How Do Cruise Lines Sail Again?

[jmkennett]

I’m sure all of us are wondering, how does this end for the cruise lines?  How does it end for everyone?  In particular, how do the cruise lines start back up?  Things are closing every day, and the longer it’s closed down, the harder it is to open back up.  

 

Tell me you opinions.  If you have any inside knowledge in the cruise industry, medical field, government, etc., even better.  

 

I really have no clue, not optimistic, and really upset, that it will be probably a lot longer than anyone thinks.  How does it happen?  Who’s the first to blink?  Seems to me, anytime someone sneezes the government will want to panic and close everything down again.  At some point, in the near future, things need to start opening, as the economy can’t sustain it.

 

i could see it starting with limiting people above certain ages from traveling.  Short cruises.  No more than a week, mostly Caribbean & Mexico.  Possibly limiting capacity, not that it will be an issue.  Temp checks.  Perhaps required medical approval from doctors and eventually proof of vaccine for CV.

 

Your thoughts?

[ski ww]

I think you're reading way too much into this. I'm sure as soon as the health officials give the all clear, the planes will fly again, ports will open, and cruise ships will cruise again. This too shall pass. The big question is when.

[deliver42]

I doubt they will be limiting passengers. They will need all they can get to start recouping money lost. They could help themselves by lowering the high prices they show now.

[cruisetheworld67]

2 hours ago, ski ww said:

I think you're reading way too much into this. I'm sure as soon as the health officials give the all clear, the planes will fly again, ports will open, and cruise ships will cruise again. This too shall pass. The big question is when.

 

I don't think you are reading enough into this. Yes, this may pass but when? I do not think things will get back to " normal" until a vaccine is mass produced and the medical experts indicate that could be 18 months from now. So we are looking at the Fall of 2021. Thinking that in a month or two "this shall pass" is overly optimistic.  

 

The virus may taper off this summer but come back with a vengeance in the fall of this year. Plus, now it seems that millennials are also affected worse than first believed. If the virus mutates; any vaccine initially produced may prove to be ineffective.

Not normally a gloom and doom person, but I think things will get much worse on both the medical and economic front before things get better.

[TriumphGuy]

I worry about bankruptcy. All those FCC may not be worth boo squat if the lines go under. I don't know if the relief bills currently being introduced and passed hold any provision for low or no interest loans for the cruise/travel industry but if they don't the threat would be very real. The airlines appear to be getting a bailout but who knows?

[The Beaver]

1 hour ago, cruisetheworld67 said:

 

I don't think you are reading enough into this. Yes, this may pass but when? I do not think things will get back to " normal" until a vaccine is mass produced and the medical experts indicate that could be 18 months from now. So we are looking at the Fall of 2021. Thinking that in a month or two "this shall pass" is overly optimistic.  

 

The virus may taper off this summer but come back with a vengeance in the fall of this year. Plus, now it seems that millennials are also affected worse than first believed. If the virus mutates; any vaccine initially produced may prove to be ineffective.

Not normally a gloom and doom person, but I think things will get much worse on both the medical and economic front before things get better.

Correct

We won't be out of the woods soon

 

This is a good article to read about the real data on cases and how we can see the difference in tallying before lockdown and after.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

 

If it TLTR , this video may help also:

 

 

[RocketMan275]

33 minutes ago, TriumphGuy said:

I worry about bankruptcy. All those FCC may not be worth boo squat if the lines go under. I don't know if the relief bills currently being introduced and passed hold any provision for low or no interest loans for the cruise/travel industry but if they don't the threat would be very real. The airlines appear to be getting a bailout but who knows?

Don't forget, there are two types of bankruptcies.

The first is the one most are familiar with where the company closes down and assets are sold to pay creditors.

The second is one where the courts suspend the ability of creditors to force the companies to close down while they restructure and continue to operate.

[CruiserBruce]

1 hour ago, RocketMan275 said:

Don't forget, there are two types of bankruptcies.

The first is the one most are familiar with where the company closes down and assets are sold to pay creditors.

The second is one where the courts suspend the ability of creditors to force the companies to close down while they restructure and continue to operate.

