jfunk138

If they deny boarding to someone because they refused to "volunteer" vaccine information and are past whatever this 95% number happens to be, that seems to be de facto denial of service that the Florida and Texas laws appear to forbid.  

1 minute ago, d9704011 said:

Pretty sure the land border is closed to all but essential travel.  With ideas like this, land borders ought to remain closed indefinitely. 

Your suspicion is incorrect.  If you are a US Citizen presenting at the US land border, you are admitted without a test and it doesn't matter how you happened to end up in Mexico.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/03/28/mexico-covid-travel-stuck-covid-test-positive-cdc-international-flights/6982341002/

"The family ended up flying to Tijuana, Mexico, walking across the border to San Diego and flying back to Kentucky from there"

1 hour ago, elcuchio24 said:

 

I mean its certainly not a one way ticket, worst case if you did test positive after the free quarantine, you can still go back to the US....thats the current rule. 

Also, at the land border (Tijuana, El Paso, etc), there is no testing required to re-enter the US.  It's a great workaround if you test positive and need to get home quickly.  Fly to Tijuana, cross the land border bridge on foot, continue onward to anywhere in the US from San Diego.

I think folks are confusing "federal law" with "CDC guidelines".

The CDC has said repeatedly that it is not mandating vaccination, so any decision by the cruiselines to require vaccination (because it's 'easier') without a "federal law" requiring it would appear to present a violation of the Texas law.

1 hour ago, ChutChut said:

Correct - and the SCOTUS case deals exclusively with a STATE's authority to mandate vaccination - not the feds.

The other thing that is interesting about the comparison to the 1905 Smallpox case was that for a one-time $5 fee you could buy your way out of the requirement.  In today's dollars that's $150.  Effectively a one-time speeding ticket.

Yes, I would pay $150 to make all the mandatory vax people go away.

1 minute ago, shellster1 said:

Apologizes if I missed a post answering this question, but, here goes:

I thought the TX governor put forth a law banning companies from requiring vaccines. How did CCL get around this? Is it a bit less restrictive than Florida's law? I ask because I'm now thinking about booking in July, but don't want it to be canceled because they cannot get around the law. Thanks in advance!!

Abbott only signed the bill today.  It's not entirely clear CCL has a workaround.  

I suspect some of the language in their announcement today is part of a plan with Abbott given the timing.  They made it very clear they preferred not to require vaccination.

1 minute ago, Branman said:

They require a negative test within a certain timeframe. So for instance, Honduras requires a negative test less than 72 hours before your entry. If you are on a cruise out of Galveston on a reverse itinerary (Coz->Belize->Roatan), that will need to be a test conducted onboard. If someone tests positive on the ship at that point, then I'm pretty sure the whole cruise gets derailed and is unable to dock in Roatan. 

OK, but this is not what you stated in your post:

"requiring proof of vaccination before being allowed into a foreign country"

None of these Carnival destinations have required vaccination, and some are still requiring testing even if vaccinated.

1 minute ago, Branman said:

I'm sure Carnival would love to cruise with unvaccinated guests. I'm sure the vast majority of vaccinated guests wouldn't care if unvaccinated guests joined them IF the protocols for sailing didn't necessitate doing anything drastic if anyone tests positive for Covid.

 

It basically comes down to, I (as someone who is vaccinated) don't want to spend money on a cruise that:

• Requires masks and/or social distancing for vaccinated passengers.
• Is denied entry to ports in the event that someone tests positive for Covid.
• Requires a quarantine period for whatever reason.
• Any other randomness that causes a cruise to go south for entirely predictable reasons.

Fundamentally, this all comes down to sovereign counties using their rights to deny entry to anyone who is positive or exposed to Covid. If we ever get to a point where someone comes down with Covid, and we can still dock in a port, then let's bring on the unvaccinated people. We can talk all day about how unvaccinated kids aren't at risk, but that probably has zero influence on a port's decision to let a ship that has a confirmed case of Covid on board to dock and unload guests.

 

There is a HUGE difference between requiring proof of vaccination for exercising your rights in your home country vs requiring proof of vaccination before being allowed into a foreign country. 

Yet, none of Carnival's Caribbean destinations or Mexico has required any proof of vaccination.

