Late last week, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) raised its COVID-19 travel health notice level for cruise ships to its highest warning level and said people should avoid traveling on cruise ships regardless of their vaccination status, as daily COVID-19 cases in the country climb to record highs due to the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
The health agency has or is investigating COVID-19 cases on more than 90 ships. It starts an investigation if 0.10% or more passengers on guest voyages test positive for COVID-19.
CLIA, the Cruise Lines International Association, responded:
The decision by the CDC to raise the travel level for cruise is particularly perplexing considering that cases identified on cruise ships consistently make up a very slim minority of the total population onboard—far fewer than on land—and the majority of those cases are asymptomatic or mild in nature, posing little to no burden on medical resources onboard or onshore. No setting can be immune from this virus—however, it is also the case that cruise provides one of the highest levels of demonstrated mitigation against the virus. Cruise ships offer a highly controlled environment with science-backed measures, known testing and vaccination levels far above other venues or modes of transportation and travel, and significantly lower incidence rates than land.
The CLIA went on to note that COVID-19 infection rates on cruise ships are 33 percent lower than occurring currently onshore and that vaccination rates onboard cruise ships typically are upwards of 95 percent—significantly higher than the overall U.S. population which is hovering at 62 percent.
This is a purely U. S. political decision not based on medical science. If these vessels were under the U.S. flag the U. S. Maritime Unions would no doubt prevent such a decision.
Actually there’s extensive research in the medical science department regarding cruise ships.
CDC’s role is to distill this information into practical application. Here the distillation leads to “this is not controllable by practical means and best avoided.”
Here are some peer-reviewed scientific publications on the topic.
Initial investigation of transmission of COVID-19 among crew members during quarantine of a cruise ship—Yokohama, Japan, February 2020
COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship: estimating the epidemic potential and effectiveness of public health countermeasures
Mechanistic transmission modeling of COVID-19 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship demonstrates the importance of aerosol transmission
Containing COVID-19 among 627,386 persons in contact with the Diamond Princess cruise ship passengers who disembarked in Taiwan: big data analytics
(It’s the “675,000 persons in contact” that CDC is taking into consideration, in part. The cruise isn’t over at disembarkation.)
High population densities catalyse the spread of COVID-19
Etc. Simply use Google Scholar to learn more than you can here.There are thousands of articles on this topic published by medical researchers. CDC isn’t going to ignore this information. Much of what we needed to learn about this came from Diamond Princess, nearly two years ago. It’s not new information, or a mystery. Cramming people together shipboard in the presence of a highly transmissible virus with a fairly high proportion of serious outcomes is a foolish choice.
I’ll add that the above facts regarding Covid and cruising don’t address the problem of the results of having to deprive crew of work. That’s a different problem, a problem that is substantially political in nature.
Pretending that the first problem doesn’t exist is a way to avoid confronting the second problem. This denial is a natural recourse when politicians fail us, and quite understandable. It’s also exactly what politicians seeking to avoid problem solving would like us to do, a mistake on our part preferred by politicians.
The reality is we need to avoid an inept and incredible CDC.
Waiting for specific information (with literature cites) demonstrating how CDC advice is in error.
Specifically, not just adjectives alone.
And… crickets. The usual. Emotionally spray some adjectives. All emotions, no thinking.
We don’t have to be ruled by fear. Failing to engage with facts because we’re scared of their implications and would rather not deal with reality is to be ruled by fear.