Excellent points many may have missed. I suspect there will be lots of "reorganizations" as the second type is commonly called.

[conwakr]

I suspect that if the lock down continues too far into the future you will see some of the things you saw in the auto industry doing the two industry downturns - the large conglomerates/holding companies will consolidate and could drop financially under performing brands.  

[pete_coach]

3 hours ago, cruisetheworld67 said:

 

I don't think you are reading enough into this. Yes, this may pass but when? I do not think things will get back to " normal" until a vaccine is mass produced and the medical experts indicate that could be 18 months from now. So we are looking at the Fall of 2021. Thinking that in a month or two "this shall pass" is overly optimistic.  

 

The virus may taper off this summer but come back with a vengeance in the fall of this year. Plus, now it seems that millennials are also affected worse than first believed. If the virus mutates; any vaccine initially produced may prove to be ineffective.

Not normally a gloom and doom person, but I think things will get much worse on both the medical and economic front before things get better.

Not to underestimate or undermine the severity of this COVD-19 virus in any way but some of these big virus issues have come and gone before.There were no vaccines developed for them either.
Cruise lines have survived the Norovirus issues that they all had several years ago (and still continue to have) which cut cruise travel dramatically and I expect them to overcome this too.

"Norovirus results in about 685 million cases of disease and 200,000 deaths globally a year. It is common both in the developed and developing world."  from Wikipedia

Edited March 19, 2020 by pete_coach

[HAL4NOW]

1 hour ago, RocketMan275 said:

Don't forget, there are two types of bankruptcies.

The first is the one most are familiar with where the company closes down and assets are sold to pay creditors.

The second is one where the courts suspend the ability of creditors to force the companies to close down while they restructure and continue to operate.

Shareholders don't always do so well in a restructured bankruptcy. 

[PROCRUISE]

There is also an interesting video today, on Celebrity thread, from a current staff member aboard a RCCL vessel. He is from the UK and expected to stay onboard for the 30 day no sail time period. Now he is being told that next week he is being sent home. He feels safer on the ship and isn't sure how he would be able to fly home but is waiting to hear how RCCL is going to accomplish moving staff home. If this does turn out to be true, it would be difficult to quickly restart cruising without staff or, perhaps RCCL does indeed expect this no cruise period to go on much longer than originally anticipated. Guess we all just sit tight and wait.

[HappyInVan]

COVID19 is a disease. Management of the disease and its consequences, involves a series of processes, focused on a number of decisions. The outcome depends on the quality of the managerial processes, and the willingness of the general population to do their part..

 

The disease originated in Wuhan city, of Hubei province (pop 59m), and the national government acted decisively and relatively quickly. They were not blinded by ideological blinkers, listened to the medical experts, looked at the projections, and acted to overcome bureaucratic inertia.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Hubei_lockdowns

 

In less than two months, the epidemic in Hubei has been strangled, with only 70k infected by official count. The general population had not resisted, and communities have organized themselves.

 

The process of recovery begins. Cautiously relaxing the social restrictions, curfews and quarantines city by city. Most of the local population has not been exposed to the disease. In the best case scenario, further infections are identified and contained.

 

The most important factor is that the population understands the problem and know what to do to avoid infection. Recovery will be helped by the arrival of summer. We won't know until next winter whether the virus is still a dangerous disease.

 

Entirely possible that Asian cruise companies will be the first to restart operations.

 

The focus has now shifted to Europe where the official number of infected will exceed China this week. Some countries are coping relatively well. Others badly. The lessons from China can be applied here; ideological blinkers, managerial processes and the co-operation of the population.

 

At some point, the well managed countries will dismantle their controls and restrictions. Will they quarantine the poorly performing countries? Not so good for cruise itineraries.

 

Extensive testing has began in the States, leaders expect a massive increase in the number of confirmed infections. Medical services will be stretched. To top it off, spring break has proceeded as usual. Many thousands of young people are congregating in Florida etc. Infecting each other, and bringing it home to their families. What's the prognosis here?

 

You'll say, “Yes, but when can we begin cruising again?”

