Should Coronavirus Vaccination be Mandatory to Cruise?

[Cruzaholic41]

25 minutes ago, clo said:

Just curious. Are these your opinions? Do you have professional background in this realm? TIA.

He said IMO. IMO means In My Opinion. 🙄

[clo]

6 minutes ago, Cruzaholic41 said:

He said IMO. IMO means In My Opinion. 🙄

Guess I missed IMO. But there was a whole lot of arbitrary pronouncements.

[cruisemom42]

14 minutes ago, Cruzaholic41 said:

He said IMO. IMO means In My Opinion. 🙄

 

I think we need a new abbreviation: IMUO (In my unhinged opinion)

[clo]

3 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I think we need a new abbreviation: IMUO (In my unhinged opinion)

LAUGH. OUT. LOUD!  

 

I use IMneverHO but I may adopt yours!

[Cruzaholic41]

11 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I think we need a new abbreviation: IMUO (In my unhinged opinion)

Agreed. Lots of that lately on these boards. 

[ilikeanswers]

11 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

I think we need a new abbreviation: IMUO (In my unhinged opinion)

 

We should bring back this emoji:

[Hlitner]

6 hours ago, KnowTheScore said:

There is for me still so much uninformed narrative in this thread.   Some comments I've read:

 

 

This is a common misconception.  It's just not true.  NOTHING but nothing you do will prevent a virus getting to you unless you walk around in a Hazmat suit.   It needs to be understood that EVERYONE has the same chance of any given virus getting onto their hands or in their mouth.  It is what happens AFTER that point that vaccines and natural immunity affect.

The aim of a vaccine is to allow your body to mount a swift response WHEN THE VIRUS DOES enter your body. Which it STILL WILL DO at some point.

 

Please can we get this part understood.  Vaccines DO NOT prevent viruses getting into your body.  They are not a force shield.

 

 

 

I truly do not believe this for a second.  Everyone is at risk of picking up a virus from a surface or from the air whether they are vaccinated or not.   Once that happens there is a period of time where that person is contagious and can pass the virus to others by touching their mouth, touching surfaces etc.   Their bodies will then mount a response to the virus so that they will not suffer serious issues with it however THEY STILL DO HAVE THE VIRUS, it's just that your immune response is able to deal with it.  This being the case, with 1000s of people being in such confined shared spaces on a ship, the virus is still going to spread even if you have been vaccinated.

 

I want to iterate again that being vaccinated DOES NOT stop you from carrying and spreading the virus to others.   A kid who had the MMR vaccine still carried mumps from the UK to the USA and sparked an outbreak there.  Source:

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/08/mumps.outbreak.northeast/index.html

 

He was fully vaccinated yet still carried mumps and spread it to others.

 

In fact scientists have now identified very serious risks with any vaccines that contain LIVE virus rather than inactivated virus.   Those vaccinated are known to spread virus for up to 2 weeks after their shots.

 

Thus, the very opposite of what people generally think about vaccines on cruise ships is actually true.

 

If the vaccine that gets the green light contains LIVE virus then those people will be shedding COVID for up to 2 weeks after their shots which could be utterly disastrous if they stepped on board a cruise ship.  They would shed it in their urine, in their faeces, and elsewhere.  COVID would spread just as Norovirus does.

 

So actually having lots of recently vaccinated passengers on board could be an absolute recipe for disaster and would certainly not be a holiday I would want to take.  It's already bad enough in the UK with kids getting nasal flu shots which contain LIVE virus and then shedding flu virus around for 1-2 weeks.

 

 

 

As covered above, these statements are simply not true and very likely the complete reverse would be true if the vaccine contains LIVE virus.   It would be YOU the vaccinated person putting the rest of us at risk.

 

My personal opinion is that those people who insist on getting vaccinations that contain LIVE virus should be mandatory isolated and quarantined at home for a period of no less than 2 weeks to protect the rest of society.     No-one should be allowed to step on a ship if they have been vaccinated with live virus in the 2 weeks prior to sailing imo.

 

 

I will make one final point which concerns immunity.

 

It is utterly nonsensical to suggest that those who are vaccinated have any better immunity from COVID than those who have had actually COVID.   Natural immunity is always better than vaccine derived immunity imo.  In either case it is your own body mounting the immune response, not a vaccine. 

 

Therefore if anything is going to be mandated for cruising it MUST take account of people who have had COVID.  If you need a certificate to prove you've been vaccinated then you should also be able to get a certificate to say you've had COVID and thus equally have immunity and therefore don't need to be vaccinated.    Anything else is a blatant abuse of Pharma power to sell vaccines imo.

