Mandate the vaccine and establish a realistic start date

[Ocean Boy]

1 minute ago, smokeybandit said:

RC is not a public health agency.

Please, give me a break. They are responsible for keeping a healthy environment on their ships. The world is in a pandemic. Go ahead and file a suit. I'm sure some lawyer out there will bite.

[ace2542]

4 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

New flash, ace.  The CDC has absolutely nothing, repeat nothing, to do with saving ships in distress in the ocean.  That is a function of the USCG, just like it is a function of the UK CMA, to provide assistance for vessels and people in distress at sea.

Cruise ships should not be doing that this day in age. Lets just leave it at that on a public forum.

[cured]

45 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I have no doubt there will be a class action lawsuit against RC if they make vaccinations mandatory.

Most likely won't go anywhere.  I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV.  So this is all hearsay from conversations with a small group of constitutional lawyers.

 

This is a hot topic of conversation between the scientists and the lawyers in our inner circle.  The lawyers maintain that there is already legal precedent for states being allowed to make vaccines mandatory with the Supreme Court ruling of Jacobsen vs Massachusetts.

 

Additionally, the EEOC has recently ruled that employers are within their rights to mandate the covid vaccine as long as there are certain provisions for medical exemptions and the vaccine is related to the health protection of the business.

 

It doesn't take a huge stretch of imagination that if states and employers can legally mandate a vaccine, the courts will allow businesses to mandate it.

 

The general consensus amongst the scientists and the lawyers is that life is going to become very narrow for people choosing to not vaccinate for the near future.  

Edited January 30, 2021 by cured

[ace2542]

4 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Again, ace?  If they wanted the industry to go bust, as I've said many, many times before, they could have done it a couple of decades ago, by rescinding the VSP, and making a full inspection and interview of passengers and crew every time the ship entered the US.

Well, almost.  US flag vessels are allowed to have unlicensed crew (everyone but deck and engine officers) up to 25% to be resident aliens ("green card holders").  NCL has a special exemption to have up to that 25% be non-resident aliens (generally supervisors from their international ships that have been with them for many years).

Pride of America, for a 7 day cruise around the Hawaiian Islands, costs a bit more than a Carnival 14 day cruise to Hawaii from the West Coast, with a foreign crew.  While they do pay Hawaiian minimum wage, they don't have to, if the crew's collective bargaining agreement allows it.  To give an example (I worked the NCL Hawaii ships for 4 years), when we first started out, the overtime rate for the unlicensed deck and engine crew was $0.35 less than their straight time rate.  Yep, they were paid less per hour for working more than 40 hours per week.  As for making money, POA is the highest revenue ship in the fleet, but just about breaks even on profit, due to the higher operating costs.  US government agencies have calculated that it costs over 3 times as much to operate a US flag ship as a foreign flag ship (and that is for a cargo ship with a crew of 20, not a cruise ship with a crew of 1000.  

 

Now, not sure what you mean by the comment "maybe more ships can do that"?  Do you mean hire US crew?  Sure they could, but they wouldn't have to pay US wages, since the ship is not US flag.  Do you mean go US flag and hire US crew?  Sure they could, but again, it would cost them about 3 times or more to operate, as there are many more costs to US flag than crew salaries.  Also, since the ships are not built in the US, they could not do similar cruises to the POA, which has no foreign ports, as that is restricted to US flag, US owned, US crewed, and US built ships.

I don't know what the VSP means to be honest. So why not hire American crews on a 12 month contract to get more cruising going on your side at least while the vaccine rollout hits the crew sourcing countries if it not going to cost them too much more? Or would sacking many Americans and replacing them with foreign crew in 12 or 14 months time be bad form. It will be into 2022 before a lot of crew sourcing get really well vaccinated you know. I can't see all these poorer places getting done this year. We will struggle ourselves.

Edited January 30, 2021 by ace2542

[cured]

35 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

 

Disabilities preventing someone from getting the vaccine is.

Plus it has nothing to do with a disability that would give the lawsuit standing. 

This one I do know about as I have a child covered by the ADA.

 

Accommodations per the ADA do not have to be the accommodations you prefer. For instance, a store may refuse anyone entrance without a vaccination. By providing curbside pickup, that is an acceptable accommodation for those covered under the ADA.

 

You don't get to choose your accommodation.