 

The stock markets globally are in a panic. In the west, institutional investors own much of the blue chip companies. Amazon is very expensive, but doing well. In contrast, CCL traded as low as $7.90. That prices the company at liquidation value.

 

The world has changed. The professional investors have paid access to the best medical experts, and they have picked the winners and losers.

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by HappyInVan

[vicd1969]

HAL's typically smaller ship size actually will help it get underway better than the other mainstream lines with their 4000+ passenger ships. I would imagine it'll be hard in the near future to fill in the Oasis-class ships to break-even passenger levels.

[swin26]

Hopefully after this, the cruise lines will require passports even for closed loop cruises.  Passports need to be a requirement for all cruise travel.  

[ski ww]

On 3/19/2020 at 7:57 AM, cruisetheworld67 said:

 

I don't think you are reading enough into this. Yes, this may pass but when? I do not think things will get back to " normal" until a vaccine is mass produced and the medical experts indicate that could be 18 months from now. So we are looking at the Fall of 2021. Thinking that in a month or two "this shall pass" is overly optimistic.  

 

The virus may taper off this summer but come back with a vengeance in the fall of this year. Plus, now it seems that millennials are also affected worse than first believed. If the virus mutates; any vaccine initially produced may prove to be ineffective.

Not normally a gloom and doom person, but I think things will get much worse on both the medical and economic front before things get better.

I'm sorry if I came across as not taking this serious enough. I take this very serious. I think North America has not seen the worst of it yet, it will get worse before it gets better. Lots of people out there are still not getting the message, they think that isolation doesn't apply to them. Stay safe & healthy.

[Wehwalt]

21 hours ago, vicd1969 said:

HAL's typically smaller ship size actually will help it get underway better than the other mainstream lines with their 4000+ passenger ships. I would imagine it'll be hard in the near future to fill in the Oasis-class ships to break-even passenger levels.

It would not surprise me if limits were put on the number of passengers by governments. Let's say ... 2,000?

[npcl]

On 3/19/2020 at 8:15 AM, pete_coach said:

Not to underestimate or undermine the severity of this COVD-19 virus in any way but some of these big virus issues have come and gone before.There were no vaccines developed for them either.
Cruise lines have survived the Norovirus issues that they all had several years ago (and still continue to have) which cut cruise travel dramatically and I expect them to overcome this too.

"Norovirus results in about 685 million cases of disease and 200,000 deaths globally a year. It is common both in the developed and developing world."  from Wikipedia

Norovirus puts very few people into the hospital.  They do not tie up ventilators and advanced medical facilities for weeks at a time.  For that matter neither does the flu.  Flu mortality rate .1%, hospitalization rate 1%, average time to resolve <7 days.  Covid-19  Mortality Rate .9% (using the numbers from a fully tested population the Diamond which is slightly lower than recent numbers in a Chines paper that also used a fully tested population, hospitalization rate >10%, Average time to resolve >4 weeks.

 

Our hospital system gets slammed during a bad flu season. Looking at the consumption of hospital resources Covid-19 is more than 40X the flu per infected population. More than 1000X noro when it comes to hospital resources. New York, with, compared to the flu, relatively few cases, but the most currently in the US is already running out of hospital beds.

 

In the US we have less that 1 million hospital beds.  Advanced resources such as intensive care, ventilators, etc are much more limited.  That is the reason for the concern.  Run out of hospital resources and the hospitalization numbers turn into mortality numbers.

 

I do not expect cruising to restart until sufficient therapies exist to reduce the number and length of hospital stays to a manageable level.  May not until a vaccine exists.  

Edited March 20, 2020 by npcl

[pete_coach]

12 minutes ago, npcl said:

Norovirus puts very few people into the hospital.  They do not tie up ventilators and advanced medical facilities for weeks at a time.  For that matter neither does the flu.  Flu mortality rate .1%, hospitalization rate 1%, average time to resolve <7 days.  Covid-19  Mortality Rate .9% (using the numbers from a fully tested population the Diamond which is slightly lower than recent numbers in a Chines paper that also used a fully tested population, hospitalization rate >10%, Average time to resolve >4 weeks.

 

.........

 

..... 

Run out of hospital resources and the hospitalization numbers turn into mortality numbers.

