We have quite the little war going on in Florida right now. Gov. Ron DeSantis, in some kind of deranged bid to be the Trumpiest pandemic guy around, has forbidden cruise lines from insisting that all passengers must be vaccinated. What an idiot! If there's anyplace on the planet that should insist on vaccinations, it's cruise ships. But to DeSantis, this is a mite too close to a "vaccine passport," which he's loudly opposed to.
But the CDC says cruise lines should require vaccinations, which is surely the sensible position. So what's going to happen?
So far, Royal Caribbean has opted to cave in to DeSantis and allow anyone onto their ships. Norwegian and Carnival are going ahead with vaccinated cruises and basically daring DeSantis to do something about it.
So what will happen? Will DeSantis try to levy huge fines on Norwegian and Carnival? Is Royal Caribbean opting for some kind of trickery, where they'll only ask about vaccination after you've boarded and you're in "international waters"? Will someone, for God's sake, talk some sense into DeSantis? There must be someone in Florida who has his ear and hasn't lost his mind.
Will someone, for God's sake, talk some sense into DeSantis?
Hahahano.
Look, the cruise lines need Florida as much or more thanFlorida needs them, so there’s no obvious winner there.
But meanwhile, DeSantis is mining electoral gold with his Trump-lite craziness.
So no, he is not going to behave sensibly, not because of industry pressure and certainly not because it’s in the interest of public health.
DeSantis is clearly setting himself up for a 2024 run at the big prize. You can tell who's throwing their hats into the ring by the level of Trumpy behavior and dedication to voter disenfranchisement.
Which begs the question: is it really clever to seek election by mimicking a proven loser? Or to put it another way, are there any rational grounds for believing the Trump Cult will actually increase in size by '24 and deliver victory to someone pandering to it?
Well, you’ve got to get the nomination before you have a chance at the big prize. So I’m not sure cleverness comes into play. Who decides the Republican nomination? There’s ample crazy involved.
Well, if you genuinely believe the election was stolen....YES.
Or if you believe that if you can out-Trump Trump in the policy department and be just enough less obnoxious as to hold the center...YES.
Either hypothesis holds.
Royal Caribbean is based out of Miami, while the other two are more international. That said, neither Carnival nor Norwegian care about vaccines per se. They mainly want two assurances - a) that if they have an outbreak on board they will not be quarantined and b) they will be able to dock at foreign ports (the whole point of a cruise) with unvaccinated passangers.
They will probably get those assurances in short order. Tourist dollars speak a lot.
It's more like DeSantis caved than Royal Caribbean. Contrary to Florida law, all crew/employees will have to show a vaccine passsport. For passengers who do not have a vaccine passport, they will have to be tested for covid prior to boarding and if they fail will not be allowed to board. Further they will face restrictions on what they can do while aboard.
Kevin: There must be someone in Florida who has his ear and hasn't lost his mind..
Uh-huh, just like there should be someone(s) in the GOP that hasn't lost their mind and still represent the Party of Lincoln and Eisenhower...not so you'd notice to wither
Im not sure thee's anyone in Florida who hasn't lost their mind, period (speaking from Tampa0
If one person gets sick the whole ship gets quarantined, but every un-vaccinated person on board is likely to get it.
Doesn't this open up the state to massive liability, purposely creating an unsafe environment to score an imaginary political point? If a bridge is falling down and the state does nothing about it and you drive over it and it collapses, it's immaterial whether 'everyone' already knew it was hazardous, especially if there's an entire political party dedicating a hurricane of propaganda to convince people it's safe.
It's unlikely that a State can be held liable for misguided policies, absent very unusual circumstances. No one is attempting to sue New York for its misguided policy of requiring nursing homes to accept COVID patients, which demonstrably caused a large number of deaths.
I think the liability for Royal Caribbean would be huge if there's an outbreak. Quite aside from the fact that nobody in his or her right mind would be on a ship under those circumstances.
Plus, everyone here is making the assumption that the vaccines give a person Superman levels of invulnerability but, realistically, it's not clear to me that one could marinate in the virus for weeks, days, or even hours without significantly ratcheting up the risk of getting sick. I have no real desire to find out one way or the other but if there's an outbreak on that cruise Royal Caribbean might as well sink their fleet because the only way they're making any money is by charging the fish rent.
Simple defense. The states that had that policy had lower rates of deaths associated with nursing homes than the nation overall. Why everyone is so stupid to think warehousing asymptomatic covid patients in hospitals, the only place with more susceptible people than nursing homes and with horrendous track records for infection control, is a good idea is beyond me.
I don’t think this would be a viable defense for a cruise line since while they’re required to follow Florida law, they’re not required to make anyplace in that state a port of call or to board passengers or crew there. If there’s an outbreak on the ship, the cruise line is on the hook.
Exactly. All it takes is one outbreak on one cruise ship and the entire industry is toast.
It’s interesting that vaccine passports would completely solve the industry’s problems with COVID-19 fears. I’m willing to bet that every worker on every ship is vaccinated and if all the passengers were, too, everything would be back to normal.
As things stand now, it’s too scary to travel or even to dine indoors because it’s really not clear that a vaccinated person can marinate in the virus for an hour or two (or a week or two) and have the same level of protection. Again, eating in a restaurant where all the staff and patrons are vaccinated is one thing—spending an hour or two downwind from a super spreader is potentially something entirely different.
