PRINCESS SHIPS & CORONA VIRUS

[npcl]

3 hours ago, davidoff2020 said:

Getting back to the original question: How is Princess Cruises actually reacting due to Corona Virus?

 

Some of you here may find this interesting:

 

I was booked on that cruise for a nice junior balcony suite  since April 2019. This should have been the trip of my lifetime (celebrating my 60th birthday on ship and other things planned) and so I have been booking also nice Qatar Airways business class flights from Germany to Singapore and back from Shanghai to Germany.

 

Following the news from China over last week I got more and more uncomfortable with the whole thing.

 

In fact as a lot of you here stated its not the fear of getting the virus (we have far, far more cases of deaths due to influenza each year here in Germany and still no one wears a sinlge mask on the street). Its the fear of what may happen around the whole trip, ie ports getting cancelled, authorities denying access to ships, passengers held on the ship like in Rome, your flight back from China may be cancelled etc etc. Furthermore all of those cruises in South East Asia have lots of Asian / Chinese guests on board. Can you imagine enjoying your daily cocktail on the bar surrounded by travellers wearing those masks??? Very relaxing atmosphere, hmm?

 

Over last weekend I came to the conclusion that I did not want to pay more than 5500€ for this unsecure experience and did cancel the cruise this Monday. It was exactly day 80 before 16th of April so I could get away just for the 75€ handling fee.

 

Just 2 days later Princess announced a complete re-routing, they swapped some ports and cancelled the final port Shanghai and now the cruise ends in Yokohama, even in anther country, Japan. And they are doing this 10 weeks in advance..

 

Around 3000 passengers or at least those who have flight arrangemants of their own, will have to re-arrange new flights for getting home. Maybe most of them will have to pay a lot of extra money because of this. Besides a lot of other trouble usually coming along with such a serious change of itinerary.

 

What fascinates me the most, is that they did announce that serious change exactly 2 days after the cancellation deadline 😉

 

My personal conclusion: I was right in every aspect of my decision to finally cancel this cruise.

 

PS: The ship was almost sold out until Monday..

 

 

Look at the dates where the US has raised China travel restrictions. The US based cruise lines such as Princess have dropped the Chinese ports as the US has increased restrictions. Including banning people that have been in China from boarding now that US put in full travel restrictions.

In you case it was 2 days after full payment, in others 10 days before cruise departure. You can blame the outbreak progression for the timing, not a nefarious act by the cruise line.

[Coral]

Some of this has already been posted:

 

Coronavirus Statement from Princess Cruises 

Although the risk to our guests and crew is low, we are closely monitoring the evolving situation with respect Coronavirus originating in mainland China. Our medical experts are coordinating closely with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to implement enhanced screening, prevention and control measures for our ships globally. 

 

Measures we are implementing include:

• Guests who have traveled from or through mainland China (including Hubei Province) in the past 14-days* will not be cleared for boarding the ship.  This does not apply to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
• Pre-Boarding medical evaluations, including temperature checks, for persons whom, for any reason, appear or identify as symptomatic (respiratory or fever symptoms)
• For all guests, our standard pre-boarding health reporting for all guests advising of their reporting obligations for any illness or symptoms of an illness
• Medical screening for Coronavirus on all guests who visit our onboard Medical Center with symptoms of any respiratory illness
• Reporting to local and national health authorities of all cases of fever and respiratory illness, and any patients with suspected Coronavirus infection
• Crew members from mainland China will be delayed from joining any ship until further notice. Crew members from other regions of the world who may have been scheduled to connect on flights through China have been rerouted.
• Additional environmental disinfection onboard will be performed in addition to our regular stringent cleaning and sanitation protocols.

 

The above is subject to change at any time based on the interests of health and safety of our guests and crew. Any other requirements that may be imposed by local authorities.

 

*14-days is the accepted standard incubation period of Coronavirus recognized by the WHO and US CDC.

Guests sailing to the Bahamas who have come from or visited mainland China in the past 20-days will not be permitted to disembark at ports in this country.