10 minutes ago, TNcruising02 said:

The plot seems eternally thick.  This is a bigger roller coaster ride than Bolt.  Just when you think something has been decided, there's another dip and twist.

Something interesting is going on here... Carnival was very clear to place the blame for the vax requirement on the CDC in their announcement.  This is not a business decision like:  "shoes and shirt required".  The business would prefer not to require vax (they stated as such), but an oppressive government entity is effectively coercing it.  This will make the legal challenge in Texas interesting, since the business doesn't even want to make the requirement.

Has the plot thickened once again?

2 minutes ago, Lee Cruiser said:

He probably has a good idea as to why the formulated the report the way they did. Maybe now that the vaccine is available to younger people, they are trying to coerce parents into vaccinating their children, even if it is by using misleading data?

Oh yes, he mentions in the later tweet.

No better way to convince the hesitant than with misleading data, right?  Best way to gain someone's trust is to lie to them, no?

1 hour ago, kdr69 said:

The virus has no other place to spread to!  Its a foregone conclusion that cases would increase in the last large subset of unvaccinated individuals. It shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone.

It comes as a surprise to Harvard School of Public Health Professor Joseph Allen, who actually studied the data and reached the opposite conclusion. 
 

1 minute ago, nyc12345 said:

 

Just pointing out the facts.  10% is 10%. 

 

You can make whatever arguments you want, not trying to argue with anyone, but you can't say 10% is the whole country.  If the other 90% of the country shows a different breakdown of how many people in each age group is hospitalized, that will change the narrative.

I think the point of EIP is to get a cross-section of the country to track epidemic trends, they didn't just cherry pick the participants.  You don't need to survey everyone when you choose a good sample, which I think is their intent.

There's a mix of "perma-lockdown" and "neanderthal" states in there across varying geographies and seasonality zones.

And obviously it's better than anecdotal evidence from a single hospital in Texas.

2 minutes ago, MrMarc said:

No, but I can't explain it to you anymore than I already have. I have a feeling you and I won't agree on what reality is.

MrMarc's reality:  Anecdotal evidence from a single hospital in Texas reflects reality because its an urban area and a single urban area can be extrapolated to a cruiseship.

jfunk138's reality: Harvard School of Public Health Professor John Allen says that in reality teen hospitalizations are decreasing in all states sharing data in the Emerging Infections Program.

14 minutes ago, nyc12345 said:

 

Please note this graph is only showing 10% of population:

 

"The current network covers nearly 100 counties in the 10 Emerging Infections Program (EIP) states (CA, CO, CT, GA, MD, MN, NM, NY, OR, and TN) and four additional states through the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Project (IA, MI, OH, and UT). The network represents approximately 10% of US population (~32 million people)."

So are you arguing a single hospital in Texas is more representative of reality?  If not, I'm not really sure what your point is?

3 minutes ago, MrMarc said:

I understand that trick, and that is not what I am trying to say at all.  And I am not trying to be a fear monger.  Which do you think is more similar to a cruise ship, the entire country or an urban area?  Do you think I am underestimating the affect of such a scenario occurring on even 1 cruise ship?  That is my point since this thread is about cruising.  I am not arguing that the statistics that you are quoting are less accurate at all, just that the urban area is a better match to what we are talking about.  Yes, the odds are very low, but I think we may be betting the future of cruises out of the US for the near future.

Since cruiseship's attract people from all over the country, and not a single metro (like an urban hospital), I would think the country wide statistics would be relevant.

I have no doubt that the media will try to fear monger about cruiseships, just like they are fear mongering with this anecdotal evidence about child hospitalizations.  But when you've got public health experts publicly fact checking this media fear mongering, it's clear the tide is turning against this fear mongering.

1 minute ago, MrMarc said:

Again, that is a national trend.  Our local trend is going the other way.  Can you imagine what would happen to cruising if a child caught COVID, or, God forbid, die?  I  am trying to point out how an urban trend might be more relevant to a cruise ship than a national trend.  I'm not arguing with anyone about the numbers as it relates to a national trend.

Can you imagine if a hospital had one child in the hospital one day, then the next day they admitted one additional child Covid patient?  At this point, their numbers would have DOUBLED.  Makes for great fear mongering when looked at with anecdotes like this.

