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sandzsworld · 2 years

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Last year’s investigations into the COVID-19 outbreaks on cruise ships at the start of the pandemic, including Princess Cruises’ Diamond Princess and Holland America’s MS Zaandam, revealed horrific vacations gone wrong for passengers from around the world. But what happened to the tens of thousands of crew members who remained trapped on ships even after all the guests had disembarked and found their way home?

At Bloomberg Businessweek, Austin Carr tells the devastating stories of cruise line employees found dead — in apparent suicides — aboard Carnival and Royal Caribbean ships, including Jozsef Szaller, a shore excursion manager from Hungary on the Carnival Breeze, and Mariah Jocson, a waitress from the Philippines on Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas.

On April 29, an electrical engineer from Poland on Royal Caribbean’s Jewel of the Seas disappeared while the ship was anchored in the Saronic Gulf, south of Athens. Ship security cameras captured him leaping into the water that morning, according to Greek authorities. Two weeks later, on May 10, Evgenia Pankrushyna, a waitress from Ukraine, died after jumping overboard from Carnival’s Regal Princess near Rotterdam. Around this time a Chinese contractor was found dead on Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas. A crew member aboard the ship says many believed it was another suicide, though the company said he’d died of natural causes. Next was a Filipino cook, Kennex Bundaon, who was found dead in his cabin on Carnival’s AIDAblu. Four days later, another worker from the Philippines died in an apparent suicide on Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady.

The details of the deaths of Szaller and Jocson are still not clear, even to their families, who are “desperate for closure.” In Szaller’s case, Carnival has refused to discuss the specific circumstances of his death with his parents, while the father of Jocson, the Royal Caribbean employee, says that his daughter had never shown signs of depression and kept telling him that she wanted to go home. He just wants to know the truth about her death.

It wasn’t just the claustrophobic environment that was distressing. Workers say cruise companies constantly changed repatriation schedules, offering only vague guidance on when or how they’d return home. Without customers on board, Carnival moved many contractors off duty, meaning they could sort of enjoy the amenities of the ocean liners. But that also meant their salaries were eventually cut off—a scary situation for those supporting families on land. The weeks dragged on with limited entertainment options. Internet access was complimentary on some boats, but it could be painfully slow or strong enough only for social media and texting.

Vilmos says communications with Carnival broke down soon after. As the Szallers tried to organize the retrieval of their son’s body, including figuring out which jurisdiction would have to declare him legally deceased, they began to see the cruise company as having had a role in their son’s death. Its labyrinthine corporate structure—a web of international entities designed to lower Carnival’s tax liability—compounded their grief.

Even now, the Szallers have been unable to have Jozsef declared legally deceased. Vilmos says the coroner’s report should move things forward, but it’s been frustrating enough coordinating with U.K. authorities on behalf of his son, a Hungarian citizen. And that’s not even half the headache. As Vilmos frames it, how do you officially process a death that occurred in international waters, on a ship registered in Panama, that’s owned by a company operating in the U.S.?

Investigation stories heard from my colleagues:

“How would you feel if you were confined to a windowless cell and could only go out once or twice a day?”

It’s a trend Dr. David Cates, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, calls a “pandemic within the pandemic.” He cites a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August that showed a startling 11% of 5,470 adult respondents among the U.S. population had “seriously considered suicide” over a 30-day period this spring, compared with 4.3% in another large survey in 2018 who reported considering suicide during the previous 12 months. “Being stuck on a ship for an indeterminate amount of time, in a small space—that really checks all the boxes,” says Cates, who treated some of the first rescued cruise passengers at UNMC’s national quarantine center. In addition to the estimated 100 or so passengers and crew who died of causes linked to Covid, there have been at least a half-dozen other fatalities among crew members who were trapped at sea. Most of these are suspected suicides.

Interviews with affected crew members and their families suggest that despite assurances from cruise operators that crew were well cared for, their mental health was at times an afterthought. An October 2019 study on the mental well-being of crew, commissioned by a group affiliated with the International Transport Workers’ Federation, the big maritime trade union, found that even before the pandemic about a fifth of mariners surveyed said they had suicidal thoughts. High levels of depression stem from the jobs’ long contract lengths and stressful demands. Lower-level crew—such as junior housekeepers and galley staffers—often come from poorer countries and commit to half-year stints or longer at sea, working 8 to 10 hours, seven days a week. Their salaries can range from about $650 to $2,000 a month, depending on seniority. The pay per hour is low by American standards, but workers say that it’s more than they could earn at home and that they appreciate the opportunity to travel the world.

