CDC restricts North America until Nov.1

[kazu]

1 hour ago, wesport said:

Yet thousands can celebrate spring break in Miami!  

 

Yea, that makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?  Have you seen some of the pics?  There are far more there in tight quarters than there ever would be on a cruise ship.

Just wish the same rules were applied everywhere rather than risk the virus being spread again due to the spring break hiatus and then pin the tail on the donkey - the cruise lines.

I’m just confused with all of this.  Air travel is going and not even spaced with that middle empty seat (not that it does a lot of good).  The travel industry is suffered greatly but somehow it seems that the cruise lines are being tarnished.  I’m probably suffering from covid fatigue again 😉 

[kazu]

2 hours ago, HappyInVan said:

To be brutally honest. Some of you are just agitating yourself. Let the adults get on with the job. 🙄

 

And to be brutally honest, I don’t see many adults on the job.  Our vaccine process here in Canada is a mish mash.  A mess.  There should have been a national policy IMO so it was equal everywhere.

 

I’m not saying I would jump on a cruise ship, but the inequity in the travel industry is pretty obvious.  I don’t see any adults in the room running the rules.  I see people that have their own prejudices and no plan and providing no guidance at all.  JMO.

[john2003]

I am clearly missing something. With three cruises booked we are keen to travel. But isn't there a pandemic still very active and in many areas regaining lost ground. Did I miss it's announcement that it was quitting transmission?

There are reasons why sometimes non-elected officials are granted certain powers. Probably because politicians might not always act in our best interest. You could build a cheaper  bridge if the politicians were the structural engineers. Would you drive on it? 

Please explain what I am missing.

 

[Lady Arwen]

2 minutes ago, john2003 said:

I am clearly missing something. With three cruises booked we are keen to travel. But isn't there a pandemic still very active and in many areas regaining lost ground. Did I miss it's announcement that it was quitting transmission?

There are reasons why sometimes non-elected officials are granted certain powers. Probably because politicians might not always act in our best interest. You could build a cheaper  bridge if the politicians were the structural engineers. Would you drive on it? 

Please explain what I am missing.

 

You are spot on.   I guess I’m also missing something.

[iancal]

We would not even consider travel to Florida, let alone get on a cruise ship in MIA or FLL prior to November.

 

IF this is not a policy change why on earth was there so much angst over trying to get around the various legislation to cruise to Alaska.  Was it a pointless exercise given the CDC regs in place at that time???

Edited March 24, 2021 by iancal

[rkacruiser]

21 minutes ago, iancal said:

We would not even consider travel to Florida, let alone get on a cruise ship in MIA or FLL prior to November.

 

Nor would I.  

 

If the decision to allow cruises to begin in the Bahamas results in successful, Covid-free cruises, more questions are going to be raised about the actions of the CDC in restricting cruises from American ports.

 

Clearly, any hope for any Alaskan cruises in 2021 by the major cruise lines is toast.  

 

At the start of this "game", i.e. the pandemic's arrival in the United States and Canada, the "ball" was fumbled at kick-off and the impact of that fumble reverberates to this day.  

[deliver42]

I don't think I'd want to be in FLL or Miami to catch a ship even though I'm vaccinated. Florida is averaging 5'000 new cases per day avg, and lead the nation with the new variants.

[CruiserBruce]

I don't think this is a change in policy at all. It has been the stated policy for months. Yes, many people are pushing all sorts of solutions, like waiving the PVSA to skip Canadian ports, and getting their hopes up.  And CLIA asking to end the CDC restrictions, plus the Biden administration suggesting some things might change in  the general travel world. People got their hopes up even more, and then started ranting and raving when the current conditions were reminded to still be force.

 

We all want to cruise...that is why we are on CC. We had a cruise booked for late May...canceled....and have one booked for Mar 2022. But I don't see the world being THAT much better by the end of June. I have said, and will say it again, I think the possibility of a new outbreak on a ship keep cruise line execs up at night and will crush the industry if not handled very well. Yes, I think the chances are much slimmer today, and will likely be slimmer in July. But of the cruise lines don't handle that next outbreak well...the future is dim.

