Royal Caribbean ship sees dozens of COVID cases
(CNS): Royal Caribbean has confirmed that at least 48 people tested positive for COVID-19 when the world’s biggest cruise ship docked in Miami this weekend, despite the stringent measures the cruise line is taking to prevent the spread of the virus. The Symphony of the Seas was carrying more than 6,000 passengers and crew during a week-long cruise around the Eastern Caribbean when a guest tested positive.
This prompted wider contact tracing, which led to more cases being detected, even though 98% of the people on board had been vaccinated in accordance with the current guidelines for cruising.
The news of yet another outbreak aboard a cruise ship comes eight days before the Cayman Islands Government is planning to allow one cruise ship, Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam, to dock here on 28 December by way of experiment.
The ship will be travelling at 60% capacity, with Cayman being the first port of call, and all crew and passengers are required to be vaccinated. But unless the rules change, the government will not be asking for negative same-day rapid test results before passengers disembark.
The plan is creating considerable backlash in the midst of the current high community spread here of SARS-CoV-2 and the very recent arrival of Omicron, the exceptionally contagious variant.
But Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan said at the last press briefing that there were no plans to cancel the ship’s visit, and he continued to claim that cruising remains an important part of the local tourism sector, regardless of calls to re-think cruise tourism for Cayman in light of the industry’s multiple risks.
“This single call is an opportunity for us to find the safest way to welcome back our cruise visitors while we continue to navigate the challenges of the pandemic,” the minister said recently.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
PS The cayman port authority lists the arriving ship at full capacity, not 60%. Also a fully vaccinated cruise ship should be 100%, not 98%.
Prepare for a disaster. Three weeks later.
WHAT!? Who could have predicted an outbreak on a cruise ship? Don’t worry Kenny, this is a one-off, your ship will be fine. XXXX
Right?! Hard to imagine there being any cases of Covid on a cruise ship?! Honestly, those things have always been floating Petri dishes even before Covid.
Wayne’s vision has been corrupted from within through corrosive turncoats who bargain party allegiance for policy autonomy. This familiar pattern dissuades principled candidates from declaring, and insulates the entrenched district honchos, and corporate power brokers. Nothing changes unless the people call it out.
Well said, never a truer word was spoken.
I mean, he chose this. He got in bed with these people to get power. Are we supposed to be surprised or feel sorry for him?
Bottom line is that he’s told what to do by the elite. And he’s weak.
Don’t forget that 48 passengers are just the ones who declared a positive test – and it was reported that some weren’t “discovered” until they had actually left the cruise!
Three weeks! #CaymanCompetence.
Lot’s of cheap, haphazard remedial work going on in town right now trying to make it pretty. Even have poor Santa propped up out by Bayshore mall.
Prettying it up for the return of cruise ships? I don’t usually believe in coincidences.
This is insane. Will anyone in their right mind continue to use any of the shops, bars or restaurants in GT and up WB Road?
Sure, who cares of the 100’s of infected visitors… Caymanians will welcome them, and Caymanians will get accpt their $$$. Hey, this is Cayman Competence…
Just when I thought that the Panton/PACT Clown Car could not be bigger morons, Bryan exceeds all expectations and then some. For a clear take on how irresponsibly mindless the clowns are, one need not go further than Bryan’s rationale for inviting the cruise ship to call: “This single call is an opportunity for us to find the safest way to welcome back our cruise visitors…”
Meaning that this is a mad scientist experiment to see what happens when you do stupid chit in the midst of global Covid numbers rising due to Omicron. What makes this almost criminally irresponsible is that Bryan is quite happy to be using the entire population of the Cayman Islands as his lab rats. That is how much respect for our health and safety the Panton/PACT Clown Car has. Bryan and Panton and the Clown Car crewe are again driving blindly into the dark without lights on and with no one with a even smattering of vision or sense at the wheel. Only this time they are forcing all of us to go along for the ride.
Well, the vaccine prize was a good idea until we realized that only one person could win it. Now if Kenneth is willing to offer a $25,000 prize for anyone who thinks they caught Omicron from a cruise ship passenger…….
Cruise ships?? Why not!!! Whatever could go wrong?? Flu season, sure!!! Whatever could go wrong? Omicron running rampant and only fight is against Delta not CIG, Christmas gatherings!!! Whatever could go wrong? Let’s just try for herd immunity (and deaths) shall we?? Let’s go PACT!!! Whatever could go wrong!!