After the pandemic hit, workers had to put their lives on hold as Carnival and Royal Caribbean clashed with government authorities over how to get them home safely. It was one thing to offload a group of American passengers in California or Florida and arrange private transport stateside. But what about the convoluted logistics of repatriating crew from India, the Philippines, or Ukraine—all while most of the world was closing its borders to stop the virus’s spread?

Workers blamed the CDC for imposing onerous restrictions on travel, such as requiring company executives to sign off on a litany of health processes for disembarkation through U.S. harbors and airports at the risk of criminal penalties. But they also faulted cruise operators for seeming unwilling to pay for chartered flights abroad. A Carnival spokesperson says the conglomerate ended up spending $300 million and chartering 225 flights to get crew home to more than 100 countries, but fluctuating travel rules made it so “even the simplest crew movements required weeks of diplomatic work.” A Royal Caribbean spokesman says that “constant changes in government restrictions” caused delays and that they worked for months to get crew home through private and commercial transportation.

This left many crew members with a tedious confinement that started in March and April after passengers disembarked. The ships were eerie—like an “empty ghost ship,” as one Royal Caribbean worker puts it—especially for those who had to quarantine after being exposed to the coronavirus. For some, that meant being stuck for nearly three weeks in an economy room, one that barely fit a bunk bed, desk, and minifridge, with a porthole window.

▲ Jozsef Szaller, who planned shore excursions for cruise guests, was hoping to study photography and dreamed of going shark-cage diving in South Africa.COURTESY SZALLER FAMIL

▲ Mariah Jocson, a ship waitress, had always dreamed of becoming a seafarer, according to her father.COURTESY JOCSON FAMILY

▲ A GoFundMe page in honor of cook Kennex Bundaon described him as an avid traveler with the “chillest vibe.”GOFUNDME

<img src="https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/is45oAX1QCec/v0/640x-1.jpg" alt="Evgenia Pankrushyna, a waitress on the <em>Regal Princess</em>, “was a person with her own original perspective to life, with positive attitude and nice smile,” says a friend." class="css--multi-image no-blur" loading="lazy" />

▲ Evgenia Pankrushyna, a waitress on the Regal Princess, “was a person with her own original perspective to life, with positive attitude and nice smile,” says a friend.

Inevitably, some struggled. Karika Neethling, a shop employee on a luxury liner run by MSC Cruises SA, a big European operator, grew terrified upon learning she was pregnant while aboard the ship. The strong curries served to employees made her nauseous, and after developing stomach pain in May, she sought prenatal vitamins from the ship’s doctor. She was told they didn’t have any. “You just need to stay calm and stay in the cabin,” the doctor told her. Neethling recalls spending hours on her bunk, while her mind circled around the indefinite stay. She was in a dark place. “If I couldn’t get off, I wouldn’t have wanted to have a baby on the ship,” she says. (An MSC spokesperson said pregnant crew were provided extensive medical care and prioritized repatriation. Neethling made it home to South Africa in June and gave birth to a healthy baby boy on Dec. 17.)

Morbid news continued into June. Mariah Jocson, a waitress from the Philippines stranded on Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas, which was docked in Barbados, was last seen asking a friend for a teapot. According to her father, on June 9 crew heard a code “Alpha” blared over the ship’s intercom system—shorthand for a medical emergency. Jocson was found hanged over her cabin’s balcony railing, police say

To those hunkered down on board, it felt as if every week brought news of another death via industry blogs. Soon after Pankrushyna’s death, workers began passing around a video on WhatsApp and email that apparently showed, in graphic detail, her limp body being dragged onto a rescue boat. Carnival and Royal Caribbean each offered a confidential phone line to dial a therapist for psychological support, but several crew members say they abstained from calling those numbers or disclosing emotional problems to human resources staff on board because they worried it might jeopardize future employment.

Back on land, Krista Thomas, a former crew member living in Canada who’d started a Facebook group to advocate for seafarers during the pandemic, was receiving increasingly panicked private chats from distraught crew members. “I’d get messages like, ‘The doctor gave me anti-anxiety medicine, and my plan is to take the whole bottle,’ ” she says. She enrolled in an online suicide prevention course to learn how to respond.