[Mary229]

After doing an extensive past day news search I think we are, including myself, jumping the gun.  There appears to be no new information just that the guidelines are under multi agency review but currently it is status quo.  I think some news agencies may have set off a firestorm and depressed stock prices without accurate information.  

[Flying-Dragon]

2 hours ago, john2003 said:

There are reasons why sometimes non-elected officials are granted certain powers. Probably because politicians might not always act in our best interest. You could build a cheaper  bridge if the politicians were the structural engineers. Would you drive on it? 

Please explain what I am missing.

 

 

There are lawmakers and there are regulators.  The politicians are the lawmakers, and the public service are the regulators.  That maintains consistency in applying the law. My background was aviation regulation, so I think health regulation and marine regulation similarly all fall to the public servants to carry out.  The politicians are at liberty to change the law because they have been given the electoral mandate, but they don't get to apply it, day to day.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Flying-Dragon
clarity

[NavyCruiser]

Meanwhile, we've taken 4 trips to the beach, including 2 to Cancun All-Inclusive resorts, over the past few months, with 2 more trips planned/booked for the summer.  No issues on the plane trips, nor at the resorts.  All 2 dozen covid tests were negative.  Now that all adults in our family are fully vaccinated (2 wks past our 2nd vaccine shot), writing off cruising for 2021, but making regular plans for All-Inclusive resorts vacations....

[nocl]

8 hours ago, Hlitner said:

But what happens on Nov 1?  The CDC may not tell until Oct 31 and then they could simply extend their current framework another year or two or three.  There is no appeal, no due process, etc.  What we have is a government agency that operates with no controls.  Any objections to their policies can simply be answered by "it is in the interests of public health."  

 

So what options do the cruise lines and CLIA have?  It would seem their only option is to go the political route and try to influence the Biden Administration to make a decision that would help the cruise industry rather then sink it into the sea.

 

Hank

There are plenty of controls.

 

1. The President and the Secretary of HHS have to have  declared an state of emergency

2. There is the court system if the CDC was operating beyond their authority (which they are not)

3. Congress can always change  the law (not going to happen)

 

4.  The cruise lines, if they think there is a workable solution that is different from the CDC's framework can always write it up and propose it to the CDC.  That would require the CDC to respond point by point with justification.  One could potentially make a case out of that response. But there has been no proposals.  

 

Instead of the cruise lines doing that what you have is the CLIA requesting that the CDC drop the order.  Not modify it, but to drop it.

 

Doubt you will see the Biden administration over ride the CDC.

Edited March 25, 2021 by nocl

[nocl]

5 hours ago, kazu said:

 

And to be brutally honest, I don’t see many adults on the job.  Our vaccine process here in Canada is a mish mash.  A mess.  There should have been a national policy IMO so it was equal everywhere.

 

I’m not saying I would jump on a cruise ship, but the inequity in the travel industry is pretty obvious.  I don’t see any adults in the room running the rules.  I see people that have their own prejudices and no plan and providing no guidance at all.  JMO.

Largely because there is no other component of the travel industry that compared with the cruise industry.

 

A cruise ship includes  inside dining, bars, theaters, all of which have been included for recommendations for limitations during the outbreak. 

 

You have a population density in people per square foot higher than most institutional residences.  Also a problem area during the pandemic

 

You have  non-essential travel.  An item also recommended against by the CDC and most other similar government agencies around the world.

 

You have all of this in an environment where people remain for several days allowing incubation and spread for an extended period of time.  

 

Name one other component of the travel industry that has all of this all together in one package. 

