Curious - transparency on current cruises regarding the # of covid cases

[chamima]

We are just off the Caribbean Princess today and if there were any Covid cases on board they certainly did NOT let us know 

We were in Club Class and we did notice that the wait staff was disappearing.  Our first waiter disappeared after about three days. We were told he got a promotion. Then a couple of days later the junior waiter and then a couple more waiters and finally the head waiter.  When we asked we were told some story about reassignments.  
We’ll never really know but we both feel like there was probably an outbreak and it would have been nice to have had some transparency. I guess if we get sick in the next couple of days (Pooh-Pooh as my mother used to say) we’ll know. 

[chamima]

BTW - yesterday (last day of the cruise) we DID see the medical team come and tell a couple sitting outside in front of us that they had been contact traced and had to go with them.   So there was at least one case on board. So if any of our waiters were infected we should have been informed. We skipped the MT luncheon and didn’t sit in any bars or go to any shows in the theater and waited for empty elevators so that we wouldn’t have a chance of being in close contact with others.  
So if we were to have gotten Covid from the wait staff (the only time were were unmasked indoors) it would be pretty aggravating that no one had let us know. 

[2 cruises a year]

10 hours ago, Coral said:

I personally would want to know. I think it is important.

 

We were on a cruise several years ago with norovirus. We saw caution tape everywhere, people in hazmat suits, etc... Princess paid for us to get off the ship to do an excursion on turnaround day as we were not allowed on the ship. We knew the cases were high and I later saw a CDC report which had a percentage.

 

My employer sends us an email each week with the number of new cases of COVID - that gives us knowledge of how good or how bad things are. Knowledge is power. When we have knowledge - we can be more prepared. We can be more proactive.

 

I was recently on the Grand Princess and when I got on the ship, the color was Green and when I got off, the color was yellow. I had not heard of any cases. It would have been good to know if we were looking at 2% or 20%.

 

I do think if Princess wants us to trust them in selecting them for our holiday - they should be transparent. Just a % of crew and passengers. Not anything more specific. I am definitely going to act differently if 2% are affected or 20%. Just as an example - I did bring KN95 masks but wore masks made my a medical scrub company. If I knew there was 20%, I would have switched to a KN95 mask. Another example - at the MTP - we sat at a shared table of 8. If I knew cases were high - I probably would only eat at a table with the people I traveled with. Knowledge is power. If the truth is out there - we can make better, informed decisions. Same as many of act differently in our cities and counties when cases are high vs if cases are low. My county is very high right now and I went shopping with my KN95 mask. In November, I wore a different mask.

 

Princess - if you want to trust us with our vacation money, please be transparent.

 

10 hours ago, nocl said:

I would expect you are dealing with much closer to 1 or 2% than 20%.   Considering that there have been far more crew cases then passenger cases anything that would even approach 5% in the crew would be very noticeable, as in the RCL ships that canceled pretty much all entertainment.

It takes 1/10th of 1% to go yellow according to the CDC.  That is one person in onethousand.

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/management/technical-instructions-for-cruise-ships.html#green-ship

[Daniel A]

Some years ago, when HIV (AIDS) was the world's concern, the health experts got laws passed preventing anyone from even passing along information to another as to a person's HIV infection status.  This was even in hospitals and other occupations where bloodborne pathogens are of concern.  The reasoning was that all people should assume everybody has HIV infection and is capable of transmitting it and all should take precautions to prevent infection.

 

It sounds like the same reasoning here.  How does knowing the number or percentage of people testing positive for Covid on a ship alter your taking proper precautions against the disease?  Listing the numbers and knowing those numbers should affect your behavior how?  People lie all the time with statistics.  Going from one case to three on a cruise with 1800 passengers just tripled the number of cases (and by the way will trigger a 'yellow' status from the CDC.)  The CDC isn't releasing the numbers before you even get on a plane to fly to your cruise port.  But they'll tell you if one crew member is sick by making the ship 'yellow.'

 

Again, how does knowing the numbers affect your conduct on a cruise ship?  Why is it any different from the Government not telling you how many car crashes occur on your local roads which involve fatalities or serious physical injury?  Put your seat belt on and put the phone down and keep to the speed limit...

 

Just take the precautions common sense says we should do on a cruise ship.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Daniel A

[Daniel A]

10 minutes ago, nocl said:

Yes, but many ships are reporting much higher than that.  All ships are in yellow so we are certainly higher than the minimum.  People are reporting that they are in quarantine and that there were several other cabins occupied in the quarantine area.

I'm curious to know where you are finding your numbers.  All I can find is the CDC'c color chart which really doesn't give a good indication of the numbers anyway.  Even their highest level doesn't give any numbers to their threshold, but I don't see any ships in the red.