“She kept on telling me, Daddy, I will be home on this day, on this day, on this day. The schedule was always changing”

Not all workers suffered in silence. In mid-May, acts of desperation erupted on several ships as workers tried to call attention to their plight. On Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas, crew members started a hunger strike to pressure the company to get them home faster. On the deck of Majesty of the Seas, another of the company’s ships, protesters raised a banner reading, “How many more suicides you need?!” Royal Caribbean says the company “understood the frustration behind the protest” and that the ships’ captains took steps to resolve each situation.

Szaller, friends say, was never one to complain. He’d started doing gigs on cruise ships in 2014 and was always bubbly and social. A regular at the crew bars, he played card games such as Exploding Kittens and was forever buying his co-workers beers and bags of chips. He was also known as a hard worker who woke before dawn most mornings. The alarm on his Casio watch was set for 5:52 a.m.

He’d been an assistant shore excursion manager on the Carnival Elation, a job that involved organizing touristy adventures in ports of call. In early March, a little over two months into Szaller’s contract, the Elation docked at Freeport in Grand Bahama for a few weeks of scheduled repairs. By this time, Covid outbreaks on several ships had resulted in scores of infections. “It was very scary,” says Jessica van Rooyen, a colleague of Szaller’s on the Elation. “You’d put on the news, and it’s all this horrific stuff.”

In mid-April, Szaller was transferred to Carnival Magic, where he remained in limbo for about two weeks. Some members of the crew, normally relegated to the lowest quarters of a ship, were allowed to move to now-vacant guest suites. But Szaller was stuck in a spartan staff cabin, according to his family. “He was effectively in a private cell,” says Vilmos, his father. “How would you feel if you were confined to a windowless cell and could only go out once or twice a day?”

Life on the Magic was regimented. Workers were allowed outside their cabins only during set times, were required to wear masks, and had mandated curfews. About an hour was allotted for breakfast, but the lines were slow and crowded. It could take 45 minutes just to get a coffee. With free internet, Szaller was able to stay in touch with his family and his girlfriend. Every other day, he Skyped with his parents or chatted with them on Facebook. They tried to stay upbeat. “We were supporting him morally and emotionally,” Vilmos says. “Whenever we could and it was convenient for him, we talked. But you don’t want to overburden your child.”

Szaller passed the time in his cabin drinking red wine, or playing video games, or binging on TV shows he’d downloaded onto his laptop. He watched Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Modern Family. Otherwise his refuge was the smoking area of Deck 11, where he’d puff Marlboros and shoot the breeze with friends. But even getting cigarettes could be a pain: The line at the ship’s convenience store often snaked with more than 100 people. When his stash ran low, he joked that he’d happily trade his phone for just two more packs, Vilmos recalls.

In their conversations, Vilmos was struck not just by how isolated Jozsef seemed but also that he was kept in a “state of total uncertainty.” Back home in Hungary, the government had extended its nationwide lockdown indefinitely, which helped Vilmos “understand what my son was going through—what it’s like to feel enclosed.”

But Vilmos, an arborist for the city of Budapest, was confined at home for only three days before receiving permission to work outside again. (“They realized that it’d be kind of difficult to transport a massive tree to my house,” he jokes.) Jozsef, meanwhile, told his parents about Carnival’s ever-changing plans for him. First he was informed that he’d be home by Easter, but the date was postponed without explanation, then postponed again. He told his dad a co-worker was advised to pack a suitcase for a flight home, only to be sent back to his cabin at the last minute. Crew kept a close eye on a third-party travel app that listed plane tickets Carnival had booked in their names. A close friend of Jozsef’s says they saw about five different flights home issued for them and then canceled. A Carnival spokesperson says the company provided frequent updates to crew and blamed the reschedulings on constantly changing travel restrictions.

Cruise operators ultimately decided to sail remaining employees to seaports in their continent of origin, where it’d be easier to get them home by land or air. In an effort to consolidate crew by home region, the Magic transferred European crew by lifeboat to the Carnival Breeze, which was set to travel to England. By May, Szaller had moved into a guest cabin on the Breeze with a window and, even better, a balcony. He told his dad he was happy to finally be able to see the sun and the sea from his room. He started making post-pandemic plans, telling friends and family he wanted to learn photography when he made it home. In the near term he would quarantine near Budapest in his parents’ weekend cottage. Colleagues say he never even hinted at being depressed. If anything, he’d tried to cheer others up.

