Anyone else just giving up on a cruise for a while?

[Bo1953]

13 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

It's very insulting to word it that way - "living in fear in our basement".  Many people on these boards are at high risk - age, underlying conditions, etc..  They may very well need to "lose a year" of their lives in order to continue living at all!  I personally know someone who has died from the virus, as well as a couple people who have spent weeks in the hospital suffering severely.  Do what you want with cruising, but in the future please consider your wording as not everyone is dealing with the same issues as you are (or are not).

Actually, I view it as potentially 'gaining a year' by undertaking precautions.

 

I have had one (1) employee die from C-19 and two (2) others who were incapacitated for almost eight (8) weeks, this is no joke. All healthy with no underlying health conditions.

 

While I do want to return cruising ASAP, I fully intend to take all precautions and then some as dictated by X and CLIA... if that means I need to take meals in my cabin, so be it... at least I Am sailing and doing my best to enjoy.

 

YET, those who are dining out currently and have not had any health issues, I support their continuing to do so, without question.

 

As you indicate, there are a few, of us here, who need to be more cautious than others and this is not an indictment of those who are successfully returning to their former normal as that is what we all want, to some greater degree for sure.

 

bon appetite and bon voyage

[NCHPcruiser]

For my husband and I and our children it has definitely not been a “lost year” and we are not living in fear.  There have actually been a few positives to emerge and we have chosen to concentrate on those.    It basically is a “lost year” for my 87 year old active parents.  I am glad they are being as cautious as they are.  I want them to be around as long as possible but they are definitely paying a high price.  

 

We were on one of the last cruises before cruising ceased and for the first time in many years only had land trips planned for the remainder of 2020 and 2021.  Our next cruise (Japan) booked while on our last cruise is not until April 2022.   The trip to the Baltic’s/Russia and African safari have been cancelled substituted with a trip to Hawaii planned for next March (assuming they are open).  

 

Stay safe everyone!  

 

[DaCruiseBug]

10 hours ago, LGW59 said:

Dear Arm Chair Doc DaCruiseBug...funny you say, I just got off the phone with Tom Brady, told him how he needs to improve his passing ratio v his mistake on Sunday...work on the accuracy, that's plenty.  Sheesh, really!!!!

 

Nothing armchair about it. Now that healthcare providers have a better knowledge on how to treat Covid you're seeing a much smaller death rate as well as a much smaller number of patients in ICUs.

 

At this point the reason why all these restrictions are happening is just political pandering.

[phoenix_dream]

59 minutes ago, DaCruiseBug said:

 

Nothing armchair about it. Now that healthcare providers have a better knowledge on how to treat Covid you're seeing a much smaller death rate as well as a much smaller number of patients in ICUs.

 

At this point the reason why all these restrictions are happening is just political pandering.

I suspect my friend, whose mother died just a few weeks ago of Covid, would strongly disagree with you.  

[nocl]

2 hours ago, DaCruiseBug said:

 

Nothing armchair about it. Now that healthcare providers have a better knowledge on how to treat Covid you're seeing a much smaller death rate as well as a much smaller number of patients in ICUs.

 

At this point the reason why all these restrictions are happening is just political pandering.

the mortality rates are down about 30% as a result of better under standing of the virus. Still multiples of the flu.

 

There are still numerous impacts upon survivors other than death. Including neurological impacts, heart damage, lung damage, impacts of clots, etc. Then you have the long haulers, many of which had minor cases, where they are unable to perform many formerly normal tasks months after contracting the illness.

 

Death is not the only impact.

[2Long2NxtCrz]

44 minutes ago, nocl said:

the mortality rates are down about 30% as a result of better under standing of the virus. Still multiples of the flu.

 

There are still numerous impacts upon survivors other than death. Including neurological impacts, heart damage, lung damage, impacts of clots, etc. Then you have the long haulers, many of which had minor cases, where they are unable to perform many formerly normal tasks months after contracting the illness.

 

Death is not the only impact.

