Will Viking ever end daily Covid testing?

[basenji56]

I see that Viking is loosening up on mask requirements.

 

Does anyone think Viking will ever end the daily shipboard Covid testing? (I’m not talking about the testing needed to board the ship.)

 

[CILCIANRQTS]

Nope.

I think they’ll keep it forever, and that makes me spitting mad! !

[CCWineLover]

41 minutes ago, basenji56 said:

I see that Viking is loosening up on mask requirements.

 

Does anyone think Viking will ever end the daily shipboard Covid testing? (I’m not talking about the testing needed to board the ship.)

 

No I don't think they will end it - at least not until 2023 or 24 (IMHO).

They put a lot of investment into all those testing machines and procedures.  They also now have a niche market they can target to those who would prefer the comfort of knowing that everyone is being tested all the time.

Eliminating quarantine while waiting for test results while first boarding the ship - to me is a big thing.  They didn't do this in 2021 and only implemented it for Omicron - so I for one am glad to see that go.

Masking, on the other hand, is quite a controversial (and probably political) topic - so it is not worthwhile to debate that here.  People will just do what they want to do.

[Jim Avery]

They had better.

[basenji56]

Sometimes I think about the best and worst jobs on a cruise ship. Being the person who has analyze the spit of 1000 passengers every day has to be in the running for worst cruise ship job. 
 

[Mich3554]

28 minutes ago, basenji56 said:

Sometimes I think about the best and worst jobs on a cruise ship. Being the person who has analyze the spit of 1000 passengers every day has to be in the running for worst cruise ship job. 
 

I dunno……I spent 30+ years doing research in oral biology where I dealt with lots and lots of saliva from humans to monkeys to rats.  If I could walk out of the lab into the Jupiter at the end of the work day, I’d be a happy camper.  If I was still working……

[Vineyard View]

That might be one of the biggest reasons we will sail again - based on the cruise line Covid protocol - and we are totally on board with what Viking has been doing and hopefully will do in the future ensuring passengers safety. 

[TayanaLorna]

11 hours ago, Mich3554 said:

I dunno……I spent 30+ years doing research in oral biology where I dealt with lots and lots of saliva from humans to monkeys to rats.  If I could walk out of the lab into the Jupiter at the end of the work day, I’d be a happy camper.  If I was still working……

And the lab even has a big window to the outside for light and scenery.

[PasadenaDave]

I am a retired Risk Manager and now self-employed Risk Management Consultant.

 

If I was Risk Manager for Viking, I would have stressed the testing system as a reason to reduce insurance premiums due to a reduced Covid exposure.  If that occurred then the requirement would remain in place for the duration of the insurance policy or other date negotiated between Viking and their layers of insurance.

[Heidi13]

16 hours ago, basenji56 said:

Sometimes I think about the best and worst jobs on a cruise ship. Being the person who has analyze the spit of 1000 passengers every day has to be in the running for worst cruise ship job. 
 

 

When it comes to all the jobs on a cruise ship, operating a modern laboratory isn't even close. How about the officers and ratings that have to inspect bunker and black water tanks.

 

Yes, I have crawled through many tanks and it isn't fun.

 

Another one is diving down the Engine Room bilges looking for tools and tracing pipes, a common job given to new cadets, back in my days.

[njhorseman]

Not being an epidemiologist or infectious disease expert in real life, or for that matter an MD of any sort, I hate to play one on the Internet, but this topic just cries out .

 

Can anyone find a current recommendation from a recognized expert in epidemiology that calls for daily PCR testing of a fully vaccinated asymptomatic cohort of the population ? 

 

It seems to me that as of now this protocol is nothing more than theater perhaps coupled with a thinly veiled attempt to market cruising to those most reluctant to cruise due to fear of catching a COVID 19 infection.

[zalusky]

I have not cruised in 3 years and this summer will be my first on Viking.

As a result I have not experienced the whole process.

 

I need to ask is this really a big deal?  Are they waking you when you want to be sleeping or something.  are you not allowed to exit the morning stateroom untile you give them your vials?  Spitting in a tube once a day doesn't seem like much of a bother to me vs a lot of the other restrictions I have seen.

