Covid Vaccination for Crew?

[prekcruiser]

I will not take a cruise until my husband and I both have had our Covid vaccinations.  Some have speculated that this may be a future requirement for cruising.  Does anyone know if the crew will also have to have the vaccination before being allowed onboard?  

[Bgcruising]

It would be a guess at this point. If its mandated for guests, I would guess it would be a mandate for ship staff. Just a guess based on common sense, or not.

[evandbob]

Vaccinations should be mandatory for anyone and everyone on a cruise ship, no exceptions.

JMO, YMMV

[tidecat]

It wouldn't surprise me if this is why we haven't seen the technical specifications for the test cruises yet. The obvious elephant in the room would be getting enough vaccine supply to vaccinate crew on multiple ships (and possibly a second dose 3-4 weeks later). Even if ships were carrying an average of just 1000 crew, this adds up quickly when you start talking about multiple ships from multiple operators. Carnival Cruise Line would have up to 22 ships (all but Splendor and Spirit) serving US markets. Royal could have a similar number, and Norwegian would likely be in double digits, and then there's other operators like MSC, Virgin, Disney, and Bahamas Paradise.

[pe4all]

I can't imagine them requiring guests have a vaccination and the crew NOT needing a vaccination.  Doesn't really make sense if you think about it.  As far as logistics go in having crews fully vaccinated - the mass vaccination sites here in NY can do over 1,000 vacs a day, with some state-run sites (Yankee Stadium, for example) being open 24 hours.    After a crew quarantines, bringing the vacs onto the ship and injecting everyone really doesn't seem to be a big deal. 

Edited March 6, 2021 by pe4all

[CruiserBruce]

As the finalized policies have not been released, its all speculation, at this point. MANY discussions around Cruise Critic, with tons of opinions pro and con, but nobody really knows yet.

[Honolulu Blue]

17 hours ago, prekcruiser said:

I will not take a cruise until my husband and I both have had our Covid vaccinations.  Some have speculated that this may be a future requirement for cruising.  Does anyone know if the crew will also have to have the vaccination before being allowed onboard?  

 

This site has a good summary article at https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=5872 .  In addition to that list, Royal's Odyssey of the Seas will be sailing from Haifa, Israel in May with all crew and all passengers (over 16) required to be vaccinated.

 

You'll notice that more cruise lines, at this point, are requiring vaccines from their passengers than from their crew.  I think it's because, as private corporations, the cruise lines are having an extremely difficult time securing vaccine doses and the home countries for most of the crew currently have few doses and an uncertain supply.

 

Be patient; the crew will get vaccinated eventually.  But eventually might be a long time away.

[chengkp75]

17 hours ago, tidecat said:

It wouldn't surprise me if this is why we haven't seen the technical specifications for the test cruises yet.

According to the CDC, the technical instructions for the actual simulated cruises, aren't the step that is currently being formulated.  The next step in the process is for the cruise lines to obtain agreements and contracts with ports, local health care, transportation, and accommodation systems to set up disembarkation, treatment, transportation, and quarantine facilities capable of handling a shipwide outbreak, or to the level the CDC determines.  After these agreements and contracts are in place, then the focus will shift to the simulated cruise instructions.

[K32682]

I'm not boarding a cruise ship if I've been vaccinated and the crew hasn't. 

[TinCan782]

American Queen Steamboat Company announced last month this vaccination policy:

VACCINATIONS 
COVID-19 vaccination is required for all guests and crew for all sailings beginning July 1, 2021.

[chengkp75]

3 minutes ago, TinCan782 said:

American Queen Steamboat Company announced last month this vaccination policy:

VACCINATIONS 
COVID-19 vaccination is required for all guests and crew for all sailings beginning July 1, 2021.

Quite a bit easier for AQSC to get their 100% US crew vaccinated than other lines.

[ronrythm]

According to the Wall Street Journal, Indonesia is allowing private companies to buy COVID-19 vaccines. Sorry, the link is behind a paywall. It is causing a lot of controversy. I wonder if any of the cruise lines will buy doses for their employees?

[tidecat]

16 minutes ago, ronrythm said:

According to the Wall Street Journal, Indonesia is allowing private companies to buy COVID-19 vaccines. Sorry, the link is behind a paywall. It is causing a lot of controversy. I wonder if any of the cruise lines will buy doses for their employees?