 

The closest might be a all inclusive resort, but there you have people spread out over a much larger area, with mostly outside space. So far no all inclusive resort has demonstrated the R0 of 12-14 demonstrated on the Diamond Princess and other cruises at the start of the pandemic (higher than found in family members living in the same household)

Edited March 25, 2021 by nocl

[nocl]

3 hours ago, Mary229 said:

After doing an extensive past day news search I think we are, including myself, jumping the gun.  There appears to be no new information just that the guidelines are under multi agency review but currently it is status quo.  I think some news agencies may have set off a firestorm and depressed stock prices without accurate information.  

I expect it was because the CLIA asked the CDC to drop the order.  Creating its own buzz about the potential.  Only to have the CDC answer - No that it would remain in force.  Which of course created its own buzz in the opposite direction/

[HAL4NOW]

3 minutes ago, nocl said:

Name one other component of the travel industry that has all of this all together in one package.

 

The closest might be a all inclusive resort, but there you have people spread out over a much larger area, with mostly outside space.

We spent a couple nights at The Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, WA, last June. They claimed to be following and exceeding CDC guidelines. Here is a quote from their website: At Great Wolf Lodge our team is working around the clock to keep your family safe while you play.  We are exceeding CDC standards, performing wellness checks, requiring face coverings, and limiting capacity. 

 

The wellness check was them asking you if you were well. The limited capacity resulted in a very crowded water park area instead of an extremely crowded water park area. They did have servers at the buffet restaurant instead of customers just dishing up their own food. They had a policy of just one family group in the elevators at one time. This created crowding around the elevators while people waited for the next empty one (we took the stairs most of the time). 

There does seem to be a close comparison of cruises and enclosed resorts. Just because something is named resort doesn't mean they have excess space.

 

[nocl]

14 minutes ago, HAL4NOW said:

We spent a couple nights at The Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, WA, last June. They claimed to be following and exceeding CDC guidelines. Here is a quote from their website: At Great Wolf Lodge our team is working around the clock to keep your family safe while you play.  We are exceeding CDC standards, performing wellness checks, requiring face coverings, and limiting capacity. 

 

The wellness check was them asking you if you were well. The limited capacity resulted in a very crowded water park area instead of an extremely crowded water park area. They did have servers at the buffet restaurant instead of customers just dishing up their own food. They had a policy of just one family group in the elevators at one time. This created crowding around the elevators while people waited for the next empty one (we took the stairs most of the time). 

There does seem to be a close comparison of cruises and enclosed resorts. Just because something is named resort doesn't mean they have excess space.

 

Of course being inside the state it is under the control of the state and not the CDC. 

 

It certainly doesn't sound like that they were following the CDC recommendations that existed last June.  For that matter it sounds like they were not enforcing their own rules.

 

The Great Wolf Lodges (there is one near Disney Land) are basically a hotel, with a large indoor pool space.  They are probably the one of the closest comparison to a cruise ship.  Not sure if anyone spends a week there.

[Lido - Lanai]

8 hours ago, JeffElizabeth said:

Horrible news. Our Rotterdam cruise is supposed to end in Fort Lauderdale in October. 

The Rotterdam's transatlantic arrives in FLL on Nov 3, 2021. The itinerary/dates were purposely changed to ensure arrival after Nov 1st.

[kazu]

6 hours ago, nocl said:

Largely because there is no other component of the travel industry that compared with the cruise industry.

 

You make a good point.   One similarity for me would be train trips.  Here we have some extensive ones like the Rocky Mountaineer and travel right across Canada which involve days.  Meals on board are in very small spaces and seat spacing (unless you have your own bedroom) is very tight and still tight in the snack bars, viewing areas, dining room, dome viewing area, etc.  

 

While technically not under CDC jurisdiction, the scenes of the Spring Break crowds in Miami did not follow any guidelines and conditions were much worse than any cruise ship 

 

 I was looking at how travel industries were treated differently when I posted. For example, while non-essential travel has been against CDC and our guidelines, air travel is way up now in the U.S. by news reports I have seen.  People are masked but there is no physical distancing and no longer a middle seat left empty.  