[CurlerRob]

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

 

When it comes to all the jobs on a cruise ship, operating a modern laboratory isn't even close. How about the officers and ratings that have to inspect bunker and black water tanks.

 

Yes, I have crawled through many tanks and it isn't fun.

 

Another one is diving down the Engine Room bilges looking for tools and tracing pipes, a common job given to new cadets, back in my days.

I was waiting for you to weigh in Andy! The very worst job that instantly came to my mind was maintenance on the shipboard sewage system 👿 

 

Nice to know a small boat sailor's instinct was good!  🍺🥌

[Heidi13]

18 minutes ago, CurlerRob said:

I was waiting for you to weigh in Andy! The very worst job that instantly came to my mind was maintenance on the shipboard sewage system 👿 

 

Nice to know a small boat sailor's instinct was good!  🍺🥌

 

Fortunately, being on the Deck side of the operation, I was never subjected to that one. At least when we went tank diving they were somewhat cleaned. However, many engineers will definitely agree with making repairs to the system.😁

[CCWineLover]

46 minutes ago, zalusky said:

I have not cruised in 3 years and this summer will be my first on Viking.

As a result I have not experienced the whole process.

 

I need to ask is this really a big deal?  Are they waking you when you want to be sleeping or something.  are you not allowed to exit the morning stateroom untile you give them your vials?  Spitting in a tube once a day doesn't seem like much of a bother to me vs a lot of the other restrictions I have seen.

I think you missed the point.

The taking of the tests is not the issue.  They are quite easy and non intrusive to take.  Not a big deal at all.  In fact, they now have it down to a science.  Spit in the tube in the morning, put it outside the door, and go about your business.

 

The issue (for me at least) is that there likely will be a higher chance of testing positive in those daily tests, without any symptoms, for anyone on the ship, even if being careful - especially with people not wearing masks now.  THAT, is the issue.  And being kicked off the ship at worse, quarantined on deck 3 forward, the best, and vacation over - with no symptoms.  And apparently no 2nd chance at potentially having had a false positive.

 

But as I said, those are the rules and people can choose what they wish to do.

[chengkp75]

37 minutes ago, CurlerRob said:

The very worst job that instantly came to my mind was maintenance on the shipboard sewage system

 

15 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

However, many engineers will definitely agree with making repairs to the system

On NCL, the "Environmental Engineer" was affectionately known as the "Turd Third".   You certainly get a unique perspective on the passengers when you clean the filters and traps in the system.  Underwear, swimwear, hand towels, dinner napkins, face cloths, crack pipes, coke spoons, and even 6 rounds of 9mm ammunition.

 

The Medical Center does what I consider an even worse task than testing saliva from passengers, and that is testing the urine samples from the crew's random drug testing.

[downsmead]

40 minutes ago, zalusky said:

I have not cruised in 3 years and this summer will be my first on Viking.

As a result I have not experienced the whole process.

 

I need to ask is this really a big deal?  Are they waking you when you want to be sleeping or something.  are you not allowed to exit the morning stateroom untile you give them your vials?  Spitting in a tube once a day doesn't seem like much of a bother to me vs a lot of the other restrictions I have seen.

It’s not the testing, but the consequences of the testing. Daily testing made sense when masking was required. With most countries that Viking is now visiting doing away with masking, and in some countries, quarantine is not even required for positive cases, it seems almost that Viking is using this as a USP for their cruises. 
We cruised when there was testing and masking and have no problem with that approach, since if someone did become covid positive, there was little chance of passing it on. With the protocols now, there is far greater potential to pass it on (breakfast, excursions, lunch) before you get notified. On a river cruise, it can be even more as it can take a day or two before the results come back as the samples are sent to a lab on land to be tested.

[Mich3554]

1 hour ago, njhorseman said:

Not being an epidemiologist or infectious disease expert in real life, or for that matter an MD of any sort, I hate to play one on the Internet, but this topic just cries out .

 

Can anyone find a current recommendation from a recognized expert in epidemiology that calls for daily PCR testing of a fully vaccinated asymptomatic cohort of the population ? 

