Hospitalizations and cases are falling, travel restrictions are rising...

[Ashland]

47 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

Very highly doubtful, IMO

My thoughts also...Any idea when and what sailings will be in the next round of cancellations?

Hoping my RT July 26th out of Amsterdam will be included...so I can move on.

Also any idea when more of the 2023 schedule will come out ?

[nocl]

10 hours ago, Gracie115 said:

 

And yesterday the cases were 7900 with a positivity rate of under 6%, the numbers are slowly getting better.  Yes we had the numbers you state on that one day, but all other days last week the numbers were lower than that and in all but one other day the positivity was under 10% all week.  

 

Still way too high, of course.

 

Track Testing Trends - Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (jhu.edu)

The good news is that we are getting past the Christmas surge, the bad news is that variant B.117 is becoming pretty widespread in the US and is likely to lead to another surge if people cannot get vaccinated quickly enough.

[cruise kitty]

10 hours ago, upwarduk said:

You need at least 3 weeks after you have been vaccinated to be sure you have some protection.

I know the UK is following that protocol, but according to my trial site, I should have about 60% protection about 10 days after first shot, & full efficacy 7 days after the second shot...  since my Dh,  DD & SIL also did trial we plan on being our own little social pod as soon as my vaccinations are complete :)  stay safe!

[Harrylinden]

We have n 18 day land /cruise  beginning and ending in Vancouver the end of July.Wondering if it will even get to go? Doughtful but hopeful it will get to go!

[Arizona Wildcat]

1 hour ago, Harrylinden said:

We have n 18 day land /cruise  beginning and ending in Vancouver the end of July.Wondering if it will even get to go? Doughtful but hopeful it will get to go!

That answer is pretty easy - only a very slim chance of happening.

The rules require any port to handle sick passengers.  Cannot see how the ports in Alaska can accomodate.  One  problem in Canada is they will have few vaccinated until March due to the timing of their vaccine purchases.  Trudeau suggested the border will likely remain closed for several more months.

Suggest you read the CDC order on what happens if any sick passengers.

As to restarting - the CDC order is moot until worldwide cases drop enough to allow international travel.  Then 2 weeks of crew isolation and the list goes on and on.

[Fouremco]

23 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

That answer is pretty easy - only a very slim chance of happening.

The rules require any port to handle sick passengers.  Cannot see how the ports in Alaska can accomodate.  One  problem in Canada is they will have few vaccinated until March due to the timing of their vaccine purchases.  Trudeau suggested the border will likely remain closed for several more months.

Suggest you read the CDC order on what happens if any sick passengers.

As to restarting - the CDC order is moot until worldwide cases drop enough to allow international travel.  Then 2 weeks of crew isolation and the list goes on and on.

The problem isn't with the timing of the purchases but with their delivery. Canada has already purchased many more doses than it can use, but some vaccines are awaiting approval for use in Canada; the major purchase from Pfizer has affected by the company's current shutdown; and while the EU has indicated verbally that Canada won't be subject to export controls imposed on vaccines, no written guarantee has been forthcoming.

[WonderMan3]

Cases and hospitalizations are declining because we are coming off the insane surge from the holidays. Every time we have had a surge though we wind up falling but then plateauing at a higher rate than where we left off after the previous surge. And even though declines may be happening, restrictions are also happening because of the new strains popping up that are all more contagious. Many health experts expect that the UK strain will become the dominant one here in the US in the next month or so and so anything and everything we can do to mandate mask wearing, restrict gatherings, inhibit travel and get people vaccinated all work to help stave off another surge due to these more contagious strains. This is because a surge ignited by the UK variant would be projected to put us at numbers even higher than this holiday surge to the point where some areas would be maxed out of hospital beds. I'm not sure why this needs to be explained  especially when all this information appears on pretty much every nightly news broadcast.

[WonderMan3]

On 1/31/2021 at 10:46 AM, PTC DAWG said:

No flu either.  

 

Because of mask wearing and social distancing. The flu is not as contagious as COVID so any health precautions taken that can help reduce spread of COVID would help even more significantly with flu spread.

[ipeeinthepool]

14 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

...

The rules require any port to handle sick passengers.  Cannot see how the ports in Alaska can accomodate.  One  problem in Canada is they will have few vaccinated until March due to the timing of their vaccine purchases.  Trudeau suggested the border will likely remain closed for several more months.