 

Air travel here is about to increase with some routes starting to be added back in.

 

The air lines have been receiving Government support.  Meanwhile the variants that have arrived and our cases of covid in our province have all been travel related.  

 

Hopefully the vaccine can get into enough arms world wide to make a difference. 🤞 

 

[KirkNC]

But the CDC discourages non-essential air travel.

[kazu]

2 minutes ago, KirkNC said:

But the CDC discourages non-essential air travel.

Exactly and that was my point. 😉 

[albingirl]

We are all getting very tired of this.  It's busy here in Florida, but we aren't in the Miami beach area.  We make sure to avoid crowds and so on.  I do question the CDC, as well as the others maintaining we must stay in lockdown indefinitely.  I think it's starting to feel very dramatic and just not good for the economy.

[Crusin-Suzan]

15 hours ago, JeffElizabeth said:

Horrible news. Our Rotterdam cruise is supposed to end in Fort Lauderdale in October.  Hopefully this directive is not set in stone.  

I am on that cruise!   It ends in Ft Lauderdale 11/3

Edited March 25, 2021 by Crusin-Suzan

[Lido - Lanai]

1 minute ago, Crusin-Suzan said:

I am on that cruise!   It ends in Ft Lauderdale 11/4

Close.... it's 11/3/2021

[Hlitner]

Lots of good points here (about the CDC and CLIA) but count on me to be somewhat of a contrarian :).  I spent nearly forty years in the government helping to regulate the healthcare (primarily hospital) industry.   The reality of being a regulator is somewhat different then the theory and even the law.  The law and regulations allow agencies some degree of flexibility and experienced technocrats (I preferred that label to Bureaucrat) have an amazing amount of power which flows down from the top of an agency.   The so-called framework was obviously written by technocrats (and lawyers) and was carefully worded to give the appearance of shifting the burden from the CDC to the cruise lines.  A careful reading of this published framework (or guidelines) showed it to be a document designed to stop cruising in the USA (I posted this back in November).  If the CLIA decides to go to the Federal courts they would likely be spending the next 1-2 years in court with possibly no result.  But meanwhile the clock is ticking and more then a $Billion dollars a month are bleeding from the CLIA members.  Mean while back at the CDC it is business as usual, the technocrats go to work, get paid, and go out to lunch (if they can find an open restaurant). 

 

Technocrats (in the government) are very cognizant that they hold the main card which is to simply exercise their power and then move on to the next issue.  The government has nearly unlimited resources, access to lawyers without any financial penalty (the attorneys are already on the payroll), and we (as technocrats) are not under time pressure.  While due process is an important part of our system it is often ignored by regulators who simply do as they please and essentially say "your move."

 

The real power of the CDC lies in its ability to invoke the "it is in the best interests of public health" moniker.  It is like when I would set rates for hospital reimbursement and when the hospitals would complain we would just be polite but do nothing.  And by the way, in that case we were sued and it took years for the hospitals to win (and they did win).  And after we lost I went out to lunch with some of the lawyers that beat us (we generally talked about sports).  We did not care about losing because the goal of delaying things was already a win for us.  The lawyers that sued us also were happy because they got a big pay day.  The only big loser were the hospitals who, although they eventually got some of what they wanted, had to wait several years.  In this case we can compare the cruise lines to the hospitals.

 

And that is kind of where we are with the CDC.  Those regulators know that eventually they will have to allow cruising, but they can simply do nothing and slow walk any solution.  From their point of view the "slow walking" is already a win (because they keep the industry shut down) and the ultimate solution is likely to be more power (food for regulators) since any solution will likely result in the cruise industry ceding even more power to the CDC (that is called compromise).   But the problem for the cruise industry is that while all this give and take continues they are constantly bleeding cash that they do not have (it is all borrowed).  There are only so many $Billions and then we are going to see more sale of assets and possibly bankruptcy.  And those inside the CDC that have little affection for the cruise industry will just go out to lunch and have a burger :).  

