract that disease. that’s how All rates have been presented since......well, since we quit using Roman Numerals. 

 

Why would they present the % of a population??? I have a feeling all those that keep throwing around death rates of entire populations know better, but for some reason they now think COVID should be treated differently. Science can be sooooo difficult when we try to ignore it.

 

den

 

OK, so these terms actually have definitions and specific and different purposes. The Wikipedia entries are actually not bad, for once. They've been thrown around like candy to the point no one seems to know what they mean (actually I think Denny does, although I disagree with him on only considering those who have disease; a mortality rate is by definition, below, based on a total population and is used all the time).

 

Fatality rate is a meaningless and confusing term.

 

Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. (From Wikipedia). Crude mortality rate is an estimate of how many people die in a population in a period of time, usually annually, of all causes. Specific mortality rates estimate how many people die in a defined population of a specific cause in a period of time.

 

Case Fatality Rate: In epidemiology, a case fatality rate (CFR) — sometimes called case fatality risk or case-fatality ratio — is the proportion of deaths from a certain disease compared to the total number of people diagnosed with the disease for a particular period. A CFR is conventionally expressed as a percentage and represents a measure of disease severity. CFRs are most often used for diseases with discrete, limited-time courses, such as outbreaks of acute infections. A CFR can only be considered final when all the cases have been resolved (either died or recovered). The preliminary CFR, for example, during an outbreak with a high daily increase and long resolution time would be substantially lower than the final CFR. (Also from Wikipedia).

 

Everyone is right and everyone is wrong here. Part of that with COVID19 is somehow we started defining cases as everyone with a positive test, which is kind of useful for outbreak management, but a Case Fatality Rate would normally require "diagnosis of the disease"; a PCR positive swab is NOT diagnosis of a disease. And we more or less know at this point that a significant number of people are exposed, test positive, may be able to transmit, but never develop disease. But that ship sailed months ago.

 

So, in the earlier post, if 5 people test positive, get ill, and die of the disease, the Case Fatality Rate is in fact 100%, and the Mortality Rate would be 5% if the 100 people actually are a defined population. Both numbers have utility for totally different purposes.

[Denny01]

19 minutes ago, markeb said:

......Everyone is right and everyone is wrong here. ......So, in the earlier post, if 5 people test positive, get ill, and die of the disease, the Case Fatality Rate is in fact 100%, and the Mortality Rate would be 5% if the 100 people actually are a defined population. Both numbers have utility for totally different purposes.

I’ll disagree that ‘everyone is right and everyone is wrong’.

 

For what is being discussed on so many of these threads Here, the fatality rate is what matters. Mortality rates are for a set community And you are interested in what is affecting (Killing Off) that population. Fatality rates tell you how ‘fatal’ a disease is for any general group, such as on a cruise ship, in a port city, county, country, etc, and how dangerous it is to the individual.   

 

You can tell all of us have Lots of time on our hands as we sit at home, not cruising, not going out to dine much, not going to big (or even small?) parties. And we can get into such ‘fun’ discussions.  But enough. Unless there is some Really Neat post or Really Crazy post, I’ll step away because I’m repeating myself......you notice I didn’t say as I have before that I’m not going to respond again, done that and there I am back again!!

 

Most all of the social events and groups I’m involved with have cancelled their events for the entire year.......and they aren’t doing it because the ‘mortality rate’ is less than 1%. they are doing it because COVID is ravaging our communities and is caused by us getting together in groups and not wearing masks because people are given excuses to ignore This is a Pandemic. 

 

Den

[markeb]

1 minute ago, Denny01 said:

This is a Pandemic. 

 

No argument with that!

 

Fair winds and following seas from a green suited ORF...