Suggest you read the CDC order on what happens if any sick passengers.

....

 

I think vaccinating everyone onboard is the answer to this question.  Some vaccines are better than others and may perform differently against different strains.  But no one that was vaccinated in any trials has died and very few had worse than mild symptoms.  Not a big additional load to those hospitals.  I think the ships can handle these onboard and can make arrangements with hospitals to treat anyone when they return to their home port.  Shorter cruises and a vaccine requirement are the key to resuming cruises.

[TeeRick]

10 hours ago, WonderMan3 said:

Cases and hospitalizations are declining because we are coming off the insane surge from the holidays. Every time we have had a surge though we wind up falling but then plateauing at a higher rate than where we left off after the previous surge. And even though declines may be happening, restrictions are also happening because of the new strains popping up that are all more contagious. Many health experts expect that the UK strain will become the dominant one here in the US in the next month or so and so anything and everything we can do to mandate mask wearing, restrict gatherings, inhibit travel and get people vaccinated all work to help stave off another surge due to these more contagious strains. This is because a surge ignited by the UK variant would be projected to put us at numbers even higher than this holiday surge to the point where some areas would be maxed out of hospital beds. I'm not sure why this needs to be explained  especially when all this information appears on pretty much every nightly news broadcast.

Will the next US surge be about two weeks after all the indoor Super Bowl Parties expected this Sunday?  That is my next worry now that holiday surges are past peak.

[TeeRick]

9 hours ago, Denny01 said:

So Florida’s cases, hospitalizations and deaths dropped this week for the first time in months and after January was the highest month it (and the US and my county) has experienced since the start of the Pandemic and someone is wondering why travel restrictions are being increased???

 

Got it.

 

And I realize as soon as I post this, someone will come on to tell us all the data is fake and Fauci is an alien from ItaliaiaLand who wants us isolated and graining more weight so we will be good and fat when ‘they’ land and eat us. 

 

Just sitting it out and waiting. Teaching some Zoom Classes and online ‘socializing’. And just hoping next Thanksgiving I’ll be at sea, but well aware it may not occur. 

 

Den

Now over 26 million virus-positive tests reported so far in the US, with CDC suggesting it is 3-4X that number.  And 28 million doses of vaccine (14 million people) administered.  And a lot of people are naturally immune for whatever reason.  So a guestimate is that 1/3 of the US population at a minimum is carrying immunity to the virus.  Not high enough for complete herd immunity yet, but this should start to drop our numbers of infections and hospitalizations which is the current trend.  This will accelerate as more are vaccinated. 

[sydbarrett]

20 hours ago, Harrylinden said:

We have n 18 day land /cruise  beginning and ending in Vancouver the end of July.Wondering if it will even get to go? Doughtful but hopeful it will get to go!

I can say with almost certainty that this will not happen. I am not even holding my breath for domestic travel to see family by then.

[jg51]

14 hours ago, WonderMan3 said:

Cases and hospitalizations are declining because we are coming off the insane surge from the holidays. Every time we have had a surge though we wind up falling but then plateauing at a higher rate than where we left off after the previous surge. ...

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We believe that the above statement is incorrect (and the product of unhelpful pessimism).  We have been watching the CDC case graph daily since last April, and we are convinced that, thanks to the vaccines already administered, the decline is genuine and permanent (without there being another surge imminent).  Everyone can judge for him/herself here:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

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14 hours ago, WonderMan3 said:

 

... The flu is not as contagious as COVID ...

.

We believe that the above statement is also incorrect.  We believe that the latest flu [which is also a "CoViD] is probably just as "contagious," BUT it is less dangerous than CoViD-19.

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[markeb]

8 minutes ago, jg51 said:

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We believe that the above statement is incorrect (and the product of unhelpful pessimism).  We have been watching the CDC case graph daily since last April, and we are convinced that, thanks to the vaccines already administered, the decline is genuine and permanent (without there being another surge imminent).  Everyone can judge for him/herself here:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

.

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We believe that the above statement is also incorrect.  We believe that the latest flu [which is also a "CoViD] is probably just as "contagious," BUT it is less dangerous than CoViD-19.

.

 

The first graph shows a current 7 day average of 149,348 new test positives as of January 31st. On Oct 9, not even the low point, which was in September, the same average was 47,755. So two days ago, the positive test rate was 3.13 times higher than before Thanksgiving. Cases are declining from the highest point of the epidemic in the US. It does not support your statement.

