NCL suing Florida over vaccine law.

[raprice18]

3 minutes ago, kearney said:

The story is that this woman had Covid and had test results proving this... It sounds like the port staff gave her a purple wrist band and later realized that she was no vaccinated..so they gave her a test and it was positive. Your link notes that it would likely be positive because she had recovered. Anyway they removed her... she was beyond upset. It seemed unreasonable..but your link and the fact that the CDC guidance and ship protocols skip any discussion of how to handle recovered covid patients... is a set up for miscommunications and problems. Seems that there is a hole in the protocols..

My only response to that is Royal Caribbean ship, Royal Caribbean rules. Royal does not have any published rules for recently recovered people. You are either vaccinated or not vaccinated. 

 

Edited to add:

The information in the links are per the CDC. Not Royal Caribbean. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by raprice18

[kearney]

Looks like they need another color wristband for non vaccinated but recovered...so don't test me. But then again... should they be treated as vaccinated??

[Ocean Boy]

2 minutes ago, kearney said:

The story is that this woman had Covid and had test results proving this... It sounds like the port staff gave her a purple wrist band and later realized that she was no vaccinated..so they gave her a test and it was positive. Your link notes that it would likely be positive because she had recovered. Anyway they removed her... she was beyond upset. It seemed unreasonable..but your link and the fact that the CDC guidance and ship protocols skip any discussion of how to handle recovered covid patients... is a set up for miscommunications and problems. Seems that there is a hole in the protocols..

It does seem that if she provided doumentation of infection within 3 months and tecovered that she should not have been tested and simply treated as unvaccinated.

[time4u2go]

16 minutes ago, ATC cruiser said:

They’ve been asking medical questions, and depending how people answer, preventing them from going on a cruise for the 11 years that I have been cruising. So it’s none of the cruise lines business that I had diarrhea within the previous 24 hours?

Great point!  They definitely already do "discriminate" based on medical information that they ask passengers.

[kearney]

1 minute ago, raprice18 said:

My only response to that is Royal Caribbean ship, Royal Caribbean rules. Royal does not have any published rules for recently recovered people. You are either vaccinated or not vaccinated. 

Understood... but if the CDC says that recovered should not be tested because they will show positive.. seems it is up to Royal to avoid kicking recovered passengers off a ship when they test positive..as the CDC predicts...  So consider them unvaccinated...but be really careful how you handle them as far as testing is concerned.

[bucfan2]

44 minutes ago, coffeebean said:

NCL is planning to sail 100% vaxxed passengers and crew. They don’t plan to have that 5% to “play” with so they can say that they ARE accommodating the un-vaxxxed. They will not accommodate any un-vaxxed and that is where they have a difficult time “skirting” that silly Florida law. 
 

i would like nothing better than for NCL stick to their guns and blow this damn law out of the water. This law goes against everything that allows the cruise line to operate safely as possible. 

I think you've voiced your opinion enough (just on this thread) to progress nicely towards getting another one shut down....congratulations (if that's what you've been waiting for).

[orville99]

14 minutes ago, kearney said:

Understood... but if the CDC says that recovered should not be tested because they will show positive.. seems it is up to Royal to avoid kicking recovered passengers off a ship when they test positive..as the CDC predicts...  So consider them unvaccinated...but be really careful how you handle them as far as testing is concerned.

IMO, They don't require testing within three months of recovery because they know that the tests are likely to show up as positive, and that the viral load, while present, is unlikely to be high enough to transmit the virus to others. At least that's what we learned in our contact tracing certification courses.

[kearney]

1 minute ago, orville99 said:

IMO, They don't require testing within three months of recovery because they know that the tests are likely to show up as positive, and that the viral load, while present, is unlikely to be high enough to transmit the virus to others. At least that's what we learned in our contact tracing certification courses.

Earlier I had watched the video of the woman being kicked off the FOS... at first I thought she was being unreasonable... but now I wonder. She stated that she had Covid 3 months earlier and had the test results showing high antibody levels. So if the CDC says not to test recovered patients within this 3 month time frame... seems that Royal should not have tested her and should not have kicked her off when the test came back positive. I had not seen the link before specifically stating that they should not be tested because the results would be positive. That is why I think they seem to have a hole in their protocols... nothing discusses the status of recovered covid patients and how they are categorized. So they need to decide if they need to follow the vaccinated or some hybrid non-vaccinated protocol that excludes testing. This area was a surprise to me...