 

By the way, the regulators have a huge advantage when it comes to the Federal courts.  Judges are very reluctant to do anything that the CDC sees as contrary to the best interests of public health.  If I had to choose a side to argue in court it would be the CDC side since we would simply fall back on "the interests of public health" and use the Diamond Princess and others as evidence.  A good lawyer would subtlety paint the cruise industry as greedy, careless, etc. etc.  The cruise industry would be on the defensive (kind of like spitting into a fresh breeze).   Even if the cruise industry did eventually win there would be no cruise industry remaining.

 

Hank

[Hlitner]

1 minute ago, Hlitner said:

Lots of good points here (about the CDC and CLIA) but count on me to be somewhat of a contrarian :).  I spent nearly forty years in the government helping to regulate the healthcare (primarily hospital) industry.   The reality of being a regulator is somewhat different then the theory and even the law.  The law and regulations allow agencies some degree of flexibility and experienced technocrats (I preferred that label to Bureaucrat) have an amazing amount of power which flows down from the top of an agency.   The so-called framework was obviously written by technocrats (and lawyers) and was carefully worded to give the appearance of shifting the burden from the CDC to the cruise lines.  A careful reading of this published framework (or guidelines) showed it to be a document designed to stop cruising in the USA (I posted this back in November).  If the CLIA decides to go to the Federal courts they would likely be spending the next 1-2 years in court with possibly no result.  But meanwhile the clock is ticking and more then a $Billion dollars a month are bleeding from the CLIA members.  Mean while back at the CDC it is business as usual, the technocrats go to work, get paid, and go out to lunch (if they can find an open restaurant). 

 

Technocrats (in the government) are very cognizant that they hold the main card which is to simply exercise their power and then move on to the next issue.  The government has nearly unlimited resources, access to lawyers without any financial penalty (the attorneys are already on the payroll), and we (as technocrats) are not under time pressure.  While due process is an important part of our system it is often ignored by regulators who simply do as they please and essentially say "your move."

 

The real power of the CDC lies in its ability to invoke the "it is in the best interests of public health" moniker.  It is like when I would set rates for hospital reimbursement and when the hospitals would complain we would just be polite but do nothing.  And by the way, in that case we were sued and it took years for the hospitals to win (and they did win).  And after we lost I went out to lunch with some of the lawyers that beat us (we generally talked about sports).  We did not care about losing because the goal of delaying things was already a win for us.  The lawyers that sued us also were happy because they got a big pay day.  The only big loser were the hospitals who, although they eventually got some of what they wanted, had to wait several years.  In this case we can compare the cruise lines to the hospitals.

 

And that is kind of where we are with the CDC.  Those regulators know that eventually they will have to allow cruising, but they can simply do nothing and slow walk any solution.  From their point of view the "slow walking" is already a win (because they keep the industry shut down) and the ultimate solution is likely to be more power (food for regulators) since any solution will likely result in the cruise industry ceding even more power to the CDC (that is called compromise).   But the problem for the cruise industry is that while all this give and take continues they are constantly bleeding cash that they do not have (it is all borrowed).  There are only so many $Billions and then we are going to see more sale of assets and possibly bankruptcy.  And those inside the CDC that have little affection for the cruise industry will just go out to lunch and have a burger :).  

 

By the way, the regulators have a huge advantage when it comes to the Federal courts.  Judges are very reluctant to do anything that the CDC sees as contrary to the best interests of public health.  If I had to choose a side to argue in court it would be the CDC side since we would simply fall back on "the interests of public health" and use the Diamond Princess and others as evidence.  A good lawyer would subtlety paint the cruise industry as greedy, careless, etc. etc.  The cruise industry would be on the defensive (kind of like spitting into a fresh breeze).   Even if the cruise industry did eventually win there would be no cruise industry remaining.  So the solution for the cruise industry is compromise and using the political route.

 

Hank