 

Yellow can mean one positive crew member or that two people tested positive even after they have returned home from their cruise.  With such minimums, there is no wonder all ships are yellow.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Daniel A

[bigeagle12]

15 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I'm curious to know where you are finding your numbers.  All I can find is the CDC'c color chart which really doesn't give a good indication of the numbers anyway.  Even their highest level doesn't give any numbers to their threshold, but I don't see any ships in the red.

 

Yellow can mean one positive crew member or that two people tested positive even after they have returned home from their cruise.  With such minimums, there is no wonder all ships are yellow.

They are intentionally being vague. This beats the alternative of shutting down the entire cruise industry. 
 

The lesson here is know the risks and make your own decision to cruise or not. 

[2 cruises a year]

13 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I'm curious to know where you are finding your numbers.  All I can find is the CDC'c color chart which really doesn't give a good indication of the numbers anyway.  Even their highest level doesn't give any numbers to their threshold, but I don't see any ships in the red.

 

Yellow can mean one positive crew member or that two people tested positive even after they have returned home from their cruise.  With such minimums, there is no wonder all ships are yellow.

I agree. We're on a Forum where people are complaining about transparency. Suddenly, undocumented numbers are available. 

[nocl]

30 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I'm curious to know where you are finding your numbers.  All I can find is the CDC'c color chart which really doesn't give a good indication of the numbers anyway.  Even their highest level doesn't give any numbers to their threshold, but I don't see any ships in the red.

 

Yellow can mean one positive crew member or that two people tested positive even after they have returned home from their cruise.  With such minimums, there is no wonder all ships are yellow.

What I am doing is going through the reports on CC that people make from various ships, including those that are reporting from quarantine.

 

Put that together with the ships being denied entry at the Caribbean ports where criteria is ship by ship.

 

Some of them include things like, number of crew being transferred to quarantine ships, number of people being disembarked at the end of cruise together to go to quarantine, some reports of announcements on ship.  

 

That is why I am pretty comfortable that we are running above the .1 on a number of ships and several having to be above 1%, But nothing that would imply much more than that, at least nothing that seems to be above 3 to 4%.  Most of the numbers are also in crew not passengers. 

 

Easy enough for anyone to do.  Except that some of the streams, especially for the Royal Caribbean cruises over Christmas have been removed and not available.  But there are others that pop up and there are plenty of reports of ships being denied at Caribbean ports in the Bahamas, the ABC islands, and some other ports where approval  differs from ship to ship. 

 

As an example one person posted that they in Quarantine on Majestyk.  During disembarkation they counted at least 20 rooms with red dots in the quarantine area, and that they were the last of several groups being disembarked from the quarantine area.

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by nocl

[caribill]

14 hours ago, coloradocruiselover88 said:

The ship was in CDC yellow status when we boarded so we knew going in.

 

With current crew and passenger loads, all it takes is one crew member or one or two passengers having Covid to put a ship into yellow status.

 

 

14 hours ago, coloradocruiselover88 said:

we felt like they were not transparent about why Jamaica was cancelled.

 

 

I agree that the reason for cancelling a port should be communicated to the passengers.

[caribill]

3 hours ago, Daniel A said:

 

Again, how does knowing the numbers affect your conduct on a cruise ship? 

 

 

It would not affect my behavior if I were on a ship, but if I was booked for a cruise in the near future knowing how well all the pre-testing and onboard procedures are working could determine if I wanted to actually do the cruise.

 

 

3 hours ago, Daniel A said:

Why is it any different from the Government not telling you how many car crashes occur on your local roads which involve fatalities or serious physical injury?

 

Actually, that info is available in our area. Newspapers often publish which are the most dangerous stretches of roads.

[Coral]

7 hours ago, 2 cruises a year said:

 

It takes 1/10th of 1% to go yellow according to the CDC.  That is one person in onethousand.

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/management/technical-instructions-for-cruise-ships.html#green-ship

So what is the high end of yellow? It could mean more also.

[chamima]

8 hours ago, nocl said:

Yes, but many ships are reporting higher than that.   People are reporting that they are in quarantine and that there were several other cabins occupied in the quarantine area.

 

We also know that some ports are turning ships away with over 1% on board and some ships are being turned away from some ports.  

 

Fortunately Princess and HAL seem to be doing better then some of the other lines.

 

They did take masking seriously on the Caribbean. My husband's ear strap broke and he was holding it onto his face on the way back to the cabin to get a new one and didn't make it very far when a crew member approached him with a new mask.  People were also pretty understanding when we requested to be alone in the elevators. And most passengers wore KN95s.

It sounds very different from what I'm reading about other lines.

 

 

7 hours ago, nocl said:

What I am doing is going through the reports on CC that people make from various ships, including those that are reporting from quarantine.