Additionally, as the safety of our guests and crew is always our highest priority, Princess Cruises has amended the following voyages:

Voyage H013 will now arrive in Tokyo, Japan (Yokohama) instead of Shanghai on May 2

Voyage H014 will now depart from Tokyo, Japan (Yokohama) instead of Shanghai on May 2

Voyage H015 will now arrive in Tokyo, Japan (Yokohama) instead of Shanghai on June 3

 

Princess Cruises has also cancelled the following voyages sailing roundtrip to Shanghai on Sapphire Princess – June 3, 2020 and June 11, 2020.

We are also looking to remove the transit calls to Shanghai on May 1 and July 17 on Sun Princess, replacing with Japan ports of calls (actual ports to be announced).

 

PRINCESS CANCELLATION POLICIES

Cancellation and Pricing Policy for Sapphire Princess Amended Voyages (H013 – H015)Voyage H014 will now depart from Tokyo, Japan (Yokohama) instead of Shanghai on May 2 

1. If guests cancel their booking, they can submit claims through their travel insurance providers.
2. Guests with Princess Vacation Protection may cancel and submit their claim to AON per terms of the plan.
3. For guests who incur charges for non-refundable expenses (including air change fees for guests with independent air), Princess will provide up to $250 in airline change fees.  Visit www.princess.com/refund-request for a list of reimbursable expenses and details on submitting a refund request.
4. For any other cancellations for itineraries other than cruises Sapphire Princess (H013-H015), the standard cancellation fees shall apply.

[davidoff2020]

Thank you for posting this, this makes it a lot clearer.

Edited February 1, 2020 by davidoff2020

[Canadian12]

We cancelled our May 2 voyage, however air (ANA) was booked through Expedia, non refundable.  

[Coral]

18 minutes ago, Canadian12 said:

We cancelled our May 2 voyage, however air (ANA) was booked through Expedia, non refundable.  

Watch those flights and if there is a change in time, you can often cancel the flights and get your money back.

 

There is always a chance that the airline will allow cancellations. I wouldn't cancel air just yet.

[hobbyfarmer2]

Wonder how many on this board are aware that the 2017-18 flu season killed 61,000 people in the USA alone.

The very serious cases of coranavirus show up first.  These have a higher mortality rate.  Many less serious cases go unreported.  There are a couple of mathematical models out there that predict the death rate from coronavirus will be quite similar to that from the regular flu.  Time will tell.

 

I think the fear generated by this is pretty bad.

[elliair]

On 1/30/2020 at 4:29 PM, npcl said:

Not much they can do other than excluding passengers from boarding based on their previous travels.  Unfortunately people do tend to be less than honest with those kinds of questionaires.  The checks like they are doing at the airports is another possibility, but no certainty with those.

One can show no signs of the virus yet a few days later develop the symptoms.  By then, they have already infected hundreds of people.  The latest I've seen from epidemiologists is an R0 of 3.8 - 4.  That means for every 1 person infected, they will infect 3.5 more.  Incubation period is 1-14 days.  I posted quite a bit of info on another thread a couple of days ago and I was accused of fear mongering. and my posts were deleted.  It's up to the government to shut down travel, and if it hits here like it is in China, we'll be quarantined as well.  New case in Massachusetts.  This could turn out to be a devastating disease both health wise and economic wise.  Not fear mongering at all.

Edited February 1, 2020 by elliair

[elliair]

1 hour ago, hobbyfarmer2 said:

Wonder how many on this board are aware that the 2017-18 flu season killed 61,000 people in the USA alone.

The very serious cases of coranavirus show up first.  These have a higher mortality rate.  Many less serious cases go unreported.  There are a couple of mathematical models out there that predict the death rate from coronavirus will be quite similar to that from the regular flu.  Time will tell.

 

I think the fear generated by this is pretty bad.

How many on this board are aware that there's no vaccine for this coronovirus?  The flu shots given out last year were A type but as the flu season came in it wasn't Type A but type B.  This coronovirus is a total different bird and has infected too many people too fast and has traveled around the world in jet speed.  One can be infected and show no signs of the disease.  Do you know what the R0 factor in 2017-18 was for the flu?  Did it spread worldwide and was there a vaccine?

[npcl]

2 hours ago, hobbyfarmer2 said:

Wonder how many on this board are aware that the 2017-18 flu season killed 61,000 people in the USA alone.

