buckeyefrank

On 9/6/2020 at 1:58 PM, latserrof said:

Or not.  There's too many differences between (1) a patient in an operating room with several medical personnel pre-2015 (the study's date) and (2) a worldwide pandemic in 2020, to jump to that surmise.

 

BTW, that Journal study  was not a clinical study at all but an academic study of other literature (including even a study of studies) .

 

And even within its limited and disparate scope, the Journal study said "It is clear that more studies are required before any absolute conclusions can be drawn regarding the effectiveness or, indeed, ineffectiveness of surgical masks.

And "It is important not to construe an absence of evidence for effectiveness with evidence for the absence of effectiveness. While there is a lack of evidence supporting the effectiveness of facemasks, there is similarly a lack of evidence supporting their ineffectiveness."

 

Some study, huh?  But there's not much ammo there for the anti-mask types.

 

You just also confirmed there's not much ammo for the "maskers" either.

6 minutes ago, jetsfan58 said:

Definitely a case of apples to apples. Let me further explain. The sample size of any experiment doesn't matter as the results are still dictated by the final outcome. If I test 100 individuals (NBA) and 25 are shown positive then 25% of my sample group is positive. If I test 3000 individuals (Cruise passengers and crew) and 750 test positive then again 25% of my subjects are positive. Doesn't matter who came in contact with whom it matters that they are were confined in a non invasive "Bubble" environment thus favorably lessening the effect of any outside contamination. The outbreak could certainly occur during the second day of the cruise as it could have also happened on the second day of the current NBA environment (thankfully it has not).   

 

My point is that if you disallow passengers and crew from exiting the vessel, then you also increase the "containment" factor.   

My point is your are allowing the passengers to exit the vessel every 5 - 7 days and bring new ones on.  Totally different than the NBA bubble.  The last major cruise outbreak was caused by a passenger the cruise prior to the large breakout.

On 9/5/2020 at 12:47 PM, jetsfan58 said:

Maybe it's something psychological that I was not gifted with? I have tried to understand opposition to mask wearing for months. I just can't wrap my arms around the fact that it makes necessary and common sense to wear our protective masks and people still are saying "no". Maybe it's a recurring medical condition that the mask cause to reoccur? Maybe it's some form of onset "premature claustrophobia"? Maybe it's just that some can't submit to "justified authority"?   

 

I am not a member of Carnival's Board of Directors or their crew family; however, In am a member of "The Proud" US Citizenship that values everyone's safety.    

Has nothing to do with medical conditions or claustrophobia, etc.  It's very simple.  If the government (at all levels) would be transparent about the risk, number of infections, severity of infections and deaths and report accurate numbers I, for one, would be much more open to listen to their input.  By "their" I mean the government and their "trusted" advisors.  The number of cases has been reported to be overstated because of counting every positive test as an active case.  One person tests positive 8 straight days, reported as 8 active cases...  That's not right.  Not to mention the testing parameters are being shown to be too sensitive and that 50 - 90% of the positive cases aren't even infectious.  That came out last week.  The deaths are over-reported because doctors are being compensated for each covid death by the CDC.  My daughter had a patient on kidney dialysis who died of kidney failure, was ruled covid death.  Had no covid symptoms.  A biker in Florida was killed in a car accident ruled a covid death..   a suicide in Chicago was ruled a covid death.   There have been several studies showing the effectiveness of Hydroxychloriquine as a preventative and useful and safe drug early in treatment, not to mention Remdesvir (sp) and a few others.  Also when treated with steroids through a nebulizer, the impact is almost immediately felt positively.  Facebook, media, etc trying to shut down anyone with a dissenting opinion on anything that goes against the "grain".  There are also several studies I've seen where the effectiveness of masks is actually in question.  The CDC originally said to NOT wear masks because they did nothing to prevent the spread.   Until the powers that be, actually become transparent and tell the TRUTH, I will side with the constitution which tells me I am in the land of the free.

23 hours ago, jetsfan58 said:

How about not leaving the ship? The Bubble effect is working well so far for the NBA. Might not be a bad idea?

apples to oranges comparison that makes no sense.  The NBA (and NHL) bubbles are for several months.  After a period of quarantine they won't be able to contract the virus because they aren't coming in contact with anyone from the outside.  A cruise is only for 7 days and the virus can be incubating that entire period.  And then new people can come into a room that was infected from a prior cruise. 