I can attest to that.  I have a dear, dear friend who is only 31 and she has been severely impacted by multiple issues since contracting COVID in March.  I fear she will be permanently disabled by this.  It is not a binary problem and there is not nearly enough attention being given to the "long haulers".  I know that's because we're still fighting to keep people from dying, but the misinformation and the lack of clear, scientific knowledge surrounding something that is truly life altering is very sad.

[elaineb]

14 hours ago, DaCruiseBug said:

The reality is that you're just as likely to get Covid at the grocery store as you are anywhere else. Wearing a mask helps but when everyone is touching everything it sort of defeats the purpose.

 

More important than a vaccine is a cure. Once we have a well established cure in place and readily available it will be just another version of the flu. Even now, we're seeing death rates around 1-2%. Countries in Europe like Italy are at 0.6% mortality rate.

 

Work on increasing the accuracy of those 15 minute Covid tests and make everyone take one before they get on the ship. That's plenty.

Actually your death rate % is incorrect.  In the US, 7,950,000 cases and 217,000 deaths.  That makes a death rate of 2.7%.

[DaCruiseBug]

2 minutes ago, elaineb said:

Actually your death rate % is incorrect.  In the US, 7,950,000 cases and 217,000 deaths.  That makes a death rate of 2.7%.

 

You're looking at the overall death rate from when the virus first hit. When most people weren't even being tested. As my post says, now that healthcare providers have a better understanding of how to treat Covid, and now that there's widespread testing for anyone...the death rate is much lower. Yesterday we had 60,000 cases and 970 Covid "related" deaths which means a 1.6% mortality rate, and the day before that we had 51,000 cases with 840 deaths which also means a 1.6% mortality rate. In countries like Italy the death rate was over 15% in the Spring and today is under 1%. Today they had 8,800 cases and 83 deaths.

[DaCruiseBug]

2 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

I suspect my friend, whose mother died just a few weeks ago of Covid, would strongly disagree with you.  

I know people who have passed that had Covid. None of them died just because they had Covid. All had several other major issues which caused hospitalizations in the past.

 

We lost up to 60,000 per year because of the Flu and nobody even blinked twice. Per the CDC only 6% of the reported deaths were strictly due to Covid and not some other contributing factor. We can (and should) all go back to our normal lives and wear masks in public, while also separating the general population from the high risk population. Imposing these strict restrictions on everyone causes more harm then good. 

[LGW59]

2 minutes ago, DaCruiseBug said:

I know people who have passed that had Covid. None of them died just because they had Covid. All had several other major issues which caused hospitalizations in the past.

 

We lost up to 60,000 per year because of the Flu and nobody even blinked twice. Per the CDC only 6% of the reported deaths were strictly due to Covid and not some other contributing factor. We can (and should) all go back to our normal lives and wear masks in public, while also separating the general population from the high risk population. Imposing these strict restrictions on everyone causes more harm then good. 

🥶

[nocl]

54 minutes ago, elaineb said:

Actually your death rate % is incorrect.  In the US, 7,950,000 cases and 217,000 deaths.  That makes a death rate of 2.7%.

Not quite. That assumes everyone that has the illness gets tested and is reflected in the stats.. Current antibody studies indicate that the scope of infection is somewhere around 3 to 5X of the positive tested population tested population which would put mortality somewhere in the .54% to .9%. Which is similar to the estimates of several medical organizations.

[grandgeezer]

45 minutes ago, DaCruiseBug said:

I know people who have passed that had Covid. None of them died just because they had Covid. All had several other major issues which caused hospitalizations in the past.

 

We lost up to 60,000 per year because of the Flu and nobody even blinked twice. Per the CDC only 6% of the reported deaths were strictly due to Covid and not some other contributing factor. We can (and should) all go back to our normal lives and wear masks in public, while also separating the general population from the high risk population. Imposing these strict restrictions on everyone causes more harm then good. 

 Tell the whole story, not just the part that may or may not support your stance. According to the CDC, 34,000 people died of the flu last year, previous conditions were not even mentioned. They also said that 45% of adults don't get the flu shot. How many of those deaths could have been prevented with the shot and how many deaths could have been due to preconditions made worse by the flu? The CDC is concerned about the lack of people getting their flu shots.

How many of the people with preconditions would still be alive if they didn't contact the virus?

