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Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?


Ken the cruiser
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9 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

Remember the day after a politician is elected, most ANY politician, thought number one is to be re-elected, number two is fund raising , cozy up to corporate donors, oh somewhere down the list is real constituents.

This is what’s so frustrating….it’s this whole “power thing” that  Desantis has.  He’s bound and determined to show the Cruise industry who’s the boss.  Cruise industry trying to do what’s right, follow CDC guidelines for safe cruising.  Desantis trying to show them nothing happens in the industry without his approval…..what’s good for the passengers, for the state, for the cruise lines, be danged!

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2 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

This is what’s so frustrating….it’s this whole “power thing” that  Desantis has.  He’s bound and determined to show the Cruise industry who’s the boss.  Cruise industry trying to do what’s right, follow CDC guidelines for safe cruising.  Desantis trying to show them nothing happens in the industry without his approval…..what’s good for the passengers, for the state, for the cruise lines, be danged!

the 150,000+ or so Floridians employed directly by the cruise industry and those in ancillary jobs, should be marching to the capital.  I can only imagine the bills they have stacked up to pay after their lives were turned upside down these past 15 months.

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2 hours ago, TeeRick said:

Cruise lines should learn from this and build new home ports in the Bahamas.  FL needs some competition.

Cough* Alabama, *cough. We are the closest to Cuba and some of the fastest TAT to international waters for gambling (though not faster than south Florida). We passed one of those silly laws about vaccine passports too, but believe me, you put an Oasis class ship at the cruise terminal and the exemptions to the law will come thick and fast...I'm not sure the ship can turn around in the turning basin, but that's the Corps problem 😀

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33 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

Cough* Alabama, *cough. We are the closest to Cuba and some of the fastest TAT to international waters for gambling (though not faster than south Florida). We passed one of those silly laws about vaccine passports too, but believe me, you put an Oasis class ship at the cruise terminal and the exemptions to the law will come thick and fast...I'm not sure the ship can turn around in the turning basin, but that's the Corps problem 😀

What about airline support?  

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3 minutes ago, Laurab23 said:

Send the ships to NY or NJ. We did 9 day cruises that were able to get to Bahamas and Bermuda.

 

Laura

We did a 9 day cruise to the Caribbean on Anthem of the Seas from Bayonne, NJ.  In early December.  It was just fine.  

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We did  the same  gen route on Silhouette(?) When she first came out..chilly  and a bit rough going down and back..

 

They had blankets out on deck instead of towels for thise cooler days and we returned to a bit of snow on the car and outdoor parking lot.  

 

Hope things work our for Florida ports! Would rather fly to Fla than drive to Bayonne from L I  NY

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5 hours ago, Denny01 said:

I know you really understand.  Galveston is 3+days criusing to San Juan,  San Juan is 3days from NYC, almost 3 days from NO, one way. So you’d be stuck with Mexico ports for NO and Galveston most of the time, and 10+N cruises if anywhere except Cozumel! 

 

No, FL has the hook on most all of the Caribbean cruising. And FL fully understands the business model they need to support and maintain. And are just waiting for the silliness to die down.

 

A politician’s ambitions are soooo much more important than doing their job properly. 

 

Den

NO politics please

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1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

We did a 9 day cruise to the Caribbean on Anthem of the Seas from Bayonne, NJ.  In early December.  It was just fine.  

I would love one of those!  10 hr drive to Bayonne. Not bad at all. 

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4 hours ago, TeeRick said:

What about airline support?  

Sshhh...If you build it they will come.

