Covid-19

[Rogue]

There is apparently (or may be) some alarmism going on in the news about the cruise ship Celebrity Millennium that sailed out of St. Maarten on June 7. Background is that some countries or islands have started allowing cruises again this spring (some cruise lines have actually been cruising in Europe since last September or something like that) but many of these countries/islands and so on require testing within 2 or 3 days before going there.... or returning there, which means that cruise ships that leave from St Maarten have to retest all passengers and crew before they can return there and redock.

So what happened is that Celebrity Millennium was scheduled to return to St Maarten on June 12, so on Thursday June 10 the ship tested everyone again. And two people sharing a cabin tested positive. Those two people were quarantined in their cabin -- the ship did not have to immediately return to St Maarten or anywhere else, the cruise was NOT cut short because of panic or anything. The ship performed contact tracing and everyone that had "contact" with those two people had to be retested again (yes again) and those people were restricted until they were tested negative. No other positive tests were found according to a journalist that was a passenger on that cruise. There is a link to her report at the bottom of this post.

I have been on several cruises myself and sometimes people have been quarantined when something like Norovirus is detected. Norovirus is extremely contagious but usually mild like a cold and not nearly as scary as other things. The explanation of what happened on the Millennium is pretty much what happens whenever Norovirus or any other communicable disease is found on a cruise ship.

As a frequent cruiser (with two cruises scheduled in the coming year) I read cruise news all the time, and so when I heard about this from a panicked friend I knew where to go for some real info. This link was found in a 27-page discussion on boards.cruisecritic.com by cruisers that were also looking for info on exactly what happened.....

https://thepointsguy.com/news/celebrity-...hip-covid/

I am posting this info because I know oh so well how there are always some 'news' companies that just want to sell sensationalism for ratings and profit without any regard at all for the real facts.