 

Put that together with the ships being denied entry at the Caribbean ports where criteria is ship by ship.

 

Some of them include things like, number of crew being transferred to quarantine ships, number of people being disembarked at the end of cruise together to go to quarantine, some reports of announcements on ship.  

 

That is why I am pretty comfortable that we are running above the .1 on a number of ships and several having to be above 1%, But nothing that would imply much more than that, at least nothing that seems to be above 3 to 4%.  Most of the numbers are also in crew not passengers. 

 

Easy enough for anyone to do.  Except that some of the streams, especially for the Royal Caribbean cruises over Christmas have been removed and not available.  But there are others that pop up and there are plenty of reports of ships being denied at Caribbean ports in the Bahamas, the ABC islands, and some other ports where approval  differs from ship to ship. 

 

As an example one person posted that they in Quarantine on Majestic.  During disembarkation they counted at least 20 rooms with red dots in the quarantine area, and that they were the last of several groups being disembarked from the quarantine area.

 

 

I noticed that (highlighted in red) also.

[GonzoWCS]

Interesting discussion here

 

Thanks

[nocl]

5 hours ago, Coral said:

So what is the high end of yellow? It could mean more also.

As far as I can tell there is no set limit. It is  as high as it goes until the CDC decides that there is a problem requiring a halt for a particular ship and red status occurs

[nocl]

12 hours ago, Daniel A said:

I'm curious to know where you are finding your numbers.  All I can find is the CDC'c color chart which really doesn't give a good indication of the numbers anyway.  Even their highest level doesn't give any numbers to their threshold, but I don't see any ships in the red.

 

Yellow can mean one positive crew member or that two people tested positive even after they have returned home from their cruise.  With such minimums, there is no wonder all ships are yellow.

I just filed an FOIA request with the CDC for cases by ship by week.  Have a request number, an analyst assigned, and that they expect that I should have the documents by Feb 23.  That will give us a much more comprehensive view.

[caribill]

13 hours ago, nocl said:

Yes, but many ships are reporting higher than that.   People are reporting that they are in quarantine and that there were several other cabins occupied in the quarantine area.

 

 

New crew members to the ship also have to stay in that quarantine area for a number of days, so other cabins being occupied may or may not be for the new crew members, not for actual Covid cases.

[nocl]

8 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

New crew members to the ship also have to stay in that quarantine area for a number of days, so other cabins being occupied may or may not be for the new crew members, not for actual Covid cases.

Maybe except as another person reported there are different color tags, that those that are positive get a red tag.  Those in quarantine joining the ship but not positive do not

[USCcruisecrazy]

With the Omicron variant running rampant, I don't see how anyone could expect to cruise and not have positive cases pop up.  And once on the ship, the numbers really shouldn't make a difference because there's nothing you can do about after the fact.  I agree that if a port is changed/cancelled then the passengers need to know why...i.e. the port/country decided the rate of infection was too high for their comfort.

 

On another note, for those paying attention, cases in SC have gone up 20 fold (from 400-500 to 10000 to 12000) a day.  However the death rate has plummeted.  Last reported day was nearly 12000 new cases and 3 reported deaths.  My wife, daughter, son-in-law, wife's best friend, and mother in law all tested positive with no symptoms.  they took the test because someone worried about the virus was coming for the holidays.  They tested to make her feel better, but it backfired because they were all positive...again with no symptoms.  I assume I and the others present caught it from them at some point but not a single person had symptoms.  Point is...this variant has a lower death rate than the Influenza A so hopefully we start treating it like every other annual virus (flu or cold) and get on with life!! 

[caribill]

6 minutes ago, Coral said:

While they had no symptoms - it doesn't mean that they can't spread it to someone else who may have more severe symptoms with it.

 

But it does mean if they were testing to be able to go on a cruise, a positive test would mean no cruise for them or people they might have exposed.

[USCcruisecrazy]

5 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

But it does mean if they were testing to be able to go on a cruise, a positive test would mean no cruise for them or people they might have exposed.

The problem is my Daughter and SIL both tested negative...then tested again 3 days later and tested positive.  Never showed symptoms but tested upon request of visitors coming.  So, people could test negative, board the ship and be positive a few days later.  And if they had no symptoms then who would know until they potentially spread it across the ship.    

[Coral]

11 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

But it does mean if they were testing to be able to go on a cruise, a positive test would mean no cruise for them or people they might have exposed.

Correct. I just meant to say that it may not be mild for everyone.

[Coral]

5 hours ago, caribill said:

 

But it does mean if they were testing to be able to go on a cruise, a positive test would mean no cruise for them or people they might have exposed.

The other thing is that omicron doesn't show up on some home tests.