 

It seems to me that as of now this protocol is nothing more than theater perhaps coupled with a thinly veiled attempt to market cruising to those most reluctant to cruise due to fear of catching a COVID 19 infection.

I’m not an epidemiologist, but timed out of writing my doctoral thesis in epidemiology when I got sick.  I also spent 30+ years in looking at infectious oral disease immunity.

If I had to hazard a guess, daily testing stops spread in its tracks and while 100% are vaccinated, the population demographic of Viking is such that they  are not going to respond immunologically to the vaccine as readily as the demographic of 30-50 year olds.  
While you are less likely to get sick, be hospitalized or die if you are vaccinated, those who do tend to be those who are those higher in age.  If you have a ship running with an average ago of 65, it means that anyone who is positive is going to expose a much larger population of elderly who are much more likely to get sicker, faster.  
The elderly being incapable of mounting an immune response is a big problem for infectious disease….not just Covid .  Right now, there is a flu vaccine reformulated that is directed to elderly.  The shingles vaccine was recently reformulated for this same purpose.   The mRNA vaccine has some additional issues that make it such that both of the solutions used for flu and shingles isn’t easily translatable to this particular vaccine.  There just hasn’t been the time to address this problem in the research community at this point.  
JMHO

 

[CCWineLover]

44 minutes ago, downsmead said:

It’s not the testing, but the consequences of the testing. Daily testing made sense when masking was required. With most countries that Viking is now visiting doing away with masking, and in some countries, quarantine is not even required for positive cases, it seems almost that Viking is using this as a USP for their cruises. 
We cruised when there was testing and masking and have no problem with that approach, since if someone did become covid positive, there was little chance of passing it on. With the protocols now, there is far greater potential to pass it on (breakfast, excursions, lunch) before you get notified. On a river cruise, it can be even more as it can take a day or two before the results come back as the samples are sent to a lab on land to be tested.

Well said, and stated much better than I did.

"Consequences" is the issue with this "dual approach"  (No masking in countries + No masking onboard + Daily Viking Testing = Increased probability of quarantine/removal from ship for asymptomatic positive tests).

[Mich3554]

52 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

I think you missed the point.

The taking of the tests is not the issue.  They are quite easy and non intrusive to take.  Not a big deal at all.  In fact, they now have it down to a science.  Spit in the tube in the morning, put it outside the door, and go about your business.

 

The issue (for me at least) is that there likely will be a higher chance of testing positive in those daily tests, without any symptoms, for anyone on the ship, even if being careful - especially with people not wearing masks now.  THAT, is the issue.  And being kicked off the ship at worse, quarantined on deck 3 forward, the best, and vacation over - with no symptoms.  And apparently no 2nd chance at potentially having had a false positive.

 

But as I said, those are the rules and people can choose what they wish to do.

The likelihood of a false positive is very low with PCR.  It is entirely likely that anyone who tests positive and is totally asymptomatic is that this person picked up the virus, their immune system kicked into gear and killed the virus (which is what it’s supposed to do) and a positive test is the result of you shedding dead virus.  Dead virus still produces a positive test (so you really aren’t false positive) but it doesn’t infect someone else.

Unfortunately, the current testing does not differentiate between dead and live virus.  Methods for testing for live virus are a royal pain in the butt, not easily done and take several days because these methods look for the result of what a live virus does…..kill cells.  
Unfortunately, this sucks.  
BTW…..Viking does retest a positive result.  When they pull someone out who has tested positive, it’s not false. 

[njhorseman]

23 minutes ago, Mich3554 said:

The likelihood of a false positive is very low with PCR.  It is entirely likely that anyone who tests positive and is totally asymptomatic is that this person picked up the virus, their immune system kicked into gear and killed the virus (which is what it’s supposed to do) and a positive test is the result of you shedding dead virus.  Dead virus still produces a positive test (so you really aren’t false positive) but it doesn’t infect someone else.

Unfortunately, the current testing does not differentiate between dead and live virus.  Methods for testing for live virus are a royal pain in the butt, not easily done and take several days because these methods look for the result of what a live virus does…..kill cells.  
Unfortunately, this sucks.  
BTW…..Viking does retest a positive result.  When they pull someone out who has tested positive, it’s not false. 

