30 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I do not know where you get your facts, but according to the TBFacts.org website only 22,200 adults died from TB in all of the Americas in 2019. That number includes North, Central and all of South America. That number is less than 10% of the total number of Covid deaths in just the United States. The 2019 TB deaths in the United States was 617 of the 22,200 in all of the Americas.. The highest TB mortality rates are in South East Asia and Africa. Travel to some of these highest TB areas requires vaccination for TB. Covid can not be compared to TB.

• A total of 1.4 million people died from TB in 2019 (including 208 000 people with HIV). Worldwide, TB is one of the top 10 causes of death and the leading cause from a single infectious agent (above HIV/AIDS).

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis

Up until this time there has never been a vaccine developed for any coronavirus such as SARs and the common cold. All vaccines have some risk but we really do not know what the long-term effects of the Covid vaccine will be, particularly a new type of vaccine that affects RNA. 

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund has paid out over 4 billion dollars since the 80's. 

https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/about/index.html

IMO, this is becoming a very slippery slope. Tuberculosis kills more people annually than Covid yet a TB test or X-ray is not a prerequisite to fly or cruise. Influenza mortality rate in children is much higher than Covid so, should annual flu shots be mandatory too? Will citizens have to "show their papers" to grocery shop, go to the gym, go on a bus, etc.? Positive Covid case numbers are also very misleading. If you take the time to actually look at the graphs of official data in various states (Google: Covid dashboard state of ....), you will often find that as the rate of positive cases has gone up, the mortality rate has actually gone down (is inversely proportional). Scientific data regarding viral shedding shows that PRC tests processed beyond 34 cycles will pick up minute specks of dead, inactive virus that do not cause active infection but will still be labeled a "positive case." Labs such as Quest are processing Covid tests at 40 cycles which is why so many people test positive but have no symptoms.

21 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Just curious, but why doesn't the link you provided have CNBC in it? Personally, I would never click on such an nondescriptive link as the one you provided.

It was archived. Here is another link to the article:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/23/covid-vaccine-cdc-should-warn-people-the-side-effects-from-shots-wont-be-walk-in-the-park-.html

I am concerned about the vaccine being rushed through and vaccine companies being exempt from liablity per laws passed in decades ago. Symptoms in trial participants sound worse than the mostly mild or no symptoms most people get when testing positive plus a 99.95% survival rate.  Article from CNBC:

"Public health officials and drugmakers need to warn people that coronavirus vaccine shots may have some rough side effects so they know what to expect and aren’t scared away from getting the second dose......Participants in Moderna and Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine trials told CNBC in September that they were experiencing high fever, body aches, bad headaches, daylong exhaustion and other symptoms after receiving the shots..... at times intense....."

https://archive.vn/VOygb

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5672/

Sounds like big brother may soon be tracking you on the cruise ship

While I am not sure if it is "official" policy yet, Celebrity's parent company RCI hired a panel of experts that put forth those guidelines that were submitted to the CDC. 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/health-and-safety

We cancelled our cruise due to manadatory masks and restrictions for getting off the ship and feel that having only ship sponsored excursions seems like a false sense of security. I would think the very same buses and vans will be used for other cruise lines' excursions and the drivers and tour guides will have had contact with other people in the community. Even if it is a ship sponsored excursion there will still be many contact surfaces on beach lounge chairs, bathroom facilities, restaurant chairs, etc. where germs could be lingering. Also, is the cruise line eliminating their revenue source from all the port shops? Will the crew still be allowed to get off and shop at Walmart, etc. in port to purchase their necessities? 

After looking at this we plan to cancel our cruise. I am mostly concerned about being quarantined if a waiter, room steward, trivia partner, etc. tested positive during the cruise but am also choosing not to sail due to the mask requirement. For me personally it would be a depressing vacation to see everyone constantly in masks and, also, to not be able to expore ports on our own. However, I am sure others won't mind the restrictions and will just be glad to cruise. 

6 hours ago, TeeRick said:

OceanCruise,

This has been a highly informative vaccine thread on a cruise board and it is a topic highly relevant to the restart of cruising and the future of cruising.  While I hope that effective COVID-19 therapeutics will be developed, and there are many such drugs in development, that is not the topic here.  If you have an opinion one way or another on hydroxychloroquine as many people do, please realize that it is not our topic here.  Plenty of other places to discuss this.  Thank you and be well.

This will be my last post here on this issue. My reason for posting this info on the vaccine thread is that a vaccine that may or may not be safe (using never before used gene therapy) is not necessary if there are effective, safe therapeutics. One of the reasons that there has been resistance to HCQ is that the vaccine companies cannot fast track a vaccine through emergency use authorization (EAU) if there is an alternative therapeutic. Be careful and consider who profits from a vaccine rather than low-cost therapeutics. 

On 9/7/2020 at 11:47 AM, markeb said:

 

Yes. I've already said that. Those were the studies that appeared to show cardiotoxicity. The dataset could not be verified, and the studies were withdrawn. The original results were more than a little surprising, and I'm much less surprised they couldn't be verified.