Public health experts, like those at Harvard, look for larger samples to get meaningful statistics.

4 minutes ago, MrMarc said:

Yeah, Texas Children's Hospital has no idea what is happening in their hospital.  I'm sure the would admit and put totally healthy kids on ventilators just to get some federal money.  So it is totally reasonable to ignore what they are saying and look at national numbers that include the entire country, not just a normal urban area.

Clearly your anecdote from Texas Children's Hospital has more merit than a Harvard Public Health professor whose career is based on analyzing data like this.

2 hours ago, MrMarc said:

Again, for those who believe the hospitals and doctors are lying, this won't matter.  But here is what is happening in the real world: https://abc13.com/kids-in-hospital-covid-19-vaccination-among-where-can-vaccinated/10745055/  The vaccines are not perfect, the more unvaccinated people the more chances of variants that will go around the vaccine, and if someone gets sick on a ship it may effect the entire cruise.  There are a lot of inconvenient facts that support 100% vaccinated cruises for now, but I know that they won't matter to a lot of people.  I have, and am continuing to try and understand people who disagree with me, but it's getting really difficult.

Teen hospitalizations are NOT increasing.   Here's an explanation from Joseph Allen of Harvard School of Public Health:

Remember 1 long month ago when various posters were still demanding mandatory mask wearing on even on vaccinated cruises?  Wonder what happened to those folks?  Give this another month and I'm wondering if the folks demanding mandatory vax disappear the same way into the Internet ether...

7 minutes ago, ouse456 said:

Are all the foreign countries that are destinations for a cruise willing to let unvaccinated passengers sail into their harbors? I have heard that India requires passports for all cruise passengers whether they stay on the ship or not. If this is accurate, couldn't it be expected that some countries would require a vaccination passport or other proof of vaccination for all cruise ship pasengers and staff entering their harbors?

I don't think any Caribbean islands, Mexico, or Bermuda has required vaccination yet.  That pretty much covers all the roundtrips that depart from the US.

3 minutes ago, txgranny said:

Actually on united airlines I already uploaded my vaccine card as well and fill in the date, where and what shot was given

Were you required to do so in order to conduct business with any entity in the US?  

My understanding is the United website is simply a convenience thing so that you have it available to present to a foreign border control that requires it?

4 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

I'm sure they will be satisfactory for most cruisers. If they run vaccinated cruises, it should be mask free with very little restrictions. This is what everyone wanted and I personally think vaccinated cruises are WAY better than non vaccinated with a bunch of restrictions and masks. Vaccination requirements over masks/restrictions all day, any day. It will be interesting to see what the final rules will be but I suspect the CDC will reward lines for choosing the vaccination route and allow cruising to resume close to "normal". The carrot works much better than the stick. 

I think the cruiselines underestimate how much of a political flashpoint they are getting into when the effectively become the first domestic testcase for vaccine passports in the US (if they homeport in the US).  Sure they are placating the CDC for now, but there could be long term reputation damage here.  I can go to Universal Studios (and soon Disney) in Florida with 50,000 other people, no mask, no vaccine but not cruise?  That's not going to hold up well.

I still have some optimism that vaccine "proof" is going to be "check the box", "wink wink, nod nod", which is basically what every other business in US has done so far.  But again... the Duffy comments were less than specific on actual policy.

23 minutes ago, JMKreno said:

ALLof them that became infected were pretty much asymptomatic the ENTIRE TIME.

I think you are forgetting that the asymptomatic rate was similar BEFORE the vaccination.   Young athletes in good health are simply unlikely to develop "symptomatic" Covid even when infected regardless of vaccination.  The same probably holds for other young people in good health.

Check out this article from last summer without the vaccine, most of the players testing positive were asymptomatic (70%) as well. 

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-coronavirus-antibody-study-results-less-than-one-percent-of-participants-test-positive/

"70 percent of those who tested positive were asymptomatic -- i.e., they presented no symptoms of having COVID-19"

4 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

 I wouldn't believe hearsay. I've seen zero about mandatory passports. It's FUD at this point.  

In a way, this whole thread is "hearsay"... Christine Duffy didn't make any specific policy announcements.