Life on the Breeze that May was still structured—Carnival issued a precise timetable dictating when crew could leave their cabins for food or a twice-daily “60 min fresh air break.” Just as on land, people began to let their guard down, socializing more and worrying less about the virus. Everybody seemed to be at the ship’s bars a lot. “What else can you do?” Szaller’s close friend asks. “On Breeze, we had limited time to let the steam off. Without the alcohol, things could’ve been even worse.”

On the evening of Wednesday, May 6, Szaller got drunk with a group before everybody went their separate ways. The close friend says that was the last night they saw Jozsef. He missed temperature checks that week and didn’t respond to texts. His body was found three days later. “I absolutely blame myself,” this friend says. “Even now, when I think about it, I feel responsible. How is it possible I didn’t see something like this would happen?”

Vilmos says his own grief was worsened by Carnival’s refusal to discuss the specific circumstances of his son’s death. He theorizes it’s in the company’s legal interest to disclose as little information as possible. He was especially rattled by their first call, when representatives said it was for his own “protection” not to go into detail about the matter. A Carnival spokesperson says that the company’s crew medical coordinator had at least 15 subsequent email exchanges with Vilmos, and that at no time did he indicate his questions weren’t being answered. Carnival says it suspended contact after learning of the family’s pending legal action.

Like Vilmos Szaller, Cirilo Jocson is desperate for closure. His daughter, Mariah, was the waitress discovered hanged on a Royal Caribbean ship in June. “We just want to know how they found my daughter,” he says, sounding on the verge of tears. “Really, even just a photo of the crime scene. We need the truth.”

“She kept on telling me, Daddy, I will be home on this day, on this day, on this day,” he says. “The schedule was always changing.” He is still in disbelief over her passing. When asked if she ever showed signs of depression, he responds, “No, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all.”

In the months that followed his son’s death, Vilmos says he contacted as many crewmates as possible to find out what happened. He’s frustrated that, as far as he knows, nobody from the ship’s management or medical staff bothered checking on Jozsef for several days after he began missing temperature checks. Carnival declined to comment on this matter.

In November, a coroner in Winchester, England, concluded that Jozsef had died due to hanging and suggested it was likely “an impulsive yet intentional and self-administered act under the influence of alcohol.” A previous postmortem examination of Jozsef’s body noted that his blood alcohol had been triple the legal driving limit. This last fact is a key point in the arbitration demand the Szallers filed. A Carnival spokesperson says its bartenders are trained to identify overindulgence and deny service accordingly. The Szaller family attorney, Holly Ostrov-Ronai, says the company should have known the hazards of isolating employees for indefinite periods and provided them with the appropriate mental health support—not “unfettered access” to booze, wine, and beer. “They allowed [employees] to purchase as much alcohol as they wanted, confined them to their little cabins, and then didn’t check on them,” she says. “They had a duty to make sure [employees] were safe physically and mentally.”

Life Under Floating Lockdown

#merchantnavy #cruise lines #seafarer

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jflashandclash · 7 years

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The Attrition of Peace

Forty-Three: The Pax Brothers

We Crash the Wrong Person’s Vacation

Note: I do something a little different with the point of view in this chapter. I hope it isn’t too distracting! Let me know if it is!

In the ensuing chaos—of Alabaster snarling a quick, “Dawn will make your ghosts worthless,”

And the boar with a bowtie withdrawing a pocketwatch from a pocket that involved cartoon logic to say, “Oh, my good boy, we have plenty of time,”

And Reyna’s and Melinoe’s troops engaging—Pax frantically searched for his friends who were less trained in the art of not dying during war.[1]

He didn’t catch sight of Kally or the others as Reyna and Alabaster shoved him and Axel backwards across Camp Half-Blood’s boundary lines. But, he did see another figure.

Off to the side of the Roman wedge formation and the line of ghosts, there was a girl with a leather jacket, multi-colored hair, and a crowbar and sledge hammer in either hand. Atë didn’t have her usual bounce to her, nor her serial-killer-doll stare. Her shoulders slumped. She looked sad while waving her crowbar at Pax in some form of parting. Either that or a threat. With his family, you could never be sure.

Despite being out of breath, Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them. He turned from Atë, the ghost army, and the Roman defenses and ran alongside Axel towards the creepy pit of nothingness and frowny faces that had destroyed half of Hera’s cabin.