 

I'm not a physician. Pre-hospital intervention has not even been shown to be necessary. Ideally, you'd intervene with something with more antiviral activity than HCQ or doxy or azithromycin, but by the time you actually have a diagnosis, given the asymptomatic period, it's unclear how effective any antiviral would be; once you damage enough cells, it's about the inflammatory response.

 

The first 2-3 links on your web page went to 404 file not found when you tried to go to the primary source. One study is a very good safety study on HCQ in RA and I believe SLE. Not surprising results. No, it's shown mixed results at best that have been interpreted by those with an agenda as extremely promising. I actually tried to follow the studies out of curiosity and gave up when the references went nowhere, the, doi numbers went nowhere, and in at least one case, even the primary author went nowhere.

 

Case series with no control group are interesting at best. If they show promise, they tend to trigger actual controlled studies. The NIH multi-center study was randomized and placebo controlled. It found no benefit in hospitalized patients. That was in June. There are currently 250 clinical trials listed globally using HCQ. Many are actually placebo controlled. A few are looking at HCQ versus one or more broad-spectrum antivirals. Only a small handful have completed, and without looking at all 250 (probably less than 25 completed), I may have found one that has gone to publication, but its results are still under review.. A number have been suspended, terminated, or withdrawn for various reasons, including a drop of cases in the study area. Many of those studies with some actual scientific rigor are looking at the pre-hospital setting, but most of them won't finish for months, and won't go to publication for some time after that. 

If you click on the title links for each study from 2003 and beyond at c19study.com and click on "source" it takes you to the individual studies. I don't know why you say you can't access them. As I said, the studies show more effectiveness pre-hospital athough I just posted an Italian study that indicated reduced mortality for hospitalized patients using HCQ. RCTs and clinical trials take a lot of time so retrospective and observational studies can be useful in the meantime to help prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths. BTW, the NIH knew as far back as 2005 per this Journal of Virology article that  "Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus". https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-2-69 

There are also recent studies indicating benefits using certain steroids for hospitalized patients with later stage Covid.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-deaths-significantly-reduced-by-use-of-steroids-analysis-says-11599055201?st=hg1ahs36assb8qq&reflink=article_email_share

European Journal of Internal Medicine- August 25, 2020 This was a retrospective observational study:

https://www.ejinme.com/article/S0953-6205(20)30335-6/fulltext

Conclusion: "HCQ use was associated with a 30% lower risk of death in COVID-19 hospitalized patients.....our data do not discourage the use of HCQ in inpatients with COVID-19." 

On 9/2/2020 at 2:54 PM, markeb said:

 

 

 

So yes, I've read more articles than you can imagine on this. They're almost all from way back in the spring, and they've all had some design flaws.

 

 

If you are only looking at studies from the spring you are very misinformed on the issue. Clearly you haven't read the dozens of further studies that have come out over the summer regarding Covid therapeutics which are all are linked at: c19study.com and include a number of meta-analyses and some randomized controlled-trials. Are you aware that 2 of the major, early negative highly reported studies in the Lancet and NEJM were later retracted? What alternative treatment are you proposing as a pre-hospital intervention other than waiting for a vaccine that may or may not work and may or not be found to be safe as time goes by?  I would personally choose a medication that has been used safely for 60 years (and is sold over the counter in various countries), has shown promising results in many research studies, and for which many doctors actually treating patients (not beaurocrats) say is effective for early-stage treatment. 

20 hours ago, markeb said:

"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a conservative non-profit association founded in 1944. The group was reported to have about 5,000 members in 2014. The association has promoted a range of scientifically discredited hypotheses, including the belief that HIV does not cause AIDS, that being gay reduces life expectancy, that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, and that there is a causal relationship between vaccines and autism. It is opposed to the Affordable Care Act and other forms of universal health insurance."

 

From Wikipedia. They're too small and insignificant for even Snopes to bother with.

 

Just stop. The adverse effects study was withdrawn as the data sources could not be verified. 

Why would you believe wikipedia and snopes rather than looking at the actual scientific research studies? This article just came  out in the American Journal of Medicine and further proves my point: 

Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002934320306732

On 8/27/2020 at 3:02 PM, markeb said:

 

We all have. It's been discredited by every reputable reviewer who has looked at it, as have pretty much every other study looking at hydroxychloroquine. The only real effect of studying HCQ has been that those of us who use it to control RA and lupus (actually long standing indications with good data) now have to jump through hoops to actually get our med.

 You are totally incorrect. There are links to 70+ scientific studies at the website: c19study.com from journals such as International Journal of Microbiology, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Virology journal, etc. with many of these studies showing positive results for this medication for Covid in the pre-hospital phase. The studies not showing effectiveness (also linked on this website) were on patients already hospitalized and and 2 of those studies widely reported in the mainstream media were subsequently retracted. Also, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons have filed a federal lawsuit against the FDA regarding restrictions on this medication.

https://aapsonline.org/hcqsuit/ 

A recently published study in the Journal of Electrocardiology (also linked on c19study.com) showed no significant adverse cardiac effects from this medication in non-ICU patients. Again, look at the actual research.