 

 

I will leave any arguments about weakened live viruses to others,  But in the case of COVID, all the viruses currently in Phase 3 and most others under earlier stages of development do not use live virus but rather a piece of the virus such as a protein or a genetic code (like a designer drug) so these vaccines could not possibly cause somebody to get COVID.  Or course the question for which we all await the answer is whether any of these vaccine are safe/effective  

 

You also raise a good point is how does one prove they have been vaccinated or have immunity from a previous bout with COVID.  To prove one has had a vaccination there would need to be some type of documentation (there are several good options including the basic ole shot record).  For those who claim to have immunity from a previous bout they could prove their case with documentation of an acceptable antibody test.

 

But lets be clear that no system is perfect...but perfection is usually not necessary.  The idea is to substantially reduce the risk (not necessarily eliminate all risk).   So, for example, even countries that still demand proof of valid Yellow Fever Vaccination (I mentioned this in another post) do make exceptions for those with valid medical excuses that preclude taking the vaccine.  Although this means that the person still is at risk to be a carrier of Yellow Fever, most (perhaps all) countries are willing to accept that slight risk from a few souls.  

 

We have heard your kind of arguments for years in regard to Flu shots.  But while mandating flu shots would not completely eliminate the risk of the flu it would likely save over 30,000 lives a year just in the USA and mitigate millions of lost work days that cost the economy Billions of dollars every year.  And before you raise the issue the various flu vaccines do not contain live virus.  I mention the flu vaccine because I believe it should also be mandated for cruisers and flyers.

 

Hank

 

Hank

[d9704011]

5 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Although this means that the person still is at risk to be a carrier of Yellow Fever, most (perhaps all) countries are willing to accept that slight risk from a few souls.

I’m no expert on YF, virology, epidemiology, vaccinations or anything of that ilk but I do have an uneasy sense that the measures that have been taken worldwide related to the transmission of yellow fever and cited as something that could or should be adopted for CV-19 control are not quite equivalent.  Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t YF transmitted by infected mosquitoes?

[navybankerteacher]

28 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

I’m no expert on YF, virology, epidemiology, vaccinations or anything of that ilk but I do have an uneasy sense that the measures that have been taken worldwide related to the transmission of yellow fever and cited as something that could or should be adopted for CV-19 control are not quite equivalent.  Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t YF transmitted by infected mosquitoes?

Yes - and the mosquitoes get “infected” by picking up the YF from infected people and pass it on to other, uninflected, people.  I am not aware of whether or not the mosquitoes themselves suffer any symptoms or are merely unimpacted vectors.

[Hlitner]

4 hours ago, d9704011 said:

I’m no expert on YF, virology, epidemiology, vaccinations or anything of that ilk but I do have an uneasy sense that the measures that have been taken worldwide related to the transmission of yellow fever and cited as something that could or should be adopted for CV-19 control are not quite equivalent.  Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t YF transmitted by infected mosquitoes?

Yep.  I only mentioned YF because the vaccine is still required by certain countries (and cruises that go to those countries).  For those of us old enough to remember, there was a time when a Smallpox vaccination certificate was required for travelers to many parts of the world.  And my arms still ache when I recall my stint in the USAF when I had many different vaccines (often given at the same time in both arms) so as to be ready to go anywhere in the world on moments notice.  My least favorite was the Cholera shot which actually hurt and had to be boosted every 6 months!  

 

But my point is that it would be nothing new for countries to impose a COVID-19 vaccine requirement.  What would be new (and I think a good idea) would also be for some other institutions (such as airlines, cruise ships, stadiums, etc) to also require mandatory vaccinations for highly contagious diseases.  It never made sense to me when we required certain shots for schools but not for other institutions.  What COVID has done is make much of the public aware of the high cost of contagious diseases....an issue ignored by many until this pandemic.  I am somewhat of a libertarian and do not like the idea of the government forcing folks to get shots.  But requiring shots as a requirement for entry to certain institutions (such as an airline) does give folks a choice.   The world managed to wipe out Smallpox through an international vaccination program (mandated by many countries).  Perhaps that should be a model used for other contagious diseases.

 

Hank

[iancal]

It will be a mute point if countries insist on covid vaccination certificates in order to be admitted.  No different than a visa requirement.   

