Cruise lines press CDC to lift ban
(CNS): The major cruise lines are lobbying the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to lift the no-sail order currently in place and allow ships to sail once again from American ports, despite the ongoing spread of COVID-19. In the early days of the pandemic cruise ships played a critical role in spreading the coronavirus and bringing it to the Caribbean. But now they say they have a new health and safety plan to protect crews and passengers.
The current CDC ban is set until October but cruise companies such as Royal Caribbean and Norwegian have created a panel, which they said comprises health experts, which has submitted a report to the CDC detailing how ships can set sail once again. The cruise lines claim that the detailed health and safety protocols, including enhanced sanitation, controlling shore excursions, testing and improved air control, will keep people safe.
The proposals also call for rigorous screening and testing before boarding, plans to address positive infection on board, rapid evacuation and reducing transmission, the companies said.
While it is impossible to know for sure how COVID-19 actually arrived in the Cayman Islands, the first case and the only fatality here was from a cruise ship. It is also certain now that several ships infected with the virus called here during the two weeks before Cayman’s borders were closed and the US issued its first no-sail order.
The government has said that it does not expect to see cruise ships return to the Cayman Islands until well into next year. The plans for a cruise berthing facility involving Carnival and Royal Caribbean have also been shelved for this administration, although another PPM-led administration is very likely to revisit the idea in future especially if a successful vaccine emerges.
However, given the level of public opposition to the proposal, there is a growing movement against the current cruise model. Many people, including those in the tourism business, now believe that the pandemic has presented this jurisdiction with an opportunity to rethink its relationship with the cruise sector.
There have been calls for a post-COVID enhanced tourism product focused on overnight guests, with cruise visits limited to much smaller vessels.
While the cruise industry is now pressing CDC to allow the ships back in the water, activists all over the world are campaigning against it. The cruise industry has developed a negative reputation in recent years, which included concerns about ships spreading and incubating disease long before the coronavirus pandemic.
The declining global reputation of the cruise industry is a result of a terrible environmental record, questions relating to law and order aboard ship, the poor treatment of crews, the manipulation and takeover of ports of call, as well as a declining benefit to any stakeholders except shareholders.
Sadly, the Minister of Tourism – Mo$e$ Trump, is seething at the opportunity to get cruise ships back. And with an election year coming am sure he will want to get some over to Cayman Brac with all that it has to offer for cruise tourists.
I think a tax that will help people to accept retirement from the loss of its cruise industry would be great. Would people pay for it? Well if not bring back the ships.
You all can talk about stopping cruise ships as much as you want, but that will never happen, just relax and enjoy seeing them here
Anyone want to rent one of the luxury cruise ships, base it in GT and operate slow cruises around Grand Cayman and to the Brac? Spend a night or 2 in the Brac (sleeping on ship) and sail home?
I know 50,000 local residents who’d look to take a 4 day trip in the coming 12-18 months
Why not fly to the Brac and stay over for a few nights and explore the island? There are some really beautiful places to stay.
Perhaps the cruise ships could simply do what QantasAir and Royal Brunei are doing – taking passengers for a round trip with no stops. Passengers would get to take a ride on a floating hotel, workers get to serve and the environment gets the short end of the stick. ….wait …..forget I suggested that…I love that whales have returned to our waters, I would prefer if the ships did not sail around our islands, I will happily pay an anti-cruise tax for a few years if all tax funds are directed to help our tourism industry re-focus on stay over tourists.
As the world burns
Time to just move on from cruise ships. Best for everyone and it’s been nice not to see them and their cheap ways.
snob.
Are you kidding?? LOL Have you not seen ALL of the MLA’s discussing how to get the rich tourists here and one of the most famous calling a segment of our tourists, sandwich eaters?? This island is chock FULL of snobs.
You’re funny.
Sorry, I prefer my tourist to spend time getting to know my island. If that makes me a snob then that makes you a traitor.
Knowing the track record of cruise line their incapacity to respect by the very lenient accords they are party to and regulations they helped establish … why would let them back on island ???
The major liners yes, the smaller higher-spend boutique liners maybe not. Our problem is that CIG grew addicted to the idea of ever-expanding head tax revenue, even as they refunded that very same tax back in ferry subsidies. Consequently the entire mass cruise industry revenue in our best record years contributed only a couple million dollars to cash flow. The CIG regularly farts that amount away on vote-buying exercises. It was always a mirage. Building the “port” would have cancelled head taxes for 25+ years, and they were going to do it anyway!
True true coz dem major liners are gon be so much safer, eh!
https://www.nbcmiami.com/investigations/baby-becomes-triple-amputee-after-getting-sick-on-cruise/2296824/
This island is a much nicer place WITHOUT the tourist hordes. Quieter, cleaner and slightly fewer mental taxi drivers and buses causing chaos.
yep and slowly dying economically…
its not just a case of having cruise or not having cruises…
The 25% of the economy made up of Tourism, is not the entire economy. The other 75% is still chugging along nicely, assuming we can be removed from OECD Blacklist and not get another blackeye headline for CIMA, but I think we can all see that’s coming too.
Maybe someone can explain: What exactly is a tourist dollar?
Does real estate factor into the tourist economy? If the sale/buys along SMB are not included then then it would beg to question where does a tourist dollar start and where does it stop. I would tend to think that a tourist dollar travels into the service sector (restaurants/bars), the real estate sector, and therefore into the construction sector as well for new condos.
Anyone know?