On 8/24/2020 at 12:43 PM, xDisconnections said:

It’s funny how our residents in the United States complain so much about masks and only want the trend to disappear as quickly as possible (myself included). Many here even refuse to comply with local laws requiring one.

 

It’s quite the opposite in other cultures where they happily wear one and have been wearing them long before Covid.

And there are numerous other countries that did not wear masks, did not shut down and are doing just fine.  Not sure I understand your point.  The virus is not going to disappear anymore than the common flu.  I have no faith in a vaccine but there are certainly already multiple medicines to significantly reduce the effects of the virus, both at the early stages and advanced stages.  Nobody seems to be talking about that.

2 hours ago, GAMOM4 said:

I just talked to my PVP he said no cruise has been canceled

PVP or customer service would have no idea until the cruise is actually cancelled, which seems inevitable for this cruise.

On 8/17/2020 at 3:36 PM, Cruiseboy06 said:

Welcome to the Cruise Cancellation Club!!!!   I joined it 2 weeks ago and my Cruising future will be bright for late 2021 or sometime in 2022

4 time veteran here 🙂

11 minutes ago, GB Chicago said:

I did wait until Carnival canceled the October cruise.  Then my TA used the link to book the new cruise and I have the $600 FCC to prove that.

You cancelled the first cruise and were OK with the terms and conditions of cancellation at that time.  The fee isn't added to a future invoice, it's immediately removed from any monies you've already paid.  You agreed to the $100 penalty.  It kinda sucks since they ultimately cancelled the cruise,  I doubt they do anything for you.

3 minutes ago, Je Souhaite said:

That leaves 7 months before they go belly up, if the reports are correct that they are burning a billion a month.

 

I honestly don’t see cruising starting up again within 7 months.  All bookings should be being made using a third party insurance plan.  If they do go belly up, and you insure through the line, your money will be lost.  Pay close attention.

If you clicked on the link, Carnival says they're burning through about $650m per month resulting in 12 months liquidity.  As you say, pay close attention.   This also doesn't account for any future plans to liquidate ships or obtain additional financing.

2 minutes ago, xDisconnections said:

Yes and if I were you, I'd question the validity of that and follow up.

Yeah, I'm going to call Carnival, hold for an hour and question the validity of a cash credit I received.......   for what purpose???

47 minutes ago, xDisconnections said:

That’s definitely a new one. If I were Carnival, the OBC would be less expensive for them to provide rather than actual face value of the money. It also lets them float by a bit longer.

 

That doesn’t make sense — if I were to guess, a mistake was made somewhere and it was the first thing a phone agent was able to come up with as an excuse.

 

Certainly interesting if it is, indeed, something new.

I'm just relaying what was told to me.  On the surface, I agree it doesn't make sense.  There was a previous forum post that mentioned that some Canadians were using OBC to make profits due to the exchange rate.  Maybe the OBC limit is new to discourage that issue.

58 minutes ago, xDisconnections said:

 

I’d question the validity on that statement. On the Carnival Magic Transatlantic, one of my later cruises on Carnival, each stateroom of mine had $1100 onboard credit for a grand total of $2200obc. This was calculated based on shareholder benefit, the old future cruise certificate/onboard sales promotion, early saver price matching and a couple other OBC opportunities.

 

On Princess, most of my cruises have over $1000 onboard credit if longer than 9 days due to very flexible promotions and generous offers.

I'm just relaying what the Carnival rep told me.  I had an unasked for credit in my bank account from Carnival.  They told me there was a $900 max OBC and the difference was refunded.

With Carnival (and most companies) YMMV and was not from FCC or shareholder benefit.

21 hours ago, jakeT said:

There will be something , someday, to stop this virus.  Or a medication that will cut down the bad effects.  Things will go back to normal. Or near normal. Or a better new normal.  
 

I think it’s time to really think about how they pack every inch of a cruise ship with people .  Buffet, ect. 

There already is but it's not politically expedient.

44 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

 

Was your cruise paid in full? If it isn't paid in full they usually adjust the cruise price. If the limit is $900 I think that's fine. I have $850 and don't expect any price drops. Actually I got the last room in my category so there won't be any for me.

Yes it was paid in full.  The price drop would have caused me to have over $900 in OBC.  I did have $200 in cash that I paid on the deposit so not all of it was GC.  If the entire thing is GC, I don't know how they would handle that.