[nelblu]

2 minutes ago, kearney said:

Earlier I had watched the video of the woman being kicked off the FOS... at first I thought she was being unreasonable... but now I wonder. She stated that she had Covid 3 months earlier and had the test results showing high antibody levels. So if the CDC says not to test recovered patients within this 3 month time frame... seems that Royal should not have tested her and should not have kicked her off when the test came back positive. I had not seen the link before specifically stating that they should not be tested because the results would be positive. That is why I think they seem to have a hole in their protocols... nothing discusses the status of recovered covid patients and how they are categorized. So they need to decide if they need to follow the vaccinated or some hybrid non-vaccinated protocol that excludes testing. This area was a surprise to me...

There are a lot of assumptions based on one side of the story,  We don't know/have all of the facts surrounding the incident.

[kearney]

8 minutes ago, nelblu said:

There are a lot of assumptions based on one side of the story,  We don't know/have all of the facts surrounding the incident.

You are correct.... we are likely to never know exactly what happened... but if what she said is true... it appears from CDC guidance that she should not have been tested because of the high likelihood of a positive result..

[BND]

4 minutes ago, kearney said:

You are correct.... we are likely to never know exactly what happened... but if what she said is true... it appears from CDC guidance that she should not have been tested because of the high likelihood of a positive result..

There's still the little issue of her bypassing the testing prior to boarding and having the wrong wristband.  Regardless of what she said, the only options are testing or vaccination so they were following their protocols, which she knew as everyone is informed beforehand.  They treat a positive test as a positive test.  

Edited July 14, 2021 by BND

[smplybcause]

2 hours ago, Joseph2017China said:

So you live in Florida, think a business has the right to ask you medical questions, and discriminate against you by preventing you from going on a trip?  All the other cruise lines seem to be doing ok with this, and adapting, so goodbye NCL.  No big deal. 

 

It's time to look around in Florida.  Tourism is up.  People are traveling.  The only business with restrictions is the cruise industry that the CDC has targeted unfairly.  

 

I don't think a vaccine requirement is unfair nor unwarranted for cruises. They have a few unique factors. 

 

This also wouldn't be the first time cruise lines ask for medical information - see pregnant women. And it's not the only sensitive information cruise lines handle - see passports and birth certificates.

 

As for tourism being open - the theme parks undoubtedly spread the virus but no one knows how much because no one was tracking it to tie it back to Disney. Also of note, the governor allowed the theme parks to put whatever restrictions they wanted and allowed them to adjust them as they saw fit. 

[Sam Ting]

12 minutes ago, kearney said:

You are correct.... we are likely to never know exactly what happened... but if what she said is true... it appears from CDC guidance that she should not have been tested because of the high likelihood of a positive result..

 

8 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

 

I don't think a vaccine requirement is unfair nor unwarranted for cruises. They have a few unique factors. 

 

This also wouldn't be the first time cruise lines ask for medical information - see pregnant women. And it's not the only sensitive information cruise lines handle - see passports and birth certificates.

 

As for tourism being open - the theme parks undoubtedly spread the virus but no one knows how much because no one was tracking it to tie it back to Disney. Also of note, the governor allowed the theme parks to put whatever restrictions they wanted and allowed them to adjust them as they saw fit. 

Better yet, if Karen got the vaccine in the first place, this would have never happened. 

[kearney]

13 minutes ago, BND said:

There's still the little issue of her bypassing the testing prior to boarding and having the wrong wristband.  Regardless of what she said, the only options are testing or vaccination so they were following their protocols, which she knew as everyone is informed beforehand.  They treat a positive test as a positive test.  

But based on that CDC link... she should not have been tested prior to boarding either... that is where I see a hole in the protocol. So if someone is not vaccinated...but should not be tested because of prior covid within 90 days... how do you identify them so you don't test them later. Yes there are a lot of questions...but I suspect it comes down to not having a specific protocol for Covid recovered who have not been vaccinated.  Glad I don't have the job trying to figure all this out.. Fine to treat them as unvaccinate...but don't be surprised when testing is positive and the CDC has warned you about this.

 

Now all of this could have been avoided by being vaccinated...but there is a lot of disagreement about whether that is necessary and whether you are more likely to have side effects to two doses of vaccine. It would be helpful if they had a plan for this group and let passenger know before hand... so that if you fit this narrow criteria... you know that they will be keeping CDC guidance in mind.

[RedIguana]

16 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

t definitely will be interesting to follow and I'm surprised the law took this long to get a challenge.

It may seem like a long time to those of us who have been frustrated by no cruising for so long, but it was filed less than 2 weeks after the law went into effect:) The executive order was in place before then, but no real reason to challenge that as it is limited in duration and enforcement.