The very serious cases of coranavirus show up first.  These have a higher mortality rate.  Many less serious cases go unreported.  There are a couple of mathematical models out there that predict the death rate from coronavirus will be quite similar to that from the regular flu.  Time will tell.

 

I think the fear generated by this is pretty bad.

Based upon the work at John Hopkins University  their model estimates that the number actually infected in China is more like 56,000, compared to the reported 12,000.  Another thing to keep in mind is that the illness has not run its course in most of those currently infected.  As such we will not know the true mortality rate until enough time passes for several complete cycles have passed.

 

The flu's effects are moderated to some degree by the availability of a vaccine, even though many do not take advantage of it, many of those at most risk do.  There is no vaccine for Corona.  Also there is no establish immunity because of exposure to similar virus's on most populations.

 

Corona is certainly has some unique features that makes it far more difficult to stop than MERS and SARS.  The longer incubation time of 14 days, the spread from individuals not showing symptoms, and the mild cases where individuals do not seek treatment or remain in isolation.  All of those make this a relatively difficult disease to contain.

 

Even using the John Hopkins estimate of 56000 and assuming that all of them recover yields a fatality rate of .5% compared to a flu mortality rate of .014 percent, roughly 40 times higher.  The biggest problem is not what happens early when hospitals have capacity to handle the serious cases with enough beds, equipment, and staff to provide good palliative care to each serious patient, but instead what happens when they are overwhelmed by the number of patients and as a result quality of care drops significantly.  

 

The key will be seeing if it gets hold outside of China.  We will probably have a good idea of that within the next 2-4 weeks.

 

John Hopkins has a pretty good dashboard giving data available from the CDC and other health agencies around the world.  

[npcl]

53 minutes ago, elliair said:

How many on this board are aware that there's no vaccine for this coronovirus?  The flu shots given out last year were A type but as the flu season came in it wasn't Type A but type B.  This coronovirus is a total different bird and has infected too many people too fast and has traveled around the world in jet speed.  One can be infected and show no signs of the disease.  Do you know what the R0 factor in 2017-18 was for the flu?  Did it spread worldwide and was there a vaccine?

Can I play.

 

RO for the common flu is in the range of 1.2 to 2.4 in a community setting, but can be much higher in a school or institutional setting., SARS was about 2.0, the Corona numbers are still early but trending upward with the most recent estimate being as high as 4, much less than measles which is around 12.

[Ken the cruiser]

So when do you flu officianados think the Corona virus is going to peak? We have a 30 day cruise from Los Angeles to Beijing booked in October with some stops in Japan and Korea before disembarking  and flying back to the US from Shanghai. With are final payment due in mid July, do you think it will have peaked by then?

[hobbyfarmer2]

1 hour ago, elliair said:

How many on this board are aware that there's no vaccine for this coronovirus?  The flu shots given out last year were A type but as the flu season came in it wasn't Type A but type B.  This coronovirus is a total different bird and has infected too many people too fast and has traveled around the world in jet speed.  One can be infected and show no signs of the disease.  Do you know what the R0 factor in 2017-18 was for the flu?  Did it spread worldwide and was there a vaccine?

R0 given in an earlier post.  You are correct about flu vaccine.  Reason is that many months are required to produce the 10's of millions of required doses so the vaccine is a best predictive guess one based on the expected strains.  A very successful year is one where the vaccine is about 50% effective. 

[Coral]

1 hour ago, elliair said:

How many on this board are aware that there's no vaccine for this coronovirus?  The flu shots given out last year were A type but as the flu season came in it wasn't Type A but type B.  This coronovirus is a total different bird and has infected too many people too fast and has traveled around the world in jet speed.  One can be infected and show no signs of the disease.  Do you know what the R0 factor in 2017-18 was for the flu?  Did it spread worldwide and was there a vaccine?

There is not one. Though, there are 5 companies in the US who are working with NIH to devlop one. One of the companies working on this is where I live and was featured on the news. They expect to have a trial in 90 days for those infected and a vaccine in 6-12 months....