Forget about cruise ships, forget about incoming flights. Has everyone forgot that this Govt is still carrying out a DOOR TO DOOR Census with vaxxed and unvaccinated workers without any proof of PCR tests within two days of knocking on your door.
Wake up people! Clueless is an understatement to some of these recent protocols when someone who refuses to leave a census worker in to their home can face a fine of $5,000 for not complying. WTF is going on. Talk about stupid as ****
Phoned them, they took my number, called me back in an hour and completed census in about half an hour, young Caymanian guy was very polite, efficient and with a good sense of humour. Nobody has to let anybody in their home anyway. Relax and enjoy.
Just watch – the next thing we will hear is that the Census results will be delayed because Sanders and Panton will have to eat their words about the increased population they invented when they wanted the vaccination rates to be in their favour. The opposition was right the numbers are way lower that they are dreaming up.
Stay woke Cayman!
Nobody came to my door
I agree, but WE continually elect horrible officials. We ARE to blame. Stupid? Yes, that is the Cayman electorate. Deaf, Dumb and Blind. Pure and simple. We deserve what we have elected and it is not good.
Some humans are plenty more stupid than animals and plenty in this PACT Government is ditto, and GTC voters sure as hell are not the sharpest tools in the shed
Let’s blame cruise…. 45 people out of 6000 looks a damn site better than every plane that lands… Let’s be realistic people… Cruise did not bring covid back to our shores, and omicron did not come from cruise… You don’t like cruise for other reasons, that’s fine, but let’s not blame cruise for the spread of a global pandemic….
wasn’t the first COVI death hand delivered via cruiseship.
So it seems Cruise did bring covid to our shores, it may not have stuck, but they definitely dropped off a COVID positive patient.
covid was likely here long before that….
8.16am – not a covid death, he died of a heart attack and just happened to be positive for covid.
In 3 days on a cruise ship 45 can turn into 1,000. Then you will have a Cruise Coffin.
I really wonder about some people. We all want us to open up BUT SAFELY. We need understand what we are dealing with. Plan THOROUGHLY.
The initial question that needs to be answered and in grave detail is. HOW DO WE PREVENT INFECTED PEOPLE FROM GETTING ON THE AIRPLANE PERIOD!!!
The next question is. If one or two slip through what is our fallback protection to again filter people.
The whole 72hr was a @#$ing joke much like the darn temperature test at GT Hospital to catch Covid entering hospital. Someone send them a pamphlet on Asymptomatic and Covid cause it seems they did not hear about the ratio of symptomatic to Asymptomatic yet or that ASymp people account for 59% of all infections.
Our problem has been the use of bad data to create bad screening protocols. The whole 6ft and 15mins is where this crap started. If I crossed you and sneezed in your direction and you are without a facemask, you can catch it in 5 seconds.
When you have an infection in school you need lock down and test every child and then parents of positive kids and people that have been around them for any length of time.
People fail to realise 1. Viruses can survive in the air as small droplets for HOURS. READ!!! 2. It can travel up to 16ft through the air not 6ft. 3. Depending on the surface it can last for hours.
Someone visits your house to drop something and places their hands on a surface say your infected child touched and then their hands touch their face, they can get infected in seconds.
Covid is real. Wear Mask, don’t be an arse. Wash your hands, santize if you can regularly, social distance, stay away from large crowds.
Given the number of air passengers per day and the number of positive traveller tests think you will find the positivity rate is actually lower for air. And air passengers get tested on day 2 – if positive they and people they were in close contact with get quarantined. Cruise don’t get tested at all. If they insist on going ahead with cruise fine – ensure everyone who disembarks sea a ris test before doing so and does a test after departure. Don’t get off if positive, and if positive once back on the ship your tour guides get quarantined too.
I’m trying to understand the logic for canceling a local event this past weekend, whilst welcoming a cruise ship next week. We want fresh cases of Covid from outside but what is already here we don’t want to be spread…? Is that it? Not disagreeing with the event being canceled but idk the incoming cruise ship with no one requiring to test negative before coming onshore sounds just as bad, if not worse.
Well put! But since when does logic or reason come into play with the Panton/PACT Clown Car? Good sense is like Kryptonite to them. They tweak each other’s red plastic noses “Beep! Beep!” bobble their heads and smile, emit a silly screechy laugh and go merrily on their way.
CNS, per your headline – Kenneth Bryan sees Royal Caribbean’s dozens and raises dozens more!!
I’d love to know who is getting what out of this, ‘cos there is no rational/defensible reason to bring cruisers to Cayman right now.