As I said, and in context, "Not to underestimate or undermine the severity of this COVD-19 virus in any way " but the facts dispute your statements and assumptions.

 

You are wrong about flu "in the US. So far, the CDC has estimated (based on weekly influenza surveillance data) that at least 12,000 people have died from influenza between Oct. 1, 2019 through Feb. 1, 2020, and the number of deaths may be as high as 30,000." from Health.com

 

And about Norovirus  "we conclude that norovirus causes on average 570–800 deaths, 56,000–71,000 hospitalizations, 400,000 ED visits, 1.7–1.9 million outpatient visits, and 19–21 million total illnesses each year in the United States" from wwwnc.cdc.gov.

 

While percentages of entire population make it look small, actual people counts are the real numbers.

 

Both these illnesses/diseases have taken up many hospital rooms and resources. Again, not in any way trying to say that COVID-19 is not serious but trying to put some realistic perspective on it.

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by pete_coach
spelling errors fixed.

[HappyInVan]

2 hours ago, npcl said:

In the US we have less that 1 million hospital beds.  Advanced resources such as intensive care, ventilators, etc are much more limited.  That is the reason for the concern.  Run out of hospital resources and the hospitalization numbers turn into mortality numbers.

 

I do not expect cruising to restart until sufficient therapies exist to reduce the number and length of hospital stays to a manageable level.  May not until a vaccine exists.  

 

 

Absolutely correct. Italy has not peaked and the mortality rate is 8% of infected.

[grsnovi]

1 hour ago, HappyInVan said:

 Italy has not peaked and the mortality rate is 8% of infected.

Until there has been 100% testing of the entire worldwide population to determine how many actually had the virus but didn't know it, the mortality rates discussed are completely hypothetical.

[npcl]

4 hours ago, pete_coach said:

As I said, and in context, "Not to underestimate or undermine the severity of this COVD-19 virus in any way " but the facts dispute your statements and assumptions.

 

You are wrong about flu "in the US. So far, the CDC has estimated (based on weekly influenza surveillance data) that at least 12,000 people have died from influenza between Oct. 1, 2019 through Feb. 1, 2020, and the number of deaths may be as high as 30,000." from Health.com

 

And about Norovirus  "we conclude that norovirus causes on average 570–800 deaths, 56,000–71,000 hospitalizations, 400,000 ED visits, 1.7–1.9 million outpatient visits, and 19–21 million total illnesses each year in the United States" from wwwnc.cdc.gov.

 

While percentages of entire population make it look small, actual people counts are the real numbers.

 

Both these illnesses/diseases have taken up many hospital rooms and resources. Again, not in any way trying to say that COVID-19 is not serious but trying to put some realistic perspective on it.

 

Actually there in nothing what you posted that disagrees with  my numbers.  Because you post total cases, mine is statistics on percentages on those infected.  

 

First lets take your stats and convert them to percentages

 

Since you don't have the denominator for the flu I have to get one from the CDC 

THe CDC estimates total number of flu cases in 2019 to 2020 to be 38-54 million yielding 390,000 to 710,000 hospitalizations, and 23000 to 59000 deaths so if we use the median of each range we get 46 million cases resulting in 550,000  hospitalizations and 41,000 deaths.  So that yields a mortality rate of .09 a little less than my numbers but pretty close.. hospitalizations 1.19%  pretty close to the numbers I listed.  So if anything I over estimated the flu mortality numbers.  The time to resolve cases is still less than 7 days, but you included no data there.

 

Now lets take a look at Noro  again taking the median numbers you have 20 million cases,   63,000 hospitalizations,  and 685 dead.  So converting these to percentages you get  .3% hospitalizations, and a mortality rate .003%.  Again you do not include length to treat, but noro symptoms usually resolve in 48 hours and non-infectious after 72.  The hospitalizations mostly involve dehydration and usually last less than 48 hours

 

So taking my numbers to yours

 

Flu mortality mine .1% yours ..09%  yours are lower than mine

      Hosp rate         1%   your 1.19%  pretty much the same

Hosp work load as of measure of those infected  7 X 550,000/46 million = .08 hosp days per infected patient