Actually we are about 1 year away from having our airport moved from its incredibly inconvenient location to the old Brookley Field where the Airbus assembly plant is. The new location is very convenient to the cruise terminal and to downtown as well as the Eastern Shore and Mississippi casinos. Downtown is where Mardi Gras is happening, and there are a few new hotels and many new restaurants. Obviously, I'm being facetious and we will be a drive-in cruise location for a very long time, but there is a good bit of potential there. We could become a much more attractive fly-in port than say Galveston with that long drive from Houston airports. I do think there are real issues with the size of ship that can get up the ship channel and turn around. Mobile used to do a lot of cruise ship refurbishing dry dock work - they would dry dock and stay 6-8 weeks replacing carpet and doing other maintenance - in the early 2000s, but I think a lot of the ships got too big to fit up the channel and turn.

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On 6/2/2021 at 9:03 AM, TeeRick said:

The posts from nocl and UnoriginalName address the herd immunity question of ch175 very well.


I agree, thanks for the well written responses.

 

The thing I struggle with is there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding the virus. It seems that I read a lot of “may” and “should” and “could” in scientific papers, and people tend to summarize and restate them as absolutes.

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1 minute ago, ch175 said:


I agree, thanks for the well written responses.

 

The thing I struggle with is there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding the virus. It seems that I read a lot of “may” and “should” and “could” in scientific papers, and people tend to summarize and restate them as absolutes.

Yes that is completely true.  It is very confusing to non-scientists.  In manuscripts the scientists will generally never offer absolute truths about anything in their discussion of the data - which appears sometimes as speculation and hesitancy.  It is an attempt to be balanced and careful.

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2 minutes ago, ch175 said:


I agree, thanks for the well written responses.

 

The thing I struggle with is there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding the virus. It seems that I read a lot of “may” and “should” and “could” in scientific papers, and people tend to summarize and restate them as absolutes.

Welcome to the interface of science and the media. Science knows that very little is absolute and scientists tend to use words and numbers very precisely - the media is looking for clicks and inflammatory headlines and simple explanations so they can move on to the next topic. The camps don't work well together.

 

The biggest unknown that keeps me up at night now is how long will immunity hold. The only people who have a reasonable idea right now are Pfizer, Moderna and the FDA. Pfizer and Moderna, as far as I know, have strong financial incentives to keep that data private as long as possible, at least until a booster is or isn't approved.

I also worry about my state where so many aren't vaccinated, but I've about moved to the side of that's their problem, can't fix stupid.

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20 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

Welcome to the interface of science and the media. Science knows that very little is absolute and scientists tend to use words and numbers very precisely - the media is looking for clicks and inflammatory headlines and simple explanations so they can move on to the next topic. The camps don't work well together.

 

The biggest unknown that keeps me up at night now is how long will immunity hold. The only people who have a reasonable idea right now are Pfizer, Moderna and the FDA. Pfizer and Moderna, as far as I know, have strong financial incentives to keep that data private as long as possible, at least until a booster is or isn't approved.

I also worry about my state where so many aren't vaccinated, but I've about moved to the side of that's their problem, can't fix stupid.

Pfizer announced (on April 1) the very positive antibody data after second dose - at 6 months.  Moderna followed shortly thereafter.  So will they announce 9 month data around July 1?  Everybody seems to think a 1 year booster will be required but based on what? Based on the practice with annual influenza vaccines stuck in everybody's mind as a relevant example? For a COVID vaccine booster it could be 9 months, 1 year, 2 years, never.    Unless a true vaccine-evading variant emerges.  And a variant booster is required.  Or a third shot of original vaccine to boost polyclonal antibodies to a level to take care of the variant.  All of this is so new that the upcoming data will be instructive.  That does not help with the vaccine-resistant folks out there.

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58 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Pfizer announced (on April 1) the very positive antibody data after second dose - at 6 months.  Moderna followed shortly thereafter.  So will they announce 9 month data around July 1?  Everybody seems to think a 1 year booster will be required but based on what? Based on the practice with annual influenza vaccines stuck in everybody's mind as a relevant example? For a COVID vaccine booster it could be 9 months, 1 year, 2 years, never.    Unless a true vaccine-evading variant emerges.  And a variant booster is required.  Or a third shot of original vaccine to boost polyclonal antibodies to a level to take care of the variant.  All of this is so new that the upcoming data will be instructive.  That does not help with the vaccine-resistant folks out there.