58 minutes ago, HaveWeMetYet said:

It is probably the total of OBC counting all cruises that have been cancelled for someone, not just the amount from 1 cruise.

The OBC from Carnival doesn't add together.  If you've had 1 or 6 cruises cancelled, the maximum they will give you in OBC for cancellations is $600.  It's not $600 each time.

12 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

 

First I've heard of a limit to the amount of OBC you can use on a cruise. As someone with $850 OBC on a cruise next year, I'd be interested in hearing the details of this limit.

I hadn't either but we had a cruise booked completely with gift cards that was cancelled.  We booked a more expensive cruise and paid $200 deposit in cash and transferred the remainder to the new booking plus the $600 obc given to us by Carnival.  Soon thereafter, the cruise price went down and I requested a price adjustment which was granted.  That price adjustment was given back to me in cash.  I questioned it and CS said it was because they do not allow OBC of greater than $900.  This price adjustment would have given me about $950 in obc so they gave it to me in cash.  First I've heard of it also.

On 8/5/2020 at 10:59 PM, seaman11 said:

i have a dec, elation cruise on hold, and im thinking of replacing my oct cruise with this one(which i dont feel will go personally)  however i am racking up the obc so nothing to lose..  im up to $1000 now. 

 

 

 

First of all, there's 0 chance of a December cruise...   OK maybe   .00001% chance.

More importantly how do you have $1000 obc?  you don't get addtional OBC each time a cruise is cancelled.  Not to mention their CS told me (and I received cash back) that they do not allow more than $900 of OBC for any sailing.

We're in the same boat with $1300 of OBC paid for by gift cards.  After 4 cancelled cruises, at this point, I wish they would allow me to purchase a bunch of alcohol from the funship store and deliver it to my home instead of my stateroom.  I know I'd be way overpaying, but at least I'll get something for it.

4 hours ago, comics said:

We have a Carnival cruise booked for August 2021 on The Horizon. We will be celebrating  our daughter's high school graduation. Hopefully by then cruising will resume.  

Good luck with that.  My son graduated this year.  We've had 4 cruises cancelled (one of which was his graduation present from us), his senior trip, prom, 4 months of school and now his college went 100% to online classes.  We tried to schedule a FL vacation but that had to be cancelled because of our governor putting in some travel restrictions.  I really feel bad for him and all the kids that graduated this year.

1 hour ago, mjkacmom said:

Look at us in NJ, NY, CT, you won’t find anyone out without a mask, our cases dropped like crazy. We’ve been wearing them for a few months.

That's certainly a possible explanation, but another explanation could be that the virus killed itself off....  Basically that area is coming close to herd immunity, directly as a result of the rampant nature of it a couple months ago.

11 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

That is contradicting   statements

They found no trace of the virus anywhere

then they found the virus on counters etc???

What is it ?

 

So  best  way to control  the virus  is to stay in your home & clean all surfaces many times  a day

just incase you might be transmitting or someone else  might

STAY HOME

Not at all.  2 different groups.  One was confirmed asymptomatic that showed no trace of the virus.  The second was positive with symptoms.

16 minutes ago, OzCanuck said:

Link?  Sounds interesting. 

I'll see if I can find it.  It appeared on two separate tv newscasts along with commentary from an infectious disease doctor.

29 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

 

It is well known many are asymptomatic thus you could have many asymptomatic - asymptomatic for weeks or months then one of the asymptomatic reach a superspreader situation of high risk folks and suddenly you have spike that becomes a local cluster.

 

It is also documented now that there are cases where it lingers for weeks on end before it explodes, a median incubation of 2 weeks means some get symptoms in days and others equally off the other side. 

And a very recent experiment by the CDC that was just concluded showed no evidence that asymptomatic people can transmit the virus.  They put confirmed positive people in a room for 30 minutes without masks and found no trace of the virus anywhere.  They also found that symptomatic people are transmitting the disease onto a counter or table top where it's picked up by other people.  They found minimal transmission via the air.  Even with masks on the virus was settling on surfaces.

12 minutes ago, MrPatches said:

That's because they didn't wear masks before it became a hot spot!

I don't buy it.  A 2 week incubation period means infections are occurring after the mask requirement was put in place at least 6 weeks ago.

8 minutes ago, fyree39 said:

You want to come to California? Why?? We're a hot mess with Covid and it ain't getting better.

Go figure.... and the entire state is required to wear masks...... its almost like masks don't work like widely reported.  hmmm.