If or when there is an effective vaccine maybe the comparison can be apples vs apples, now it's apples vs peas.  

 

[LGW59]

8 minutes ago, nocl said:

Not quite. That assumes everyone that has the illness gets tested and is reflected in the stats.. Current antibody studies indicate that the scope of infection is somewhere around 3 to 5X of the positive tested population tested population which would put mortality somewhere in the .54% to .9%. Which is similar to the estimates of several medical organizations.

You need to go back into the freezer, you're not quite cold enough 🥶

[nocl]

51 minutes ago, DaCruiseBug said:

I know people who have passed that had Covid. None of them died just because they had Covid. All had several other major issues which caused hospitalizations in the past.

 

We lost up to 60,000 per year because of the Flu and nobody even blinked twice. Per the CDC only 6% of the reported deaths were strictly due to Covid and not some other contributing factor. We can (and should) all go back to our normal lives and wear masks in public, while also separating the general population from the high risk population. Imposing these strict restrictions on everyone causes more harm then good. 

You use of the state data is wrong in so many ways. The Covid data is from the multiple cause of death database (the CDC Wonder system). When deaths are reported it includes contributing causes. If someone is perfectly healthy then catches covid and develops pneumonia the death certificate will list both, if some hase covid and as a result develops blood clots and has a stroke it will list both. the database exists because it gives important medical data on how diseases progress and impacts the body.

 

In the case of covid the virus itself does not kill someone, the virus causes a reaction that impacts one or more of the bodies systems and causes failures of those systems. It could be heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, etc. as a result every properly reported death by covid should show multiple causes. the virus and whatever the failure it caused. if anything the 6 percent that only list covid, indicate a lack of complete reporting since they do not indicate the specific system covid caused to fail.

[LGW59]

1 minute ago, nocl said:

You use of the state data is wrong in so many ways. The Covid data is from the multiple cause of death database (the CDC Wonder system). When deaths are reported it includes contributing causes. If someone is perfectly healthy then catches covid and develops pneumonia the death certificate will list both, if some hase covid and as a result develops blood clots and has a stroke it will list both. the database exists because it gives important medical data on how diseases progress and impacts the body.

 

In the case of covid the virus itself does not kill someone, the virus causes a reaction that impacts one or more of the bodies systems and causes failures of those systems. It could be heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, etc. as a result every properly reported death by covid should show multiple causes. the virus and whatever the failure it caused. if anything the 6 percent that only list covid, indicate a lack of complete reporting since they do not indicate the specific system covid caused to fail.

So when a healthy person gets COVID, and it cause heart or lung damage and the person dies, yes heart failure etc, but COVID was THE cause.  Are you wearing your lab coat!

[nocl]

1 hour ago, DaCruiseBug said:

 

You're looking at the overall death rate from when the virus first hit. When most people weren't even being tested. As my post says, now that healthcare providers have a better understanding of how to treat Covid, and now that there's widespread testing for anyone...the death rate is much lower. Yesterday we had 60,000 cases and 970 Covid "related" deaths which means a 1.6% mortality rate, and the day before that we had 51,000 cases with 840 deaths which also means a 1.6% mortality rate. In countries like Italy the death rate was over 15% in the Spring and today is under 1%. Today they had 8,800 cases and 83 deaths.

for one thing Italy tends to have more complete testing than the US so fewer undocumented cases that don't make it I to there states.

Edited October 15, 2020 by nocl

[nocl]

Just now, LGW59 said:

So when a healthy person gets COVID, and it cause heart or lung damage and the person dies, yes heart failure etc, but COVID was THE cause.  Are you wearing your lab coat!

that is what I said. along with a description of how the wonder system works and why multiple causes are reported.

 

not since I retired. but did quite a bit during  10+ years at FDA and in the pharmaceutical industry.

[nocl]

1 hour ago, DaCruiseBug said:

 

You're looking at the overall death rate from when the virus first hit. When most people weren't even being tested. As my post says, now that healthcare providers have a better understanding of how to treat Covid, and now that there's widespread testing for anyone...the death rate is much lower. Yesterday we had 60,000 cases and 970 Covid "related" deaths which means a 1.6% mortality rate, and the day before that we had 51,000 cases with 840 deaths which also means a 1.6% mortality rate. In countries like Italy the death rate was over 15% in the Spring and today is under 1%. Today they had 8,800 cases and 83 deaths.

the mortality rate from the flu is about .1%. About 1/5 to 1/9 that of Covid. the flu does not have the other long lasting impacts we see with Covid.