People need to march to show Bran that is stupid to let cruise ship come here now pure stupid and if Bryan is can’t see it, then guess what he is ?
Pure stupid that he is even a Minister in Government.
This is a double standard. Why airline passengers need to have a negative PCR test but cruise passengers do not. WHy? Pact please explain?
Airline passengers just need a negative covid test. Doesn’t have to be a PCR.
Yeah but they need a LFT 24 hrs before arrival and then get tested again after 2 days – and if thats positive everyone they were in close contact with gets quarantined. Cruise ship tourist – no 24 hr test, no test after departure. Different standard.
Maybe its a drug importation
Everyone on self lockdown on 28th then i bet lol
A test? Like plYing with peoples health?
I hope bryan is there to shake hands with every one of them as they come ashore right?
More than likely he will be off island on official business or Christmas vacation when they arrive… typical BS.
9:26 am, we hope he doesn’t come to the Brac, he is not welcome here, better he stay with his stupid voters in GTC
Well he won’t be in the US or Canada…….
I understand this is a polarizing issue. It’s actually more complicated and nuanced than “lockdown vs. do nothing”. There are merits to some public health restrictions which aim to protect medical resources. There is also merit to the argument that we are going to have to learn to live with this and that allowing government to restrict our fundamental freedoms and privacy rights in the name of public health is a dangerous game.
All that said, it’s AGAINST THE LAW right now to be within 6 feet of another person in a restaurant unless you’re seated.
If you’re going to have laws that completely infringe on liberties like that, but just let thousands of cruise shippers wander in here, it undermines any credibility these lawmakers have.
GOVERNMENT: WHY SHOULD WE LISTEN TO ANYTHING YOU SAY OR FOLLOW THESE LAWS IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING PEOPLE WHEN YOU ARE ALLOWING PEOPLE IN TO “TEST” YOUR READINESS AND A RESTART OF AN INDUSTRY THAT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN FOR MONTHS. YOU ARE GAMBLING WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES THAT YOU CLAIM TO CARE SO MUCH ABOUT.
Spare me the “they’re all vaccinated so it’s ok” – it’s clear that the vaccine barely blocks transmission of Omicron and that’s only if you’re boosted.
If you’re going to take the position that we’re just going to let it run through us fine – then take those laws off the books.
Fools and cowards.
Why destroy a fairly well articulated post with the unnecessary all caps ? I gave it a try but stopped as soon as they started 🏁
Dumbing it down for the intended audience.
Good post, CITA
How do you know it is is “well articulated” if you stopped reading a bit past the first paragraph? Makes no sense that you can judge an entire comment based on reading 20% of it. FYI: I suffered the unimaginable, searing, ghastly and oh-sooo tortuous pain of reading all of the comment CAPS included (Oh my GOD! CAPS are sooo horrifically terrible I could scarcely go on! Ya know?) It was well put and spot on. By the way, there is a name for your condition: Hoofdaphobia. Perhaps with proper treatment you may overcome this utterly paralysing psychological malady.
6:24 you can keep on being you with your fear of annihilation, and I’ll be me maybe with Hoofdaphobia and all; – but hey, there’s no need to listen to me anyway when there’s much better & broader research out there explaining the argument, – HAPPY BIRTHDAY !
https://bettermarketing.pub/stop-using-all-caps-if-you-want-to-get-your-point-across-49ec58c02dad
From what evidence do you derive the SILLY ASSUMPTION that I fear annihilation?
Why destroy a fairly well articulated post by proffering a BASELESS assEssment?? I gave it a try but stopped as soon as I came to your mindless conjecture.
I could offer you countless URL’s regarding avoidance of making baseless assumptions but, nah… WHY BOTHER?
still lower incidence rate than cayman….
Just goes to show how useless these vaccines are….
Imagine still being this uninformed. Sigh.
I shall consider accepting your tin-hat tripe about the vaccines being useless if you can offer us a credible explaination as to why more or less 80% of those hospitalised for Covid are not vaccinated. What accounts for this? You are so wise, do tell us.
100,000 attendance at Alabama Auburn game a couple of weeks ago. 41,000 attendance at world Series games…I guess they are all dead ? Or infected now at the very least ? Enough foolishness already. A month ago it was the deadly delta…no one or rather the spin doctors don’t even mention that anymore. In 6 weeks there will be another variant and another booster. If anyone has a condition that may cause severe illness as a result of Covid or if your a civil servant by all means stay home.