 

The latest flu is not a "CoVID". Influenza is caused by an influenza virus, whose primary relationships to SARS-CoV-2, the actual virus; COVID19 is the disease, is that they're both RNA viruses. The R0 of seasonal flu is between 1 and 2; the R0 of SARS-CoV-2 was generally placed between 2 and 3 until the latest variants appeared, which will almost certainly push it even higher. That also does not support your statement.

[nocl]

31 minutes ago, jg51 said:

.

We believe that the above statement is incorrect (and the product of unhelpful pessimism).  We have been watching the CDC case graph daily since last April, and we are convinced that, thanks to the vaccines already administered, the decline is genuine and permanent (without there being another surge imminent).  Everyone can judge for him/herself here:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases

.

.

We believe that the above statement is also incorrect.  We believe that the latest flu [which is also a "CoViD] is probably just as "contagious," BUT it is less dangerous than CoViD-19.

.

By definition influenza is not COVID, it is a different class of virus.   So the latest flu cannot be covid, because then it is not flu.

[jg51]

13 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

The first graph shows a current 7 day average of 149,348 new test positives as of January 31st. On Oct 9, not even the low point, which was in September, the same average was 47,755. So two days ago, the positive test rate was 3.13 times higher than before Thanksgiving. Cases are declining from the highest point of the epidemic in the US. It does not support your statement.

 

The latest flu is not a "CoVID". Influenza is caused by an influenza virus, whose primary relationships to SARS-CoV-2, the actual virus; COVID19 is the disease, is that they're both RNA viruses. The R0 of seasonal flu is between 1 and 2; the R0 of SARS-CoV-2 was generally placed between 2 and 3 until the latest variants appeared, which will almost certainly push it even higher. That also does not support your statement.

.

Responding to your first paragraph, above:

The graph most certainly DOES support our statement.  If you really think that it does not, you must have misunderstood our statement!  Your references to averages of several months ago are irrelevant to the point we were making.

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(Will get back to you on the second paragraph ASAP ...)

 

[UnorigionalName]

22 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

The first graph shows a current 7 day average of 149,348 new test positives as of January 31st. On Oct 9, not even the low point, which was in September, the same average was 47,755. So two days ago, the positive test rate was 3.13 times higher than before Thanksgiving. Cases are declining from the highest point of the epidemic in the US. It does not support your statement.

 

The latest flu is not a "CoVID". Influenza is caused by an influenza virus, whose primary relationships to SARS-CoV-2, the actual virus; COVID19 is the disease, is that they're both RNA viruses. The R0 of seasonal flu is between 1 and 2; the R0 of SARS-CoV-2 was generally placed between 2 and 3 until the latest variants appeared, which will almost certainly push it even higher. That also does not support your statement.

 

2-3 are the super old estimates from back last winter.  The newer estimates are closer to 6, and may or may not include the new variants.  It's hard to compare R0 between flu and covid as people change their behavior a lot when covid cases go up.

[jg51]

20 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

... The latest flu is not a "CoVID". Influenza is caused by an influenza virus, whose primary relationships to SARS-CoV-2, the actual virus; COVID19 is the disease, is that they're both RNA viruses. The R0 of seasonal flu is between 1 and 2; the R0 of SARS-CoV-2 was generally placed between 2 and 3 until the latest variants appeared, which will almost certainly push it even higher. That also does not support your statement.

.

Sorry.  We responded to the original statement without proper care.  We were thinking of another disease (not flu).  May we ask you to re-write the above paragraph, using a layman's terminology?  Parts of the paragraph are unclear to us.  You may have left out a word or two, and we also do not know what "R0" means.  Thank you.

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7 minutes ago, nocl said:

By definition influenza is not COVID, it is a different class of virus.   So the latest flu cannot be covid, because then it is not flu.

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Yes.  Thank you.

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[nocl]

Just now, jg51 said:

.

Sorry.  We responded to the original statement without proper care.  We were thinking of another disease (not flu).  May we ask you to re-write the above paragraph, using a layman's terminology?  Parts of the paragraph are unclear to us.  You may have left out a word or two, and we also do not know what "R0" means.  Thank you.

.

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Yes.  Thank you.

.