 

Also we know, no matter how bad a flu season is it will end in the spring and the flu cases will end, until the new flu season.

 

With covid we know that it spread quite effectively year round and the number of infections, if left on it's own will continue to growth along with the corresponding deaths at atleast 5X that of the flu without flu self limiting end of season behavior.

[cangelmd]

1 hour ago, elaineb said:

Actually your death rate % is incorrect.  In the US, 7,950,000 cases and 217,000 deaths.  That makes a death rate of 2.7%.

 

14 minutes ago, nocl said:

Not quite. That assumes everyone that has the illness gets tested and is reflected in the stats.. Current antibody studies indicate that the scope of infection is somewhere around 3 to 5X of the positive tested population tested population which would put mortality somewhere in the .54% to .9%. Which is similar to the estimates of several medical organizations.

The most recent estimates I’ve seen out of the CDC and other medical resources that I can follow show the actual death rate to be about 0.6-0.7%. Perhaps more importantly these estimates have been done across the country in various populations with slightly different methodologies, and the results are moving in closer and closer agreement. At this point, the death rate can continue to slowly decline, but is unlikely to significantly increase unless something drastic changes with the virus. In the 2018-19 flu season, the estimated death rate was about 0.1%, if my calculation is correct. It wasn’t a particularly bad flu season with reasonable efficacy of vaccines. 
I do not want to minimize anyone’s death or suffering, but considering that this a novel virus that at one point we thought there was no natural immunity against, a 0.7% death rate is not as bad as we thought. Even a partially efficacious vaccine used in the right populations could bring that rate down to a flu rate - a bad flu season might easily have 3-5 times the number of deaths.

[LGW59]

2 minutes ago, Dwight1 said:

I agree, and I am 68 but in excellent shape and love cruising but 2021 doesn’t look good or safe- at least the first half. Most states have their virus rates going up, even here in Virginia where it’s been decent and it’s only mid October! What going to happen the next few months based on the escalation in the last month doesn’t look promising at all. The mid year widely available vaccines will be the only solution.


Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Same here in MA, 25 of our cities/towns have been moved back to the red zone.  Mayor of Boston warned today that if it continues because of lax fools, he will consider closing the city again.  

[DaCruiseBug]

27 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

 

The most recent estimates I’ve seen out of the CDC and other medical resources that I can follow show the actual death rate to be about 0.6-0.7%. Perhaps more importantly these estimates have been done across the country in various populations with slightly different methodologies, and the results are moving in closer and closer agreement. At this point, the death rate can continue to slowly decline, but is unlikely to significantly increase unless something drastic changes with the virus. In the 2018-19 flu season, the estimated death rate was about 0.1%, if my calculation is correct. It wasn’t a particularly bad flu season with reasonable efficacy of vaccines. 
I do not want to minimize anyone’s death or suffering, but considering that this a novel virus that at one point we thought there was no natural immunity against, a 0.7% death rate is not as bad as we thought. Even a partially efficacious vaccine used in the right populations could bring that rate down to a flu rate - a bad flu season might easily have 3-5 times the number of deaths.

 

There's also a study that came out of the Indiana University School of Medicine which showed a death rate of 0.26%. Their sample was a bit smaller and limited to the state of Indiana but this spring everyone was talking about millions of deaths and a 10% mortality rate but we know that it's much much lower then that

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/26/what-is-the-death-rate-for-covid-19-coronavirus-what-this-study-found/#32ff181c5c46

 

There are some unanswered questions about any long lasting effects and obviously i'm not trying to undermine those or anyone that has passed because of Covid but as with everything...there has to be a balanced approach to things. If we locked everyone up in their home and nobody could leave or interact with anyone then we'd drop down to nearly 0 deaths but that's not a plausible solution.