 

Noro I did not include actual hosp and infect states only the impact on hospital work load 

Using your numbers of hospital workload   2 X 63000/20 million = .006 hospital days per patient

 

Now Covid-19

Mortality rate .91 (9 X hgher than the flu using my numbers 10 X using your numbers)

Hosp Rate   10% ( 10 X using my numbers, slightly lower 8.4 X using your numbers)

Hospital work load minimum of 28 X 10%  = 2.8 hospital days per infected patient

 

Now I estimated that the hospital workload with Covid-19 was 40 X flu, using your numbers it is 35 X

compared to Noro using your number it is 466 X  somewhat lower than my 1000 X but certainly not outrageously so, especially since the actual number might be more like 24 hours, not the estimate of 48 hours that I used.

 

Since you like working with numbers instead of percentages.  We know that Covid-19, if unchecked is actually more infectious (spreads easier than the flu) but if we just use the flu numbers for a given year and apply the Covid-19 percentages we would get  46,000,000 X .0091 = 418,600 dead, we get 46,000,000 X 10% = 4.6 million hospitalizations, an interesting problem with the US having less than 1 million beds in all of its hospitals, and if we run out of advanced medical capacity the numbers of dead going considerably higher.  The number of hospitals days in this scenerio is 128.8 million hospital days or basically every bed in the US for over 1/3 of a year.

 

That is what scares the crap out of medical professionals and the reason why it is no holds barred in trying to slow the spread and reduce the peak.  If we get minimize this first wave, buy time for therapies and vaccines to be developed, then we just might be able to save hundreds of thousands of lives.  

Edited March 20, 2020 by npcl

[npcl]

23 minutes ago, grsnovi said:

Until there has been 100% testing of the entire worldwide population to determine how many actually had the virus but didn't know it, the mortality rates discussed are completely hypothetical.

Actually there are now at least two papers that have reviewed completely tested populations. The first was from the Diamond Princess, that gave the numbers I used where took the results there and adjusted for age demographics.

 

The second is a Chinese paper that looks back at a fully tested population set  it yielded a number higher than the diamond Princess in the 1.2% range if I remember correctly.

 

From those two, which did have a reasonable sample size in a fully tested population one can get a pretty good idea.  It also would be in line with the reduction from the WHO estimate of 3.4% and untested populations. The cases from the Diamond also had access to a modern medical system in Japan that was not overwhelmed.

[HappyInVan]

37 minutes ago, grsnovi said:

Until there has been 100% testing of the entire worldwide population to determine how many actually had the virus but didn't know it, the mortality rates discussed are completely hypothetical.

 

We don't need to test everyone.

 

South Korea conducted tests on 316k cases to confirm 8,652 infected. With such large scale testing, we can derive reasonable estimates. The morality rate was 0.6% of the infected during most of the cycle. At the tail end of the epidemic, the mortality rate has risen to 1.1%.

 

https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030

 

This seems to be the best case scenario for small epidemics brought under quick control. At the other extreme, Italy has not peaked and their mortality rate is already 8%.

 

The scientists have done some case and genetic analysis. Hence, the famous estimate that 60% of the population would be infected if the epidemic was unchecked. At such high rates of infection, the death rate would easily exceed 10%.

 

https://vancouversun.com/news/world/coronavirus-could-infect-60-of-global-population-expert-warns/wcm/19a6830a-f1c0-4422-809e-ff5d4974adae/

 

 

Simple maths. 60% of the population of your country, and 1% or 10% of that.

 

 

[pete_coach]

49 minutes ago, npcl said:

Actually there in nothing what you posted that disagrees with  my numbers.  Because you post total cases, mine is statistics on percentages on those infected.  

 

First lets take your stats and convert them to percentages

 

Since .............

What I showed was actual numbers to dispute your statement "Norovirus puts very few people into the hospital.  They do not tie up ventilators and advanced medical facilities for weeks at a time.  For that matter neither does the flu. ". 

Percentages in the USA are the same in Canada and many other countries. The numbers though, are significantly different.

Your claim of flu and Noro not taking up beds and facilities is wrong. That is all I am trying to convey.