I could see cruise lines encouraging the companies they use for recruiting to do that. An Indonesian recruiter would then be able to offer up vaccinated candidates to the cruise line.

[Earthworm Jim]

18 hours ago, pe4all said:

I can't imagine them requiring guests have a vaccination and the crew NOT needing a vaccination.  Doesn't really make sense if you think about it.  As far as logistics go in having crews fully vaccinated - the mass vaccination sites here in NY can do over 1,000 vacs a day, with some state-run sites (Yankee Stadium, for example) being open 24 hours.    After a crew quarantines, bringing the vacs onto the ship and injecting everyone really doesn't seem to be a big deal. 

 

I'm not sure the government taking special steps like that to vaccinate foreign nationals employed by a non-US company would fly, but many states (not Florida) do allow foreign nationals to be vaccinated. Assuming they were allowed off the ship they could go to a vaccine center like anyone else and be vaccinated though.

 

It could be as more people are vaccinated and the supply outstrips the demand, states like Florida will become more lenient on who can get the vaccine. If that came to pass, Florida is the one state where I could see the government being willing to have cruise crew specific vaccinations because it's such a significant part of their economy.

[navybankerteacher]

13 minutes ago, tidecat said:

I could see cruise lines encouraging the companies they use for recruiting to do that. An Indonesian recruiter would then be able to offer up vaccinated candidates to the cruise line.

And it is very likely that the Indonesian government would view a program which enabled many of their citizens to earn hard currency as being in the national interest and would thus facilitate expediting vaccinations for cruise line hires.

[Earthworm Jim]

2 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

According to the CDC, the technical instructions for the actual simulated cruises, aren't the step that is currently being formulated.  The next step in the process is for the cruise lines to obtain agreements and contracts with ports, local health care, transportation, and accommodation systems to set up disembarkation, treatment, transportation, and quarantine facilities capable of handling a shipwide outbreak, or to the level the CDC determines.  After these agreements and contracts are in place, then the focus will shift to the simulated cruise instructions.

 

That whole treatment, transportation, and quarantine facilities capable of handling a shipwide outbreak seems like a very high hurdle for the cruise lines to overcome, which makes me wonder if they are instead just sitting back and waiting hoping things improve enough that the CDC lifts that requirement.

 

If so, it may be a long wait.  Based on the hints thus far on what the CDC recommendations will be for what vaccinated people can safely do (not much), it doesn't seem like they view a vaccination as much of an improvement. All they've said you can do thus far is get together in homes with small groups of other vaccinated people. If that's their mindset, they aren't about to allow any cruises to resume soon.

[Hlitner]

3 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

According to the CDC, the technical instructions for the actual simulated cruises, aren't the step that is currently being formulated.  The next step in the process is for the cruise lines to obtain agreements and contracts with ports, local health care, transportation, and accommodation systems to set up disembarkation, treatment, transportation, and quarantine facilities capable of handling a shipwide outbreak, or to the level the CDC determines.  After these agreements and contracts are in place, then the focus will shift to the simulated cruise instructions.

Out of the mouth of "babes."  When I read your post to DW she said "a lot of gobbledygook."  You might recall that when the CDC published their Guidelines (I believe it was last November) I immediately posted (after carefully reading the document) that it was crafted to shift the burden from the CDC to the cruise industry.  I also said the Guidelines were written to give the CDC the basis to prevent cruising.  That has come to pass.   Here we are more then 3 months after the Guidelines were published and we appear to be no closer to resuming cruise operations then we were last November.  And folks need to understand that the current Guidelines are "ship specific" which means that each and every vessel that wants to use a US port must go through the CDC approval process....which still does not exist!  It is possible that 6 months or even a year from now we could still be waiting on the next step from the CDC.  I hope that does not turn out to be true, but the CDC does not seem to be able to get out of its own way.

 

I see a big problem with the mindset that exists with regard to COVID.  Many experts and members of the general public are seeking a 100% guarantee of "no COVID risk."  The reality of viruses is that this is not going to happen for decades (or even longer).  There is no scientific reason to believe that COVID will disappear from the world.  We also know that there is no way we are going to vaccinate 100% of the entire world's population with a vaccine that is 100%  effective!  Bottom line is something we all understand which is that life involves risk and we can never eliminate all risk.