[Toofarfromthesea]

18 hours ago, 2wheelin said:

That is what the headlines would have people believe, and most do. But the article in our paper with the headline that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally caused 260,000 cases contained these details. That number was arrived at by a study which tracked phone data and all the subsequent positive cases in the resident counties of attendees were attributed to them, even if they hadn’t yet returned home. The article goes on to give actual numbers attained through competent contact tracing. When I add those up from the individual states, it came to 287 cases almost a month after the rally ended. Off by a factor of 1000 but a great sensational headline to get people up in arms. We need to blame someone.!!!

 

And the "study" wasn't even done by people who know anything about public health.  It was done by 4 economists.  But that didn't keep it from being splashed all over the media.

 

[Toofarfromthesea]

12 hours ago, clo said:

LAUGH. OUT. LOUD!  

 

I use IMneverHO but I may adopt yours!

 

See, there it is, exactly what you claimed you didn't do.  Hating on people who don't follow your version of the one and only way to live.

[Toofarfromthesea]

Yellow fever is an inapt comparison.  It has a base mortality rate of 15%.  It doesn't mutate.

Arguing that we should get the COVID vaccine (mortality rate under 1%) because we get the yellow fever vaccine (mortality rate of 15%) kind of ignores the risk part of the risk-reward equation.

[clo]

8 minutes ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

 

See, there it is, exactly what you claimed you didn't do.  Hating on people who don't follow your version of the one and only way to live.

I think you meant to reply to @cruisemom42 . I was just admiring her creativity.

[Hlitner]

6 minutes ago, Toofarfromthesea said:

Yellow fever is an inapt comparison.  It has a base mortality rate of 15%.  It doesn't mutate.

Arguing that we should get the COVID vaccine (mortality rate under 1%) because we get the yellow fever vaccine (mortality rate of 15%) kind of ignores the risk part of the risk-reward equation.

Well, then you can choose your own disease for comparison :).  Perhaps you prefer smallpox (which I also mentioned).  The issues with COVID actually transcend the mortality rate.  We still do not have a handle on the related ongoing morbidity issues (which will likely exceed the mortality rate by a large multipler).  And the cost to the world economy is so big that it will likely be many years until the full impact can be analyzed.   Do you think that the world airlines, cruise lines, restaurants, etc. would support a vaccination program/requirement that might keep them in business?

 

Hank

[sanger727]

28 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

Cochrane's systematic reviews of the Flu vaccines

 

28 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

 

 

As for the effectiveness of Flu shots that again is a debate that most pro-vaccine people don't want to have because Cochrane's systematic reviews of the Flu vaccines concluded that:

 

"71 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to prevent one of them experiencing influenza, and 29 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to prevent one of them experiencing an ILI"

 

 

On that basis no, I can't see any justification whatsoever for mandating flu vaccines for cruisers.  Doing so would be patently absurd.

 

 

You skipped over the rest of that paragraph that said "Inactivated influenza vaccines probably reduce influenza in healthy adults from 2.3% without vaccination to 0.9%". So, still a 40% reduction in people catching the flu. Not great, not terrible. 

 

You also skipped over the other two studies involving elderly and children that were much more dramatic:

 

live attenuated influenza vaccines probably reduce the risk of influenza infection in children aged 3 to 16 years from 18% to 4%

 

Older adults receiving the influenza vaccine may experience less influenza over a single season compared with placebo, from 6% to 2.4%

 

So, 80% reduction in children, 40% reduction in health adults, and 60% reduction in the elderly... appears the flu shot does do something. 

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by sanger727

[KnowTheScore]

15 minutes ago, sanger727 said:

 

 

You skipped over the rest of that paragraph that said "Inactivated influenza vaccines probably reduce influenza in healthy adults from 2.3% without vaccination to 0.9%". So, still a 40% reduction in people catching the flu. Not great, not terrible.

 

 

It's a sleight of hand misrepresentation of numbers I'm afraid.   It's actually just a reduction in percentage points of 1.4%

 

Essentially it is saying that without vaccination 23 people in every 1000 will get Flu.   With vaccination only 9 people in every 1000 will get flu.   The difference is just 14 people in a 1000 which is not much at all.

[sanger727]

6 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

 

It's a sleight of hand misrepresentation of numbers I'm afraid.   It's actually just a reduction in percentage points of 1.4%

 

Essentially it is saying that without vaccination 23 people in every 1000 will get Flu.   With vaccination only 9 people in every 1000 will get flu.   The difference is just 14 people in a 1000 which is not much at all.