I'm assuming that some of their data will be packaged up with any FDA application for a booster shot. I'm also (and so are a lot of people) misusing the word booster - there may be a reformulated shot that addresses some of the variants which is a different thing than a true booster to bolster immunity or reinvigorate waning immunity if you will.

I'm in your camp, all the data I have seen plus my real world experience is that these shots are extraordinarily efficacious, even against variants, and any significant vaccine campaign, even in the face of wide spread virus will cause deaths, hospitalizations and cases to fall like a rock. I know that part of this is we still don't really know how much natural immunity developed, but it certainly acts like the herd immunity level is more like 60% vaccinated, rather than 90%. Here in AL, we are right above 25% vaccinated with that % concentrated in urban areas and older people, and we are close to functional herd immunity - I would guess at least 30% of the population had Covid, so that would put us in the ballpark of 60%. What's going to happen when people go inside for Christmas, I don't know, but there's no masking or social distancing now.

Some of the most interesting stuff I've seen recently is the studies that are starting with immunizing people with different vaccines and with different types of vaccines, including some that are targeted at increasing T-cell immunity (I"m not sure that one was at the human clinical trial stage). The premise makes a lot of sense and has some fascinating science.

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If there was any doubt about vaccines = tunnel light, this is an interesting data-manipulation presentation from the Washington Post.

 

Basically look at the covid rates without the vaccinated people in the calculation.   Rates are really low because vaccinated people simply aren't getting sick or dying, but non-vaccinated people still are.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2021/covid-rates-unvaccinated-people/

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On 6/3/2021 at 3:38 PM, TeeRick said:

We did a 9 day cruise to the Caribbean on Anthem of the Seas from Bayonne, NJ.  In early December.  It was just fine.  

Our first Celebrity cruise was in June of 1998 ,to Bermuda on the Horizon out of Philadelphia!  If I remember correctly, they only sailed from here a year or two, and while there was some discussion on dredging the river to allow larger ships, it never happened.

 

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2 hours ago, eas2225 said:

Our first Celebrity cruise was in June of 1998 ,to Bermuda on the Horizon out of Philadelphia!  If I remember correctly, they only sailed from here a year or two, and while there was some discussion on dredging the river to allow larger ships, it never happened.

 

Unfortunately no cruises out of Philadelphia for quite a few years.  It probably has something to do with the closure of the Navy shipyard years ago.

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12 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Unfortunately no cruises out of Philadelphia for quite a few years.  It probably has something to do with the closure of the Navy shipyard years ago.

I'm surprised Norfolk isn't a bigger cruise port.  

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On 6/4/2021 at 8:35 AM, cangelmd said:

I'm in your camp, all the data I have seen plus my real world experience is that these shots are extraordinarily efficacious

Spent the last week in Vegas.  No masks, 100 percent capacity.  Went to 2 shows, dinners out, a crowded Freemont street, full blackjack tables with people hanging over my shoulder for a spot to open up.  Average age seemed to be MUCH younger than usual- I would say 30 (?).  I really feel that if I didn't contract COVID then it is totally because of the vaccine.  My daughter isn't in the clear yet so I am going to get tested Tuesday so as not to need to wait 2 weeks.

 

M

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Canada allowing a different vaccine type for the second dose.  If AZ was the first shot, then an mRNA vaccine can be used for the second shot.  This is a likely scenario for the rest of world - ie, it will not matter which vaccine you get for a booster after AZ,  if eventually required.  In the USA, that might mean if you got the J&J vaccine and need a booster eventually, then an mRNA vaccine would be fine.  Of course the FDA will need to evaluate and approve the mix scenario.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/06/04/1002975563/want-to-mix-2-different-covid-19-vaccines-canada-is-fine-with-that

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