MSC resume cruising

[P&O SUE]

I’ve just popped over to the MSC  board and the first cruise finished on Sunday and the second cruise is underway. No bad news reported yet 👍🏻

[cruisenewbie1976]

21 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

I’ve just popped over to the MSC  board and the first cruise finished on Sunday and the second cruise is underway. No bad news reported yet 👍🏻

Someone will be looking for it as we speak 😉

[NSWP]

On 8/27/2020 at 10:06 PM, cruisenewbie1976 said:

Someone will be looking for it as we speak 😉

I hope there are no covid cases from recent MSC cruises but give it a couple of weeks for symptoms to emerge. Not my cup of tea, cruising with those restrictions, masks, distancing, shorex etc. Anyway time will tell.

Edited August 29, 2020 by NSWP

[ollienbertsmum]

On 8/26/2020 at 9:18 PM, molecrochip said:

If someone is symptomatic then they will be subject to a mandatory test. If they are confirmed by a PCR test, which can be done on board, their entire cabin will be isolated. Whilst they are awaiting their test result, they will remain in their cabin under similar rules to norovirus. Anyone who is identified as coming into contact with the infected individual, will be subject to a test, and asked to quarantine until the result is known. 

 

 

But the passengers in known contact (using the watch app or whatever other means of contact tracing) with the symptomatic person would have to isolate basically for the whole of their cruise.   A test on the day of contact is too early to say if they picked up the infection.   

 

I am not sure how it has worked on the Recent MSC cruise, but there will have to be cruises where passengers will have pretty dull trips.  

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, ollienbertsmum said:

 

But the passengers in known contact (using the watch app or whatever other means of contact tracing) with the symptomatic person would have to isolate basically for the whole of their cruise.   A test on the day of contact is too early to say if they picked up the infection.   

 

I am not sure how it has worked on the Recent MSC cruise, but there will have to be cruises where passengers will have pretty dull trips.  

That's not what Moley said, they would only need to self isolate until they have a test, and if negative they would be OK to resume normal activities.

[davecttr]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

That's not what Moley said, they would only need to self isolate until they have a test, and if negative they would be OK to resume normal activities.

How many days after infection will a test identify an infection? how reliable is that test? If a test is negative and the passenger is allowed to board or partake of the 'activities' they might have been infectious shortly after the negative test.

 

It only takes one to slip through the defence😕

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

That's not what Moley said, they would only need to self isolate until they have a test, and if negative they would be OK to resume normal activities.

The issue is that the tests, currently, are not sufficiently accurate. Once the testing regimes are sufficiently robust, then cruising may possibly start to resume.

But even then, how do you stop pax bringing CV19 back on board at a cruise stop? 

I can see cruises going ahead, but, at present, I can't see any pax being allowed off the ship. So, just cruises to nowhere.

[wowzz]

Dave - we have posted at the same time. Totally agree with you.

[davecttr]

Great minds etc😁  but in my case two and a half pints down the club. Only the seventh drink since March and a hangover tomorrow 🤢

[ollienbertsmum]

6 hours ago, davecttr said:

How many days after infection will a test identify an infection? how reliable is that test? If a test is negative and the passenger is allowed to board or partake of the 'activities' they might have been infectious shortly after the negative test.

 

It only takes one to slip through the defence😕

 

This is what I meant.  I have been through the process several times.  I keep testing negative BTW.  Why should a ship be different?

 

 If you are symptomatic and test negative, then you are OK to go back out because it is assumed that your symptoms are caused by something else.  

 

If you test positive whether you feel well or unwell you stay in isolation until  you are symptom-free and you test negative.   All your contacts need testing.  

 

If you are known to be in contact with a positive you are tested,  If you test positive all your contacts need testing. 

 

If you are a known contact and test negative you still need to be in self-isolation.  I think the length of time you are in self-isolation can depend on the type of test used.  Here they self-isolate you for 10 days [following UK protocol].

 

What is quite clear is that you cannot possibly be in contact with someone, test negative a couple of hours later and then rejoin the party without self-isolating to allow the infection time to develop,  That would be a public health disaster.  

 

It may well be that there are more expensive tests that can pick up the virus earlier so that the self-isolation can be shorter than 10 days.

[davecttr]

I think that MSC now test all passengers so someone who is infected but pre symptomatic may get a negative test result and you can be pre symptomatic for several days. The question is can you shed the virus with no symptoms? How often do you have to test given that the tests are not 100% accurate, maybe 75% to 80% accuracy for quick tests, and you need quick tests. Newer quick tests may have better accuracy. No way people are going to suffer daily swab tests, having a stick shoved up my nose is not my idea of fun.

 

The cruises running now are basically testing protocols and eventually there will be infection aboard. What a lot of people want to know is what really happens in that situation, My experience with 2 periods of cabin isolation on one cruise proved that these strict cleaning protocols etc were not effective because the cleaning crew did not clean the cabin properly.

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, davecttr said:

The cruises running now are basically testing protocols and eventually there will be infection aboard. What a lot of people want to know is what really happens in that situation

That's the $64,000 question.

PS How's the hangover?  

[Dermotsgirl]

10 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

That's not what Moley said, they would only need to self isolate until they have a test, and if negative they would be OK to resume normal activities.

I’ve just looked at current government advice for what to do if you have contact with someone who has CV.

 

It says that you should self isolate for 14 days. 
 

I can’t see why that should be any different on a cruise ship. In fact, it’s especially important on a cruise ship as it’s a closed community where viruses are easily spread.