 

I am sure the cruise lines will be able to come up with accommodations for the relatively small amount of people in relation to the world's population that are covered by the ADA. Religious and I just don't want it because I have xyz without a doctor's diagnosis and a legally defined disability are not covered by the ADA.

Edited January 30, 2021 by cured

[ace2542]

4 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Ah, just like smallpox will never go away?

It only takes 1 variant to evade a vaccine and you are back to square one.

[A&L_Ont]

40 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I have no doubt there will be a class action lawsuit against RC if they make vaccinations mandatory.

I’d take a bet against that, at least for when cruises start. Not even for a few years down the road; that is until herd immunity is eventually reached but not for the beginning.

[A&L_Ont]

4 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

It only takes 1 variant to evade a vaccine and you are back to square one.

As always, the optimism I expect from Ace. 

[ace2542]

1 minute ago, A&L_Ont said:

As always, the optimism I expect from Ace. 

And always truthful as well. Half of our deaths have occurred since November. Since these new variants came on the scene. 

[not-enough-cruising]

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

I have no doubt there will be a class action lawsuit against RC if they make vaccinations mandatory.

And it will go absolutely nowhere, plenty of precedent for vaccine requirements 

[John&LaLa]

3 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

You got it. Too many people are too far, one side or the other. 

 

I swing both ways.

[John&LaLa]

2 hours ago, Ocean Boy said:

You Canadians all stick together.☺

 

Something in the poutine 

[John&LaLa]

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

Following the money when over 50%+ of your passenger base will have someone in the travel party that either won't be vaccinated or doesn't want to be vaccinated is not at all a good way to preserve business. It'll be tough to get many of those people back.

 

Some people do leave their kids at home when they cruise. 

[not-enough-cruising]

39 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

It only takes 1 variant to evade a vaccine and you are back to square one.

 

29 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

And always truthful as well. Half of our deaths have occurred since November. Since these new variants came on the scene. 

Truthful, but only because you don’t have the knowledge base to realize you don’t know what you are talking about.  It takes quite a number of variances to nullify a vaccine to the point it is no longer viable. This fact

is multiplied exponentially in mRNA vaccines. 
 

Noting your deaths since November when the new variant appeared, in a vaccine thread, is silly; as the vaccines weren’t available or viable enough in administration density, to have any effect on your mortality rate. 

[Ourusualbeach]

14 minutes ago, not-enough-cruising said:

only because you don’t have the knowledge base to realize you don’t know what you are talking about

One of the few true statements on this thread. 

[Ellaleah]

On 1/28/2021 at 2:34 PM, TheMastodon said:

LOL.  Stay home and let us live.

 

And what would that degree of vulnerability be?  Please quantify for us.  

Vulnerability would be lawsuits and I do not believe they will take that risk.  Get your shots and stop complaining!

[nocl]

5 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

 

Disabilities preventing someone from getting the vaccine is.

Plus it has nothing to do with a disability that would give the lawsuit standing. 

Even the labor relations board ruled that companies could require vaccinations because of their responsibility to provide a safe work place and that they should try and accommodate that that could not be vaccinated for a health reason if possible. Not the try if possible, not must.

[chengkp75]

9 hours ago, ace2542 said:

I don't know what the VSP means to be honest. So why not hire American crews on a 12 month contract to get more cruising going on your side at least while the vaccine rollout hits the crew sourcing countries if it not going to cost them too much more? Or would sacking many Americans and replacing them with foreign crew in 12 or 14 months time be bad form. It will be into 2022 before a lot of crew sourcing get really well vaccinated you know. I can't see all these poorer places getting done this year. We will struggle ourselves.

The VSP is the Vessel Sanitation Program, similar to the EU's "ShipSan" program for sanitation and health aboard passenger vessels.  The USPHS (US Public Health Service) is the parent organization of the USPH Commissioned Corps, whose officers are mandated with inspecting every ship that enters US waters for infectious diseases.  While most ships clear public health inspections with a simple declaration to the CDC, the CDC is within their rights to implement a full sanitation inspection (as they do on a random basis once or twice a year for cruise ships, that takes 8-10 hours) and an interview with randomly selected passengers and crew to determine if anyone is or has been ill recently.  The VSP is a program where the ships agree to abide by the policies and procedures listed in the program, at all times, and CDC has determined that if those policies and procedures have been followed, that there will be minimal risk of infectious disease entering the US, so they will only inspect a few random times, rather than every time the ship comes to the US, as they could.  So, imagine if the CDC dropped the VSP (it is a federal regulation not a law, so can be changed at any time), and then every week when a cruise ship comes into port, the USPH inspectors do not allow passengers to disembark until "enough" interviews have been conducted to determine the ship is healthy (even 4-5 hours would put a serious dent in the ability to turn the ship around, and would lead to major complaints of flight delays from passengers).