[LGW59]

4 minutes ago, DaCruiseBug said:

 

There's also a study that came out of the Indiana University School of Medicine which showed a death rate of 0.26%. Their sample was a bit smaller and limited to the state of Indiana but this spring everyone was talking about millions of deaths and a 10% mortality rate but we know that it's much much lower then that

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/26/what-is-the-death-rate-for-covid-19-coronavirus-what-this-study-found/#32ff181c5c46

 

There are some unanswered questions about any long lasting effects and obviously i'm not trying to undermine those or anyone that has passed because of Covid but as with everything...there has to be a balanced approach to things. If we locked everyone up in their home and nobody could leave or interact with anyone then we'd drop down to nearly 0 deaths but that's not a plausible solution.

Why is it not?  It worked in Wuhan, China.

[phoenix_dream]

9 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

Why is it not?  It worked in Wuhan, China.

For one thing, managing an outbreak in a Communist country where only the government has any human rights is way different than any other free country.  I also don't know how our economy could survive if we were to take such strict measures at this time, so far into the virus timeline.  And I was intrigued by your comment so did some Google searching.  A number of their experts are predicting that another wave this winter is "inevitable" .  So they may have been able to contain it for awhile, but it is definitely still a threat.

[nocl]

56 minutes ago, DaCruiseBug said:

 

There's also a study that came out of the Indiana University School of Medicine which showed a death rate of 0.26%. Their sample was a bit smaller and limited to the state of Indiana but this spring everyone was talking about millions of deaths and a 10% mortality rate but we know that it's much much lower then that

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/26/what-is-the-death-rate-for-covid-19-coronavirus-what-this-study-found/#32ff181c5c46

 

There are some unanswered questions about any long lasting effects and obviously i'm not trying to undermine those or anyone that has passed because of Covid but as with everything...there has to be a balanced approach to things. If we locked everyone up in their home and nobody could leave or interact with anyone then we'd drop down to nearly 0 deaths but that's not a plausible solution.

there are a couple of issues with the study. First it was relatively early in the outbreak and the denominator was based upon antibody tests. As with several other studies made during a time when disease incidence was low, the false positive in antibody studies can through off the numbers quite s bit. if your population has an incidence rate of 2% and your test false positive rate is 5% (not uncommon for antibody tests).

It can through the numbers off quite a bit.

 

Second it eliminates any institutionalized cases. which as the study says is 50% of the cases.

 

Combine those two facts alone and the results are at least in the .7 range. Similar to what others have stated.

 

but let's do a quick exercise using the. .26% number. considering that covid continues to infect year round and that there are already cases of reinfection  some being worse then the original. 

 

In a situation where this remains uncontrolled, and you seem to be advocating for no restrictions, so it would be pretty incontrolled.

 

Then using your .23% number that would result in:

 

230,000 at 100 million

460,000 at 200 million

690,000 at 300 million

 

real numbers from total population are around 3 times that leading to around 2 million at that time, and with no controls it would eventually get there

 

 

[LGW59]

2 minutes ago, nocl said:

there are a couple of issues with the study. First it was relatively early in the outbreak and the denominator was based upon antibody tests. As with several other studies made during a time when disease incidence was low, the false positive in antibody studies can through off the numbers quite s bit. if your population has an incidence rate of 2% and your test false positive rate is 5% (not uncommon for antibody tests).

It can through the numbers off quite a bit.

 

Second it eliminates any institutionalized cases. which as the study says is 50% of the cases.

 

Combine those two facts alone and the results are at least in the .7 range. Similar to what others have stated.

 

but let's do a quick exercise using the. .26% number. considering that covid continues to infect year round and that there are already cases of reinfection  some being worse then the original. 

 

In a situation where this remains uncontrolled, and you seem to be advocating for no restrictions, so it would be pretty incontrolled.

 

Then using your .23% number that would result in:

 

230,000 at 100 million

460,000 at 200 million

690,000 at 300 million

 

real numbers from total population are around 3 times that leading to around 2 million at that time, and with no controls it would eventually get there

 

 

Perhaps you guys can start or join an established medical or science blog where others will be far more impressed by your showing off your stats and assumed intelligence.  This is a CRUISE site.  Please go away already!!!