Not entirely certain about the EU blacklist unfortunately , so far it looks like CIMA is not enforcing what is on the books at all regarding SAR.
A large chunk of the CRS data provided by the local institutions does not lead anywhere as to better practices that would allow to coming off the blacklist .
Tracing Pump and Dump operations , fraudulent ICOs and fake volume crypto exchanges take high level investigation capabilities that take training of a sort that takes years across multiple fields, independence and experience .
That leads us to a most unlikely outcome as to coming off the list . And that discounting the EU is going against Cayman Islands as an act of revenge against Brexit ,
Belgium is also pushing hard for the adoption at EU level of the Cayman Tax to all jurisdictions enforcing a tax on companies AND individuals inferior to 15 percent (with the kind exception of Luxembourg , of course) which is a de facto capital gains tax applied to residents on island whereas Belgium itself enforce on its territory no capital gains tax on its citizens !
I truly wish it that easy !
“Tracing Pump and Dump operations , fraudulent ICOs and fake volume crypto exchanges take high level investigation capabilities that take training of a sort that takes years across multiple fields, independence and experience .”
Just close down Cayman Enterprise City and all those problems go away.
its way more than 25%…go ask any retailer on island.
the 25% does not take into account the knock-on effect of tourism into the overall economy.
chugging along nicely?…yes for now..it wont be like that in 6 months unless you your are turning every economic forcast around the world on its head….
This problem is easy to solve.
If your ships can’t go the place, remove the place from your itinerary.
Next
Stay away!!!
‘Voyage of the Damned’ revisited? If a cruise ship leaves harbour and there’s a major COVID-19 outbreak onboard the passengers and crew are FUBAR!
Only when there is both a treatment and a vaccine. Nobody at CDC is going to sign off on this.
Given their approach seems to confirm a disregard for the health and well being of us islanders, could we please tell them that no matter what the CDC says, they ain’t coming here!
anti-cruise brigade must realise air arrivals pose a similar risk to that of cruise arrivals.
1:31 you’re joking, right? Not even close.. cruise ships are floating Petri dishes!
If planes are less risk, why do we quarantine 100% of those who fly in?
You answered your own question. Where are we going to quarantine the cruse passengers.?
So the risk on ships is greater than 100%?
There’s a difference between degrees of risk. OP said it was a “similar” risk. Passing over the fact that we used to get thousands of cruisers a day – often more than 10000 – versus a far Smaller number of air arrivals. Or that the cruisers have been in very close proximity to each other with a far higher risk of infection than people going about normal day to day contact. Or that they have vanished multiple countries in the recent past. Or that it is possible to quarantine air arrivals but you cannot quarantine day trippers. But apart from that, yeah, a “similar” risk.
10:21 I never said there was no risk with planes but the risk is minuscule to that of cruise ships. How would you suggest we quarantine ships containing 200+ people!? Idiot.
Genius. My question had nothing to do with cruise ships. Let me help you. If the risk of travel by plane is minuscule (your words), why do we quarantine 100% of those (based on zero trust) who fly in? Is this policy viable?
When you can show me how to quarantine a cruise visitor for 15 days between the moment they step off the ship, and the moment they come ashore, then you may have fair a point.
Let’s see, a couple hundred pre-tested people who have been in a confined space for a few hours vs. a few thousand people, tested or untested, who have been eating at the same buffet for days. I know which group I would take my chances with.
Not at all the same actually. Air travelers need a passport, a neg PCR lab test, then quarantine for 14days and have to produce an all clear PCR to be released onto our streets.
In modern pressurised aircraft The cabin air is changed and filtered every few minutes. Along with much higher disinfection protocols and the wearing of masks contagions are reduced drastically, so they cannot be compared to a cruise ship.
Every few minutes? Are you on crack? There’s nothing like that kind of airflow on any plane. Many airliners don’t change the air/water filters at the intervals required, let alone check the flaps tires and engines. Ground work fraud is rampant esp as liners struggle to stay financially viable. Still doesn’t address the incubation period and required quarantine. The cabin air filter doesn’t clean your internal vasculature.
My dear uneducated friend. How on earth do you think aircraft are pressurized? Compressed air is bled off the engines sucking vast amounts of air for the combustion process and fed into the cabin at a far greater rate than it can leak out through a calibrated valve to keep the pressure constantly set to the desired cabin altitude pressure of approximately 8000 feet. You see it is much easier to control the output than the input, this in effect means the air is constantly flowing out of the cabin resulting in new air every few minutes. Not to mention the filtration processes through very expensive hepa filters which are changed at scheduled interval as mandated by regulations. But don’t take my word for it, look it up! There is a world of good information most likely in the palm of your hand with modern smart phones and access to free reliable sources!
In modern pressurized aircraft…the “new to you” air is largely the same air propelled around the fuselage imperfectly. On a 737 it’s recirculated through two HEPA filters located towards the front galley that may or may not have been changed that year. That’s why when someone farts, barfs, or the plane is getting refueled, you can smell it for the entire flight like it’s in your mouth..because it’s in your mouth, sinuses, clothing, and everywhere, just as shed COVID-19 viral particles could be. Search how many flight attendants and passengers died of COVID-19 this year where they can contact trace to the actual flight number.
Man I hope you are not certifying B737 for flight because you sure as hell don’t know how the ATA chapters 21 and 36 systems
cruises will likely be allowed to do sea voyages only and stop in ports without restrictions.
in cayman….like our air arrivals….it will only be vaccine time when they are let back properly.