 

"  So why not hire American crews on a 12 month contract to get more cruising going on your side at least while the vaccine rollout hits the crew sourcing countries if it not going to cost them too much more?"  Did you not read what I wrote about US crew costs?  I did say that it cost 3 times as much to operate a US flag vessel, but what I didn't add is that of that 3 times cost, crew cost was nearly 5 times that of foreign crew (wages, benefits, insurance), so even reducing crew cost from typical maritime wage to minimum wage, you would be at 3 times the cost still.  And you would need to multiply the average crew size on a cargo ship used for the study (about 20) 50 times to reach an average cruise ship crew complement.  

 

How many people in the UK would be willing to work for minimum wage, live in a room that is about 12 x 15 with three strangers, work 14 hours a day 7 days a week, for 12 months straight?  Yep, thought so, just about as many as in the US;  very few.  This is one reason that the POA has a chronic crew shortage, people could make just as much money flipping burgers at McDonald's and living at home, being with friends and family every night, partying whenever they want, not subject to drug and alcohol testing, as they would being trapped on a cruise ship for months at a time.

[chengkp75]

9 hours ago, ace2542 said:

It only takes 1 variant to evade a vaccine and you are back to square one.

Ah, so you predict that smallpox, which has been officially declared eradicated by the WHO, could come back?  If there is no more virus to mutate, since there is no virus in any human host, where does the "variant" come from?

[chengkp75]

10 hours ago, ace2542 said:

Cruise ships should not be doing that this day in age. Lets just leave it at that on a public forum.

Not sure why this discussion is so distasteful that it cannot be discussed on "a public forum", or what other reason you have.  So, you think that cruise ship crew that become ill or injured are somehow different from a crew on a freighter or tanker?  How so?  And if you think that the government agencies should not be doing this, then  you need to petition your MP to get the UK to petition the IMO to change the UNCLOS and SAR conventions (I'll leave these to you to search what they are) that set up the laws of the sea and search and rescue operations, so that cruise ships can be for some reason eliminated from SAR services, or at least charged for them.  Hope you never fall down on a cruise.

[ace2542]

9 hours ago, not-enough-cruising said:

 

Truthful, but only because you don’t have the knowledge base to realize you don’t know what you are talking about.  It takes quite a number of variances to nullify a vaccine to the point it is no longer viable. This fact

is multiplied exponentially in mRNA vaccines. 
 

Noting your deaths since November when the new variant appeared, in a vaccine thread, is silly; as the vaccines weren’t available or viable enough in administration density, to have any effect on your mortality rate. 

We didn't start vaccinating till mid december. Ok too little to stop the spread in the short term perhaps. But we still had 50k dead between what Feb and Nov and another 50k between November and now. And maybe this UK variant is the reason we have death toll in Europe?. And not all our vaccines at least are mRNA based. You are getting all Pfizer/Moderna. The crux our vaccine program is Astra Zeneca which is not mRNA based to my knowledge.

[ace2542]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

Ah, so you predict that smallpox, which has been officially declared eradicated by the WHO, could come back?  If there is no more virus to mutate, since there is no virus in any human host, where does the "variant" come from?

You really think we will wipe this out with vaccines and immunity from previous infection among the unvaccinated? I really hope we do but I doubt we will.

[ace2542]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

How many people in the UK would be willing to work for minimum wage, live in a room that is about 12 x 15 with three strangers, work 14 hours a day 7 days a week, for 12 months straight? 

Plenty if you stop their unemployment benefits or dole as it is called. 

[livingonthebeach]

30 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

You really think we will wipe this out with vaccines and immunity from previous infection among the unvaccinated? I really hope we do but I doubt we will.

 

We don't hear about SARS, MERS, EBOLA, H1N1, ZIKA, etc. anymore so it appears to be possible. 

[A&L_Ont]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

Ah, so you predict that smallpox, which has been officially declared eradicated by the WHO, could come back?  If there is no more virus to mutate, since there is no virus in any human host, where does the "variant" come from?

Chief, don’t fall into the wormhole. The truth is lost there, in the realm of another reality.