 

------

Oddly - where I live, Type A flu was pre-dominant in my state. Though I know nationally it was Type B.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Coral

[TrixieBel]

40 minutes ago, npcl said:

RO for the common flu is in the range of 1.2 to 2.4 in a community setting, but can be much higher in a school or institutional setting., SARS was about 2.0, the Corona numbers are still early but trending upward with the most recent estimate being as high as 4,

Yes. There is total uncertainty around the RO score or the death incidence as yet. Because China only records number of people presenting with moderate / severe form of the disease we are only seeing how many people with the moderate / severe form die. There may be many more that get it in a mild form that doesn’t progress to moderate / severe. The longer we go with no deaths outside of China the more likely it is that we are seeing something not much worse than the flu...

[elliair]

1 hour ago, npcl said:

Can I play.

 

RO for the common flu is in the range of 1.2 to 2.4 in a community setting, but can be much higher in a school or institutional setting., SARS was about 2.0, the Corona numbers are still early but trending upward with the most recent estimate being as high as 4, much less than measles which is around 12.

Yes, coronovirus is around the 4.0 range.  No vaccination whereas measles does have vaccines.  Measles is coming in over the border just like the coronovirus is.  Corona is pneumonia with some other viruses added to this.  Sequencing isn't completed and different labs are finding different agents such as SARs and HIV mixed with coronovirus.

[elliair]

1 hour ago, Coral said:

There is not one. Though, there are 5 companies in the US who are working with NIH to devlop one. One of the companies working on this is where I live and was featured on the news. They expect to have a trial in 90 days for those infected and a vaccine in 6-12 months....

 

------

Oddly - where I live, Type A flu was pre-dominant in my state. Though I know nationally it was Type B.

If one looks at the different charts and graphs available. the infection is growing faster than what hospitals in China can keep up with.  I don't even want to think about what is going to happen in 1 month much less wait 6-12 months for a vaccine.  This one is going to be a biggie.

[Coral]

15 minutes ago, elliair said:

If one looks at the different charts and graphs available. the infection is growing faster than what hospitals in China can keep up with.  I don't even want to think about what is going to happen in 1 month much less wait 6-12 months for a vaccine.  This one is going to be a biggie.

I will be curious how this ends up comparing to H1N1. Time will tell.

[elliair]

31 minutes ago, Coral said:

I will be curious how this ends up comparing to H1N1. Time will tell.

It's two different viruses.  Let's see how it's adding up to SARs which is a close relative of coronovirus.

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1223606872097411072

 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by elliair

[Coral]

1 minute ago, elliair said:

It's two different viruses.  Let's see how it's adding up to SARs which is a close relative of coronovirus.

 

Yes - I realize they are different. Regardless, I hope it goes away quickly.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Coral

[elliair]

30 minutes ago, Coral said:

Yes - I realize they are different. Regardless, I hope it goes away quickly.

Everyone hopes it goes away quickly.  A new case in Boston, MA that has tested positive.  As far as I know, this virus has only affected Asians.  Plenty of room for speculation.   SARS lasted 6 months before dying out.  SARS didn't rapidly increase like we're seeing with this coronoavirus.  I'm not even sure if there's a vaccine for SARs yet.  However, this coromovirus has surpassed SARs by infection and deaths in a shorter period of time than SARs.  It can take months for a vaccine, but by them the infection will have run rampant.  We have a cruise planned to Alaska in May, I hope we don't miss out.

[npcl]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

So when do you flu officianados think the Corona virus is going to peak? We have a 30 day cruise from Los Angeles to Beijing booked in October with some stops in Japan and Korea before disembarking  and flying back to the US from Shanghai. With are final payment due in mid July, do you think it will have peaked by then?

I think all you can do is watch and wait until then.  If it is stopped from spreading outside of  China, I expect that it will still be very active there in July.  After  the first cases were in November and look where it is at now and rate of spread.  If it spreads effectively outside of China then it will be a long way from peaking.

[npcl]

2 hours ago, elliair said:

Yes, coronovirus is around the 4.0 range.  No vaccination whereas measles does have vaccines.  Measles is coming in over the border just like the coronovirus is.  Corona is pneumonia with some other viruses added to this.  Sequencing isn't completed and different labs are finding different agents such as SARs and HIV mixed with coronovirus.