 

16 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

When they lose this lawsuit, which is quite possible, they can't exactly just move forward with plan B after litigating that there is no plan B for them.

If they lose there is nothing stopping them from following any of the other cruise line practices. But if they do lose expect Florida to be emboldened and start fining the lines requiring vaccinations.

 

16 hours ago, firefly333 said:

Too late to sue over this. Law suits take a long time.  

 

 

Law suits do take time. I suspect they will be asking for an injunction while the suit progresses.

[mauraoel]

1 minute ago, RedIguana said:

If they lose there is nothing stopping them from following any of the other cruise line practices. But if they do lose expect Florida to be emboldened and start fining the lines requiring vaccinations.

 

None of them are requiring it they are just requesting it.

Edited July 14, 2021 by mauraoel

[BND]

14 minutes ago, kearney said:

But based on that CDC link... she should not have been tested prior to boarding either... that is where I see a hole in the protocol. So if someone is not vaccinated...but should not be tested because of prior covid within 90 days... how do you identify them so you don't test them later. Yes there are a lot of questions...but I suspect it comes down to not having a specific protocol for Covid recovered who have not been vaccinated.  Glad I don't have the job trying to figure all this out.. Fine to treat them as unvaccinate...but don't be surprised when testing is positive and the CDC has warned you about this.

 

Now all of this could have been avoided by being vaccinated...but there is a lot of disagreement about whether that is necessary and whether you are more likely to have side effects to two doses of vaccine. It would be helpful if they had a plan for this group and let passenger know before hand... so that if you fit this narrow criteria... you know that they will be keeping CDC guidance in mind.

Not gonna get into all the science about the vaccine, but the vaccine is a lot safer than catching the illness and the vast majority of side effects are minor, just like with many other vaccines.

 

Anyway, the protocols are in place and they are what they are.  RCI decided to go with vaccinated and/or testing.  Obviously this is not a big issue as she's the only one that has been reported.

[sunonfire]

15 hours ago, 3kidsncats said:

I would argue yours.  I believe the state of Florida really doesn’t want to destroy cruising in the state, so they are choosing to go with the flimsy work around theory rather than enforce the law.

The law allows you to ask if a person was vaccinated but cannot require a person to show proof of the vaccination. You can volunteer to show the proof that you had the vaccine but they cannot require it.

[RedIguana]

2 minutes ago, mauraoel said:

None of them are requiring it they are just requesting it.

I stand corrected. I did not realize celebrity changed their policy at the end of June. 

[mauraoel]

2 minutes ago, RedIguana said:

I stand corrected. I did not realize celebrity changed their policy at the end of June. 

Yeah it's weird

[Ocean Boy]

33 minutes ago, Sam Ting said:

 

Better yet, if Karen got the vaccine in the first place, this would have never happened. 

And if RCI required the vaccine.....

[hellsop]

18 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

Interesting quote from the article.

 

"Norwegian Chief Executive Frank Del Rio, in his declaration filed in court, said the company won’t be able to sail in Florida as planned if it must comply with the proof-of-vaccine ban."

 

emphasis mine

That really just sounds like posturing to make sure that overturning the law is the only remedy that can resolve the harm.

[coffeebean]

17 hours ago, coaster said:

CLIA needs to step up and project a unified response. Rogue responses from FDR will just make them get more pushback from DeSantis. All the lines need to be unified if they have sailings from Florida. NCL just seems more desperate than the other lines in filing a lawsuit against Florida.

It is not desperation, IMHO. NCL is more devoted to sail as safely as possible. I admire the company for their stance and hope the succeed with their lawsuit. 

[RedIguana]

7 minutes ago, hellsop said:

That really just sounds like posturing to make sure that overturning the law is the only remedy that can resolve the harm.

NCL has planned for 100% vaccinated, no exceptions. Overturning the law is the only way they can ask for proof of vaccination to comply with their plan without violating the law. Florida is the only state with a law preventing asking for proof that has legal consequences for denying travel based on status (as far as I know at this point in time anyway). They are able to ask for all their other departure ports.

[nelblu]

1 minute ago, coffeebean said:

It is not desperation, IMHO. NCL is more devoted to sail as safely as possible. I admire the company for their stance and hope the succeed with their lawsuit. 

There are many state laws that corporations do not like and they take certain actions like leaving that state.  Maybe what  NCL and the Board should be aggressive and make a point to move their headquarters to a much more friendly business state like NY, Calif., NJ and Conn.😀  They should also, take their toys/ships and sail from some other locations.