 

For cruising to resume all the affected parties (when I worked in the government healthcare world we called them "stakeholders") must be willing to accept some degree of risk.  At the moment many governments around the world seem unwilling to accept any COVID risk.  It is only when that attitude changes that we will see the resumption of cruises in a way that is acceptable to most customers.

 

Hank

[ldubs]

3 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

According to the CDC, the technical instructions for the actual simulated cruises, aren't the step that is currently being formulated.  The next step in the process is for the cruise lines to obtain agreements and contracts with ports, local health care, transportation, and accommodation systems to set up disembarkation, treatment, transportation, and quarantine facilities capable of handling a shipwide outbreak, or to the level the CDC determines.  After these agreements and contracts are in place, then the focus will shift to the simulated cruise instructions.

 

Makes sense to me.  Why have a test drive before a process to handle outbreaks is defined.  

Edited March 7, 2021 by ldubs

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, ronrythm said:

According to the Wall Street Journal, Indonesia is allowing private companies to buy COVID-19 vaccines. Sorry, the link is behind a paywall. It is causing a lot of controversy. I wonder if any of the cruise lines will buy doses for their employees?

Seems the logical thing to do if either crew are required to be vaccinated or their customers are unwilling to sail unless the crew is also vaccinated.

[Honolulu Blue]

2 hours ago, ronrythm said:

According to the Wall Street Journal, Indonesia is allowing private companies to buy COVID-19 vaccines. Sorry, the link is behind a paywall. It is causing a lot of controversy. I wonder if any of the cruise lines will buy doses for their employees?

 

2 hours ago, tidecat said:

I could see cruise lines encouraging the companies they use for recruiting to do that. An Indonesian recruiter would then be able to offer up vaccinated candidates to the cruise line.

 

Interesting news; thanks for sharing.  I could also see the cruise lines purchasing vaccines directly and distributing them to meet their needs.

[chengkp75]

Well, Hank, I will disagree with you over this.  The CDC set the requirements back last summer in the "no sail order", and haven't significantly changed those with the "conditional sail order".  Typically, as I've said in the past, the CDC issues the requirements based on their area of expertise, and then request that industry reply with what is attainable in their area of expertise, where the CDC has no experience (operating cruise ships).  The model for this was the VSP, which followed this exact path towards implementation.  The CDC saw no movement from the cruise lines towards defining what was attainable, other than a general advisory boards recommendations (certainly not a defined action plan), so the CDC has had to resort to the "technical instructions" method of defining what, specifically, must be done.  As this is not their area of experience, it is naturally taking a long time to formulate.  Whether you believe that the CDC "has it out for cruise lines" or not, I can't change your mindset.  I don't believe that the CDC is looking for 100% safety, but they are applying the "industry best practices" in their industry (epidemiology), and were hoping for the cruise lines to reciprocate with their best practices.

[Toofarfromthesea]

3 hours ago, K32682 said:

I'm not boarding a cruise ship if I've been vaccinated and the crew hasn't. 

 

Are you concerned that you might infect crew members?

[c-boy]

36 minutes ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

 

Are you concerned that you might infect crew members?

🤣 brilliant !

[mom says]

4 hours ago, K32682 said:

I'm not boarding a cruise ship if I've been vaccinated and the crew hasn't. 

 

46 minutes ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

 

Are you concerned that you might infect crew members?

Given that the experts have still not been able to rule out the possibility of transmission after vaccination, that concern is not without merit. Neither is the concern of unvaccinated crew infecting those pax who did not achieve immunity from their vaccination, or infecting unvaccinated individuals while ashore.

[ldubs]

On 3/7/2021 at 10:18 AM, mom says said:

 

Given that the experts have still not been able to rule out the possibility of transmission after vaccination, that concern is not without merit. Neither is the concern of unvaccinated crew infecting those pax who did not achieve immunity from their vaccination, or infecting unvaccinated individuals while ashore.

 

And/or concern that an outbreak among unvaccinated people, whether they be crew or passengers, cause quarantines, the cruise itinerary to be rerouted, cancelled, etc.  The idea is to reduce the exposure so of course everyone should be vaccinated.