Edited to add.  The government website goes on to say you should complete your 14 day isolation even if you have a negative test, as you could develop CV after the test 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Dermotsgirl

[AndyMichelle]

20 minutes ago, Dermotsgirl said:

 

Edited to add.  The government website goes on to say you should complete your 14 day isolation even if you have a negative test, as you could develop CV after the test 

Only if you are a 'contact'. 

My results said I could return to work straight away as I did not have the virus at the time of testing. No caveat that I might be in the early stages etc. 

Andy 

[Dermotsgirl]

Just now, AndyMichelle said:

Only if you are a 'contact'. 

My results said I could return to work straight away as I did not have the virus at the time of testing. No caveat that I might be in the early stages etc. 

Andy 

Yes indeed.

 

At the start of my post I mentioned that it was the government advice on what to do if you had been in contact with someone who had confirmed CV.

 

 

[terrierjohn]

10 hours ago, davecttr said:

How many days after infection will a test identify an infection? how reliable is that test? If a test is negative and the passenger is allowed to board or partake of the 'activities' they might have been infectious shortly after the negative test.

 

It only takes one to slip through the defence😕

....and once in every few thousand times you walk under a ladder something will fall on you.

[Adawn47]

19 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

....and once in every few thousand times you walk under a ladder something will fall on you.

Not happened to me yet John. Touch wood. 🤞 I'm not superstitious honest.😁

Avril

[Captain_Morgan]

3 hours ago, davecttr said:

I think that MSC now test all passengers so someone who is infected but pre symptomatic may get a negative test result and you can be pre symptomatic for several days. The question is can you shed the virus with no symptoms? How often do you have to test given that the tests are not 100% accurate, maybe 75% to 80% accuracy for quick tests, and you need quick tests. Newer quick tests may have better accuracy. No way people are going to suffer daily swab tests, having a stick shoved up my nose is not my idea of fun.

 

The cruises running now are basically testing protocols and eventually there will be infection aboard. What a lot of people want to know is what really happens in that situation, My experience with 2 periods of cabin isolation on one cruise proved that these strict cleaning protocols etc were not effective because the cleaning crew did not clean the cabin properly.

 

Completely agree!  MSC is effectively the 'canary in the coal mine' and will surely look to focus on the positive aspects of their protocols, not the positive results of tests.  This is not to say they won't have positive cases, but it will be how they and other companies handle those situations after embarkation as once you've left the berth is when the game truly begins.  Its all well and good to test on embarkation day but from my understanding the tests being used only confirm or deny whether you're positive at the time of being tested, (i.e. is there enough viral load to trigger a positive response) not whether you're recently infected and not yet past the threshold of triggering a positive test result.

 

As for the cleaning, again I agree as we've been on B2B cruises with different lines where there's been elevated levels of Noro onboard and despite all of the announcements being made and letters sent to rooms reminding people to wash their hands, etc. we didn't see any increase in actual cleaning being done onboard with the majority of times those tasked with cleaning just going through the motions.  I'm not saying this is as a blanket example for the industry but the Diamond Princess fiasco definitely showed a reckless approach IMO when it came to how to deal with an outbreak, especially when you consider how much spread continued after the fact that all of the passengers were supposed to be in quarantine.  Hopefully we don't see another outbreak on any ship, but i fear there will no doubt be some complacency in protocols over time driven by the need to make up for lost revenue.

[davecttr]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

....and once in every few thousand times you walk under a ladder something will fall on you.

But something falling on me does not potentially cause things to fall on other people, nor does it potentially kill other people

[ollienbertsmum]

5 hours ago, davecttr said:

I think that MSC now test all passengers so someone who is infected but pre symptomatic may get a negative test result and you can be pre symptomatic for several days. The question is can you shed the virus with no symptoms?

 

You can be more or less asymptomatic and still test positive.   I have heard of several people who only knew that they were positive through the track and trace.  They look back and say ‘oh that headache was not just another migraine’.  They would be leaving the virus all over.  

 

5 hours ago, davecttr said:

 

The cruises running now are basically testing protocols and eventually there will be infection aboard.

 Of course there will be. I hope it is better controlled than in February, but we have now got to the point that where there are humans, there will be COVID.  

5 hours ago, davecttr said:

 

My experience with 2 periods of cabin isolation on one cruise proved that these strict cleaning protocols etc were not effective because the cleaning crew did not clean the cabin properly.

 

Ouch - 2 periods of isolation.  I hope that you had a balcony.  

[Esprit]

13 minutes ago, ollienbertsmum said:

 

You can be more or less asymptomatic and still test positive.   I have heard of several people who only knew that they were positive through the track and trace.  They look back and say ‘oh that headache was not just another migraine’.  They would be leaving the virus all over.  

Friends of ours returned from France on Thursday and had the test on Friday. Positive results for both of them yesterday and neither had any Covid symptoms whatsoever!

[zap99]

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

....and once in every few thousand times you walk under a ladder something will fall on you.

Sometimes, maybe a piano, or even a safe. 😁

[zap99]

46 minutes ago, davecttr said:

But something falling on me does not potentially cause things to fall on other people, nor does it potentially kill other people

A seagull doing a poo can kill it. Especially if it does it on me.

[kalos]

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

....and once in every few thousand times you walk under a ladder something will fall on you.

 

Why on earth would anyone want to walk under a ladder a few thousand times ? 

Even if they did then they deserve something to fall on them .

They need a new hobby 

[davecttr]

2 hours ago, zap99 said:

A seagull doing a poo can kill it. Especially if it does it on me.

Can be good, I can't remember the port in Corsica but on entering the from ashore port a gull got a direct hit on the front of my shirt 😱 A nice uniformed French lady rushed out of her office with a roll of paper towel. That evening I could not stop winning in the casino 😁