 

Still skipping over the 14% of children and 3.6% of the elderly who are in fact the most at risk of having serious consequences from the flu

[ontheweb]

39 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

 

It's a sleight of hand misrepresentation of numbers I'm afraid.   It's actually just a reduction in percentage points of 1.4%

 

Essentially it is saying that without vaccination 23 people in every 1000 will get Flu.   With vaccination only 9 people in every 1000 will get flu.   The difference is just 14 people in a 1000 which is not much at all.

Though it is a lot for those 14 people and anyone they might spread it to.

[sverigecruiser]

2 hours ago, Hlitner said:

  Do you think that the world airlines, cruise lines, restaurants, etc. would support a vaccination program/requirement that might keep them in business?

 

 

Lots of countries probably have laws not allowing that. I know for sure that a restaurant here can't say that their guests need to show proof of vaccination.

 

My opinion is that someone who owns a restaurant shall have the right to decide that but that is not the case here.

 

It's the same with cruiselines. If they want to have some kind of vaccination requirements they should be allowed to, I think.  

 

I hate that many shops and restaurants are cashfree here, because I want to decide how I shall pay, but I still think that the owners shall have the right to be cashfree. I don't need to go there. 

Edited September 21, 2020 by sverigecruiser

[Hlitner]

15 minutes ago, sverigecruiser said:

 

Lots of countries probably have laws not allowing that. I know for sure that a restaurant here can't say that their guests need to show proof of vaccination.

 

My opinion is that someone who owns a restaurant shall have the right to decide that but that is not the case here.

 

It's the same with cruiselines. If they want to have some kind of vaccination requirements they should be allowed to, I think.  

 

I hate that many shops and restaurants are cashfree here, because I want to decide how I shall pay, but I still think that the owners shall have the right to be cashfree. I don't need to go there. 

 We have visited your country a few times and always had an enjoyable time.  Your "cashless" society is interesting since I find it strange to use a card even for a cup of coffee.  We had one strange experience when we visited the Museum of Fine Art in Gothenburg.  DW had a large purse which she was not permitted to carry in the museum so we needed to get one of the lockers located at the main atrium.  The lockers required a Swedish coin to activate the lock and remove the key, but we had no krona.  So I walked over to the main information desk and they quickly "loaned" us a coin and requested that I later return it because they were also running out of coins.  We all had a good laugh.  We do look forward to returning to Sweden sometime in the future.

 

Hank
 

[Charles4515]

 Your "cashless" society is interesting since I find it strange to use a card even for a cup of coffee. 

 

 

Most places here in the DC area don’t want cash in the age of Covid. I don’t use cash for a cup of coffee. Most of my payments are contactless. Some with a credit card but I use Apple Pay on an Apple Watch at most places. Just a tap. At the grocery store I shop at they won’t take cash at most registers. The merchants are discouraging cash and I prefer contactless payments too. Except barbers. Barbers traditionally around here don’t have credit card terminals and only take cash. That has not changed even with Covid. My guess is the barbershops are renting barbers a chair and taxes are not being reported.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Toofarfromthesea]

1 hour ago, KnowTheScore said:

 

It's a sleight of hand misrepresentation of numbers I'm afraid.   It's actually just a reduction in percentage points of 1.4%

 

Essentially it is saying that without vaccination 23 people in every 1000 will get Flu.   With vaccination only 9 people in every 1000 will get flu.   The difference is just 14 people in a 1000 which is not much at all.

 

Yup, it is the same technique that is used to pump up the danger of something.  For example, the total risk of death for a male aged 65 (using the Social Security US life table) is 0.016.  According to the CDC, 25% of deaths at ages 65 and above are due to heart disease.  So the risk of a 65 year old male dying of a heart attack is 0.004.  Now we see the headline - doing XXX will increase your chances of dying of a heart attack by 20%!  If true, that increases the .004 chance of dying of a heart attack to .0048, an increase of .0008.  But hey, 20%!!!  

[navybankerteacher]

1 hour ago, KnowTheScore said:

 

It's a sleight of hand misrepresentation of numbers I'm afraid.   It's actually just a reduction in percentage points of 1.4%

 

Essentially it is saying that without vaccination 23 people in every 1000 will get Flu.   With vaccination only 9 people in every 1000 will get flu.   The difference is just 14 people in a 1000 which is not much at all.

That “just 14 people in a 1000” which you dismiss as “not much at all”  works out to about 49,000,000 people when applied to the US population.  Even if we consider just the roughly half of the population which does not now get immunized, we are talking about 24,500,000 people - or, given the roughly 1% mortality rate, 24,500 human US lives per year;  not to mention the costs in treatment and lost man hours.

 

Frankly, I think you should reconsider your Cruise Critic user name.