Here is more sports news for you Johnny. The NHL put a stoppage on their season, games have been cancelled in the NBA, and games are being postponed in the NFL. The large attendance sports events you reference will likely result in a massive rate of infections that cities such as New York are already seeing.
Yeah and the NHL, NFL and NBA are overreacting, just like all the governments.
Yes it’s highly infectious and yes the cases are spreading rapidly, but it’s very mild and akin to a common cold. Do we shut down everything for a cold? Didn’t think so.
CNS: Scientists don’t know this, so neither do you. From the CDC: “More data are needed to know if Omicron infections, and especially reinfections and breakthrough infections in people who are fully vaccinated, cause more severe illness or death than infection with other variants.”
And from the WHO: “Severity of disease: It is not yet clear whether infection with Omicron causes more severe disease compared to infections with other variants, including Delta. Preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, but this may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected, rather than a result of specific infection with Omicron. There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants. Initial reported infections were among university students—younger individuals who tend to have more mild disease—but understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks. All variants of COVID-19, including the Delta variant that is dominant worldwide, can cause severe disease or death, in particular for the most vulnerable people, and thus prevention is always key.”
This is an outdated report.
Once again, and it’s ridiculous how many times I post this on anything PACT do, but the stupidity of this is hilarious and terrifying. How do they think this is a good idea? Who’s getting paid?
The answer to your question 1.13 is, ‘the usual suspects’, the newest one having been coached by the reigning past master.
Cruising is clearly far from safe. Cayman should have taken the opportunity to get rid of this blight once and for all. Not to mention vastly improving the experience for those of us who come to spend money for 2 -3 weeks as stay-over tourists!
Ours is an incompetent government. We have no choice but to learn to live with them as well as covid.
11.53am The difference, you can escape from your closet, on a cruise ship with a covid outbreak,you are imprisoned along with thousands of other passengers and there is no escape unless you are a world class long distance swimmer. Suck it up if there’s an outbreak until the captain can find a port willing to accept his ship, with Omicron – very unlikely.
Why is everybody even passengers so surprised that this happened, quite obvious and why on earth would anybody want to go on a cruise right now. Some humans should not be regarded as humans, animals have more sense.
98% of the ship?! Vaccines working like a charm… LOL
Wakeup
Imagine still being this uninformed. Sigh.
This means only 20 persons were unvaxxed. Luckily for you, they did not mention how many vaxxed and how many were not.
Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, 2% of 6000+ is 20.
Please tell me you at least made it to 5th grade math.
There is currently no safe way to ‘welcome’ cruise ship passengers back to our shores.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
So, when is the Tea Party, Ben?
There is, make ‘em swim to shore.
It is obviously not save to welcome people by plane either but we do!
There’s a good reason for that. Residents needs to come and go. There needs to be a way for property owners and relatives of residents to come and go, even if you believe we should ban short-term tourism.
Cruise shippers add basically zero economic value other than to a very small number of stakeholders and as such are less worth the risk.
At least that’s what most sensible people seem to think. Not everyone will agree.
Unfortunately we’ve all got to learn to live with Covid. I mean more people have died on the roads in 2021 than via Covid yet I don’t see a clamour to sack RCIPS COP. He is useless.
#blocktheport
Get your vessels ready good people of Cayman. The port blockade is scheduled to begin at 5am on the 28th.
Miami Herald reported that in addition to those 48 positives delivered back to Miami, 7 became so ill they departed the ship mid-voyage. The boat then turned around with another load of passengers.
And the 48 were only the ones who actually declared a positive test …
Given the latest developments if this ship is allowed to dock all passengers and crew must take an LFT test before disembarking and no-one should leave the ship until everyone proves negative. If anyone tests positive the ship should be required to depart immediately.
While you idea maybe good it is not within the Cayman Law.
You forget….A passenger can board a flight in Australia for Cayman Islands with a negative test and not arrive in Cayman for 2 to 3 days as long as all 4 stops are not over 12 hours its within the rules. Just think how many people they come into contact with!
Whats the difference on the ship?
Australians are 100 times smarter than a cruise ship passenger.
It’s that simple.
So, if a Caymanian is 100 times smarter than a cruise ship passenger then there should be nothing to worry about – right?
C’mon Mr. Premier.
Which Premier?
McKeeva?
They are all vaccinated. You won’t find a place in this world, other than your own closet if you live alone, that is safe from COVID.
Actually, there are some Pacific islands that don’t have Covid.
Or electricity, running water or internet.