The Covid vaccines have a different mechanism:

" Unlike traditional vaccines, which require the laborious production of actual viruses or viral proteins, gene-based vaccines are made from DNA or mRNA."......

"There are no approved mRNA or DNA vaccines, and neither has ever been tested in a large-scale clinical trial for an infectious disease. “The COVID crisis is a great opportunity for those technologies to be pushed.”

https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/coronavirus-help-mRNA-DNA-vaccines/98/i14

"To address the urgent need for a medical countermeasure to prevent the further dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 we have employed a synthetic DNA-based vaccine approach".

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16505-0

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

The vaccines under development are not being designed to alter our DNA.  The Dr Zelenko that you mention has been censored for spreading misinformation.  And according to this article he has left his practice, whereabouts unknown.  Please do not promote such individuals on this site.  

 

https://www.physiciansweekly.com/the-skeptical-scalpel-awards/

The doctor left his practice recently because he has cancer (he had surgery last month) which he openly discusses. He ihas done many media interviews (i.e. with Dr Drew Pinsky show and Rudy Guiliani) and has advised heads of state regarding Covid treatment. Why don't you look at the specifics of his study plus those of the other 70+ scientific studies by various researchers. 

I am a bit leery about a vaccine that is being rushed through that is also designed to alter our DNA. After all, there has been no vaccine for SARS, AIDS, or the common cold (which is a coronvirus) after all these years. Many doctors say there are effective treatments available now. For those of you that like to look at the actual scientific research, the website: c19study.com has the links to over 70 clinical research studies regarding use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid and many (although not all) of these scientific studies actually show effectiveness if given in the early phase of symptoms (pre-hospital). You can draw your own conclusions. Dr Vladimir Zelenko, an internist with a lot of successful experience treating Covid patients presents a pre-hospital Covid protocol for low risk and high risk patients https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TaRDwXMhQHSMsgrs9TFBclHjPHerXMuB87DUXmcAvwg/edit  

and this is his clinical research study https://thezelenkoprotocol.com/   His twitter feed is also interesting https://twitter.com/zev_dr

Years ago on Celebrity when everyone had to line up outside for the muster drill, we were in our assigned position standing by the lifeboats and the person behind my husband tapped him on the shoulder. My husband turned around and saw that this person was a colleague. This person also had the stateroom right next door to us! We only ended up seeing him once more during the entire cruise though.

If the rules were fully made clear before sailing I have no problem with this. However, I would not want to take a cruise with these draconian measures in place. Part of the fun of a cruise is exploring the ports on our own. I would also feel safer being with only my spouse walking around or using a private driver rather than being confined for hours with an entire group of people.

13 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

KN95 masks are also widely available.  The local hospitals require visitors to either wear an N95 (hard to get) or a KN95.  

Recent study from Clinical Research in Cardiology journal May 2020 regarding masks concluded: "Ventilation, cardiopulmonary exercise capacity and comfort are reduced by surgical masks and highly impaired by FFP2/N95 face masks in healthy individuals." 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-020-01704-y

Also, a CDC research study from May 2020 analyzed 14 randomized controlled trials (which are the gold standard in research) and concluded that nonpharmaceutical measures in the community such as masks “did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza” https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article  

We usually arrive by 11:00 and I don't think we ever had to wait more than 20 minutes to get on the ship. The suite embarkation experience is a nice perk. We were able to drop our bags off in the room immediately but not remain there until the general announcement is made that rooms are ready. After dropping the bags off we head to Luminae for a relaxing lunch.

We would not do a land vacation at any of the Caribbean islands we have visited on many, many cruises. I would perhaps consider a land vacation to Bermuda which we have cruised to several times. We have done both land and cruise vacations to Hawaii so that would be my #1 choice. Have not yet done an Italy/Adriatic Coast cruise but a land vacation and cruise there are definitely on my bucket list.

Surprised I was only on hold a minute or two. There were no equivalent itineraries for our 11 night September Equinox cruise and Celebrity would not lift and shift to any different 11 night itineraries at a different time frame. They were really pushing the 125% credit for another 11 night we wanted in January or February but that would cost us thousands more out of pocket as prices doubled and tripled from what we originally paid. Also, if we took the FCC and Celebrity then cancels the cruise booked with FCC, we would be unable to get a refund. We asked for a refund now and will wait to see if prices drop. We will also consider other cruise lines. 

This is an excellent (totally non- political) and easy to understand 28 minute video of two doctors (ER doc and cardiologist) discussing their experiences regarding Covid. They discuss specific flaws in the methodology of the major studies presently being used in determining Covid treatment. Worth watching and can possibly save lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaxKIivS79g