R0 is a measure of how infectious an illness is in an outbreak (reproduction number).  An R0 of 1 means that each infected person is passing the virus to 1 other.  R0 of 3 means that each infected infects 3 others.  One of the most infectious illnesses (measles) has an R0 of about 12.

[markeb]

1 minute ago, UnorigionalName said:

 

2-3 are the super old estimates from back last winter.  The newer estimates are closer to 6, and may or may not include the new variants.  It's hard to compare R0 between flu and covid as people change their behavior a lot when covid cases go up.

 

I was thinking that, too, but didn't find a newer source on a quick look. But, yes, when we get into 6, we're getting into serious transmission territory.

 

I'd probably be more comfortable with a series of R estimates for different scenarios than trying to pin down a mathematical R0. Like you say, there's a big behavioral piece here.

[nocl]

4 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

I was thinking that, too, but didn't find a newer source on a quick look. But, yes, when we get into 6, we're getting into serious transmission territory.

 

I'd probably be more comfortable with a series of R estimates for different scenarios than trying to pin down a mathematical R0. Like you say, there's a big behavioral piece here.

Of course you also have R0 used in different ways.  One that deals with how infectious a particular virus is such as Measles has an R0 of around 12, the second is the R0 for a particular stage in the epidemic as in the the R0 has dropped below 1 when an epidemic is wanning.

Edited February 2, 2021 by nocl

[markeb]

14 minutes ago, jg51 said:

.

Responding to your first paragraph, above:

The graph most certainly DOES support our statement.  If you really think that it does not, you must have misunderstood our statement!  Your references to averages of several months ago are irrelevant to the point we were making.

.

(Will get back to you on the second paragraph ASAP ...)

 

 

The original question in the thread was essentially why are restrictions rising as cases and hospitalizations are falling. Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are declining, but they're declining from a record high. So the months ago baseline is relevant to that question. If you look at that graph, there have been multiple times where all three have declined for a period, then risen again. It's way too early to know the current downward trend is permanent. In fact, I expect it to go up between the 8th and 28th of February from Super Bowl gatherings.

 

There are enough positives that the overall downward trend could continue this time, but again, if you look at the original question, the reason for continued restrictions, and even in some places increasing restrictions while the trend line is down, is that it's still almost as high as it's ever been.

[Ex-Airbalancer]

Interesting read about India 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/02/01/962821038/the-mystery-of-indias-plummeting-covid-19-cases

[jg51]

35 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

The original question in the thread was essentially why are restrictions rising as cases and hospitalizations are falling. Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are declining, but they're declining from a record high. So the months ago baseline is relevant to that question. If you look at that graph, there have been multiple times where all three have declined for a period, then risen again. It's way too early to know the current downward trend is permanent. In fact, I expect it to go up between the 8th and 28th of February from Super Bowl gatherings.  There are enough positives that the overall downward trend could continue this time, but again, if you look at the original question, the reason for continued restrictions, and even in some places increasing restrictions while the trend line is down, is that it's still almost as high as it's ever been.

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We don't disagree with what you have just written, "markeb" -- except that we believe that the vaccinations already done will prevent a significant surge.   However, the reason we made your opening words "bold" is that, in our first comment on this thread, we did not say anything about "the original question."  Instead, we were seeking to rebut a comment made by "WonderMan3."  He wrote this: "Every time we have had a surge ... we wind up falling but then plateauing at a higher rate than where we left off after the previous surge." 

 

What WonderMan3 stated was indeed true BEFORE vaccinations began, but we are confident that it will not be true again -- and we offered the graph as support of our optimism.  The current decline has been deeper -- and more long-lasting -- than any of the previous declines.  We expect there to be little or no surge from the Super Bowl gatherings, due to its being "offset" by the vaccinations.

 

Of course, this is speculative, and we are merely fallible humans.

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PS:  We forgot to thank "nocl" for explaining "R0."  Grateful for that.

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Edited February 2, 2021 by jg51

[Fouremco]

7 minutes ago, jg51 said:

We don't disagree with what you have just written, "markeb" -- except that we believe that the vaccinations already done will prevent a significant surge.

The elderly, medical professionals and many of the other priority groups who have been vaccinated are not the ones who are likely to create another surge when gathering for the Super Bowl. Like @TeeRick, @markeb, and many others, I doubt that the vaccinations to date will prevent another surge.