At least one person is suing New York over it,
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-covid-19-nursing-home-immunity-bill-20210603-yek2qz4335fihi3aftitk2skgi-story.html
It's more like DeSantis caved than Royal Caribbean. Contrary to Florida law, all crew/employees will have to show a vaccine passsport. For passengers who do not have a vaccine passport, they will have to be tested for covid prior to boarding and if they fail will not be allowed to board. Further they will face restrictions on what they can do while aboard.
Of course not, far more people would have died had the nursing homes been allowed to abandon their residents on the street.
The difference for purposes of liability is that the state has a duty to maintain its roads and bridges while Royal Caribbean has the choice about whether to service ports in Florida. The state is saying that private business can't screen customers on the basis or whether they're vaccinated but those businesses are not obliged to do business in a crazy place.
Doesn't that duty become the issue, where the state is purposely preventing safety measures and the company is prevented exercising responsibility, to the extent they can lose their business whether they follow the regulation or not?
No, because the cruise lines aren't forced to do business in Florida. If Florida's creating unsafe conditions that endanger the passengers, Royal Caribbean would be under a duty to avoid Florida and only service ports where the safety of passengers and crew can be reasonably guaranteed. But if they choose to operate in an unsafe environment, then they accept the responsibility for the consequences of that choice.
If a cruise line services ports in, say, Somalia or in a war zone like Yemen where there's no functional government, that's a choice they are making for themselves. Same if they are foolish enough to take on passengers or crew in Florida—if there's a Covid-19 outbreak,Royal Caribbean and not Florida would be on the hook.
Further, the cruise lines don't have to follow Florida law (international commerce is the sole purview of the federal goverment.)
That’s correct. And, at this point, they do business in Florida at their peril.
So far, Biden doesn’t bite and he doesn’t look like a bare knuckles fighter But Florida is where these cruise lines are based or where they’ve got huge facilities. And Florida is a pretty rough and tumble place. Cruise lines will bend the knee to the power
There must be someone in Florida who has his ear and hasn't lost his mind.
Someone in Florida who hasn't lost his mind. Let me think. Ted Sallis! No, too esoteric, also fictional.
Well, I am stumped.
Check me if I'm wrong, but I thought shipping, including cruise lines, fell under federal regulations -- states don't really have authority to tell shippers how to run their operations, do they?
That is the Yankee Constitution, not the Florida Constitution.
Only if it's inter-state. Aka travelling from one State to another. If the Cruiseline is operating purely within FL waters then it's not federal jurisdiction.
IANAL So, as soon as the cruise liner crosses into international waters, they come under federal jurisdiction?
Most cruises don’t stay in Florida’s waters - they visit other Caribbean ports which belong foreign countries. Allegedly, the federal government is supposed to be the regulator for international travel. But these days, where courts rule in favor of any crazy argument presented to them, who knows? Maybe “Florida’s waters” extend all the way across the whole Caribbean now.
But the cruises were talking about all enter international law and hence are covered by the international commerce provision, identical to the interstate provision. (Unless you're talking dinner cruises.)
Do you think the cruise lines will simply require unvaccinated passengers to waive some of their rights re liability if an outbreak occurs?
maybe, but what about vaccinated passengers who end up stuck on a quarantined ship with a covid outbreak?
If they were stupid enough to board a ship run by a company that openly welcomed unvaccinated people on it, they’ll get what they paid for.
They'd be quarantined for 10 days per CDC basic recommendation for exposed persons, but other than that, the ship has the obligation to feed and house everyone.
It's an extended, free vacation for the vaccinated, with almost zero risk of death and about a 5% risk of getting sick at all.
That's not how vaccinated risks work.
Disaggregated, sure, it works differently depending upon specific factors, but in general, 95% of ppl won't get sick at all.
Some wag on Twitter mentioned that going on to the ship with the non-vax'd isn't all that if you are vaxxed. But getting stuck on the ship for two weeks of quarantine if/when there's an outbreak would be the bigger issue.
But, as I've mentioned previously when arguing in support of vaccine passports, we really don't know exactly what pervasiveness and duration of exposure might mean to vaccinated people. If you're in a confined space like an airplane or a cruise ship in the company of significant number of unvaccinated people and one or more super-spreaders are vaccinated people basically invulnerable or does the risk creep up with time and intensity of the viral loads you're exposed to?
Airplanes cause almost no spread of the disease. The air is constantly recirculated nd the ivrus can't survive being mixed with the air bled directly from the combustion zone of the engine. (Assuming you're not stranded on the tarmac for excessively long times.)
For the unvaccinated, it seems to depend upon a number of different things:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/17/travel/flying-plane-covid-19-safety.html
But getting stuck on the ship for two weeks of quarantine if/when there's an outbreak would be the bigger issue.
Would there even be a quarantine? This is the America of mid 2021 we're talking about. I think more likely is they'd be allowed to return to port and the passengers would be allowed to disembark and go wherever they like because Freedumb. It's basically no more dangerous than the common cold for people under the age of 97, anyway.
Under what authority can desantis insist or punish cruise lines for requiring vaccinations?
Big Government
Florida past a law forbidding use of vaccine passports with a 5000$ fine for each use.
But the state can't interfere in federal rules, which this would be doing. Cruise ships are not operating within the state.
"There must be someone in Florida who has his ear and hasn't lost his mind." -- KD
Probably not.
Isn't that a private property boat? I don't see how Desantis has a say in who is allowed in. Of course, that won't prevent him from demanding a say. After all, this is Governor Florida Man.
Not only is it private property it's foreign property
Will someone, for God's sake, talk some sense into DeSantis?
Defending the God-given rights of MAGA anti-vaxxers to spread a deadly pathogen is the sensible move, Kevin, from the perspective of a Republican governor who wants to live in the White House.