I'm sorry, but your assertion that a positive test of someone who is shedding dead virus is not "false", while perhaps technically true, from the perspective of why we test  absolutely is "false". Testing is done for two purposes, to identify those who are infected in order to treat their illness and to prevent the virus from being spread by that infected individual to others. Someone testing positive because they are shedding dead virus neither has an infection that needs to be treated nor can they spread infection to others. That's a textbook definition of a false positive in the real world.

[Jim Avery]

And it possibly gets you in quarantine aboard, or worse, ashore in some port not of your choosing.  Constant testing of healthy people is, at best, wasteful, and at worst an expensive cruise ender.

[Mich3554]

10 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

I'm sorry, but your assertion that a positive test of someone who is shedding dead virus is not "false", while perhaps technically true, from the perspective of why we test  absolutely is "false". Testing is done for two purposes, to identify those who are infected in order to treat their illness and to prevent the virus from being spread by that infected individual to others. Someone testing positive because they are shedding dead virus neither has an infection that needs to be treated nor can they spread infection to others. That's a textbook definition of a false positive in the real world.

The problem is that none of the current testing available can differentiate between dead virus or live.  When you solve that problem, that will take care of this issue.  Because none of the current testing can differentiate between dead and live virus, it is assumed a positive test is for live virus because they know that asymptomatic people can still spread virus, and have known this for a long time.  

[njhorseman]

48 minutes ago, Mich3554 said:

I’m not an epidemiologist, but timed out of writing my doctoral thesis in epidemiology when I got sick.  I also spent 30+ years in looking at infectious oral disease immunity.

If I had to hazard a guess, daily testing stops spread in its tracks and while 100% are vaccinated, the population demographic of Viking is such that they  are not going to respond immunologically to the vaccine as readily as the demographic of 30-50 year olds.  
While you are less likely to get sick, be hospitalized or die if you are vaccinated, those who do tend to be those who are those higher in age.  If you have a ship running with an average ago of 65, it means that anyone who is positive is going to expose a much larger population of elderly who are much more likely to get sicker, faster.  
The elderly being incapable of mounting an immune response is a big problem for infectious disease….not just Covid .  Right now, there is a flu vaccine reformulated that is directed to elderly.  The shingles vaccine was recently reformulated for this same purpose.   The mRNA vaccine has some additional issues that make it such that both of the solutions used for flu and shingles isn’t easily translatable to this particular vaccine.  There just hasn’t been the time to address this problem in the research community at this point.  
JMHO

 

Well, as a mathematician who spent many years working as an actuary among other things, I'm not sure I buy in to all your observations. I'm not disputing that the elderly often do not mount as strong an immune system response as younger people, but there have been suggestions in the data that the recent omicron variant-driven spike was not so much an issue with older but vaccinated persons, but rather with the younger population who have a much lower percentage of vaccination than the older cohort. The numbers for those who were seriously affected by omicron...those who were hospitalized and fatalities, don't seem to appear to support the theory of the lesser immune system response of the elderly was the big problem. From what I see the data cited by Pfizer in its application for a fourth jab for those 65 or over really appear to be limited and shaky. At a minimum there needs to be a lot research and data analysis. I certainly don't have access to sufficient detailed data but my professional gut instincts are raising a caution flag .

 

I fully understand that for cruise ship passengers the issue is different than just hospitalizations and mortality but should a cruise line be so concerned with what may very well amount to not much more than a garden-variety URI in the vaccinated ? Before COVID URIs and other infections such as Noro as well as food-borne illness would spread like wildfire on cruise ships. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but there certainly was never a level of preventative measures taken even remotely close to what is done in an attempt to arrest the spread of COVID.

[njhorseman]

10 minutes ago, Mich3554 said:

The problem is that none of the current testing available can differentiate between dead virus or live.  When you solve that problem, that will take care of this issue.  Because none of the current testing can differentiate between dead and live virus, it is assumed a positive test is for live virus because they know that asymptomatic people can still spread virus, and have known this for a long time.  

AFAIK antigen testing eliminates the dead virus false positive problem  that NAAT poses.