 

 

Not sure where you are getting your information from.  But the medical community is  trying to use antiviral compounds that are used for HIV, as well as others that were somewhat effective for SARS to try and treat Corona, but do not have any real measure of effectiveness of any of those compounds. 

The labs that developed vaccines for SARS are also planning to test them to see if they have any effectiveness in helping with immune response for Corona, but I have not see anything that indicates that the Corona outbreak consists of more than one virus.  China released the genetic code back on January 10.

 

From the Lancet the genome characterization.

 

The ten genome sequences of 2019-nCoV obtained from the nine patients were extremely similar, exhibiting more than 99·98% sequence identity. Notably, 2019-nCoV was closely related (with 88% identity) to two bat-derived severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronaviruses, bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21, collected in 2018 in Zhoushan, eastern China, but were more distant from SARS-CoV (about 79%) and MERS-CoV (about 50%). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that 2019-nCoV fell within the subgenus Sarbecovirus of the genus Betacoronavirus, with a relatively long branch length to its closest relatives bat-SL-CoVZC45 and bat-SL-CoVZXC21, and was genetically distinct from SARS-CoV. Notably, homology modelling revealed that 2019-nCoV had a similar receptor-binding domain structure to that of SARS-CoV, despite amino acid variation at some key residues.

 

Would be interested in seeing any references that indicates any relationship in the genome to HIV and for that matter SARS other then Corona viruses as a class are considered to be SARS like.

[npcl]

54 minutes ago, elliair said:

Everyone hopes it goes away quickly.  A new case in Boston, MA that has tested positive.  As far as I know, this virus has only affected Asians.  Plenty of room for speculation.   SARS lasted 6 months before dying out.  SARS didn't rapidly increase like we're seeing with this coronoavirus.  I'm not even sure if there's a vaccine for SARs yet.  However, this coromovirus has surpassed SARs by infection and deaths in a shorter period of time than SARs.  It can take months for a vaccine, but by them the infection will have run rampant.  We have a cruise planned to Alaska in May, I hope we don't miss out.

There is a vaccine for SARS, but the outbreak dies out before it could be effectively tested.

 

I doubt this is going to be as quick as the 9 month outbreak of SARS.  This has too many characteristics that make it harder to contain.  The 2-7 day incubation period for SARS, the higher mortality rate, the lack of mild cases, all helped limit its spread.

 

Best plan I have seen would be clinical trials of a vaccine by Inovio (designated INO-4800) in China in early summer. If those trials are successful then large scale trials by the end of the year. While they could use the genome to design a potential vaccine quickly, it will take time to see if it is safe enough  and  effective enough to be of use.  Basically they use techonolgy to use the genome to pick targets on the pathogen  that they think the human immune system will respond to.

Edited February 2, 2020 by npcl

[Justalone]

5 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

So when do you flu officianados think the Corona virus is going to peak? We have a 30 day cruise from Los Angeles to Beijing booked in October with some stops in Japan and Korea before disembarking  and flying back to the US from Shanghai. With are final payment due in mid July, do you think it will have peaked by then?

 

Isn’t it too early to tell? And their is no vaccine yet.  Does anyone really know if the Corona virus will peak by October?

Why would you even take a chance?  It’s like playing Russian roulette.  If you get infected with Corona virus you could die.   I would not risk getting sick or dying for a cruise you can always take later.

Wishing you safe travels if you do decide to take that cruise.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Justalone

[RMMariner]

17 minutes ago, Justalone said:

 

Why would you even take a chance?  It’s like playing Russian roulette.  If you get infected with Corona virus you could die.   I would not risk dying for a cruise you can always take later.

People die on cruises all the time from the normal flu etc.. Coronavirus has yet to kill anyone on a cruise. That being said, I would not be cruising to SE Asia or China until this situation sorts itself out.

 

Average people killed in Canada per year by:

 

lightning - 10

murder - 520

car accident - 2900

normal flu - 6000

cancer - 80,000 +

heart attack - 72000

drownings - 450

killed in shootings at Airbnb rentals since January 1 - 4

 

For comparison:

Deaths from Wuhan coronavirus in Canada and USA - 0

 

Death from SARS virus in Canada in 2003 - 44

 

Keep things in perspective. 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by RMMariner