He and Axel donned their helms for ease while running, the Silver Tongued Snake’s head narrowing his peripheral with more darkness. He stayed close to Axel, knowing his brother had better spooky time vision.

As they stumbled back through what was left of the strawberry fields, towards the central hearth of camp, Pax wondered if this was the best choice. He hadn’t thought the ultimatum would be—A: let Euna vacation in Tartarus or B: abandon his friends to a ghost army and the Roman army, both of which probably wanted to kill them.

Pax snapped back to the present when Axel hissed, “You didn’t tell me campers were up.”

Ahead of them, Pax could see one of the many lumps had risen from the ground, hopefully a camper.

Without breaking stride, Axel sprang over the camper, using the camper’s shoulder for balance. Meanwhile, Pax skid between the campers legs and rolled back into a run. In their split second of passing the camper, Pax recognized the trembling child of Hermes as Chris Rodriguez. And he was pretty sure the Leonis Caput and Silver Tongued Snake had just made Chris pee his PJ pants. Memo to self: mock Chris forever.

“In the words of Alabaster,” Pax responded as they saw the gaping hole in front of Cabin Two. Several sleepy campers gathered around it, gawking down and saying they needed to find Chiron. “’Jack’s voice wasn’t exactly soothing.’”

In retrospect, Pax wished he’d have said something cooler when they bolted past the gawking teenagers. Like, “Zeus’s farts smell like Aphrodite’s perfume,” since neither god would know which one he’d insulted, or “Weasels forever!” to commemorate the Triple W team that he, Axel, and Alabaster had left in the Paxmobile.

He didn’t have time to add on before Axel stepped into the narrow corridor with Pax following after. With each step down, the walls narrowed. By the time Pax counted step fifteen, he could feel cool stone press against the arms of his weasel sweater. The light from the campfire above them had dwindled to a mocking hint of glow off Axel’s golden helm.

With that and the dim light of Pax’s celestial bronze daggers, all he could see was the looming Nemean Lion pelt descending ahead and the red plumes of the helm undulating in the tunnel’s slight breeze. Pax remembered stories of the Leonis Caput “stalking the labyrinth,” as the monsters liked to call it—the monsters that placed bets on how Pax’s brother would kill Roman captives.

After Pax saw Axel win his first coliseum fight to secure their entry into Camp Othrys, Axel forbid Pax from attending the whole “stalking the labyrinth” shindig. Something about how Pax wasn’t old enough to watch R rated films? Pax had never thought about it much, since it was prime prank time, but now, he wondered if this was how the Roman victims saw his brother.

The updraft blasted Pax’s face with the smell of… seawater? Why seawater? It would be awesome if Euna took a detour to some beachfront real-estate, but that didn’t seem to fit the whole bent on godly destruction thing.

Axel stopped moving.

Pax could taste salt when he swallowed. He got the uncomfortable urge to scramble back up the stairs, until the plumes on the Leonis Caput helm faded into the darkness.

“I can’t see where we’re going,” Axel said. Pax could hear his brother puff his cheeks.

Pax swallowed again, trying to rid himself of the ocean taste. Something felt wrong about the smell of openness in this black confinement. “Aren’t you supposed to have like, bat sense or whatever?” he squeaked.

“I’m not sure this is part of the labyrinth,” Axel said, “If it is, either something is blocking my view, or it hasn’t linked fully into the network yet. I’m not sure how this works if Jack bent the labyrinth to his will. The labyrinth is a living thing. It doesn’t like to be controlled.”

Axel’s voice trembled and Pax slowly put the pieces together. Cages. Confinement. Control. Santiago.

Pax wanted to tease Axel for getting claustrophobic, but that would be like punching a honey badger in the nose: both upsetting because honey badgers are cute and because they are incredibly dangerous.

“There’s a door here,” Axel finally said, “Be on your guard.”

“Oh, I wanted to relax with Reese’s Sticks and Kool-Aid the whole trip to Tartarus,” Pax whispered.

The door didn’t open the way he was expecting. Instead of hearing the click of a knob or the ominous swing of a dungeon gate like Pax had heard in video games, the barrier gave way noiselessly.

The brightness blinded the Pax brothers when they stepped out of the darkness. Instead of some dank cavern, they exited into overcast sunlight. The brothers paused to allow their eyes to adjust to the brilliance, their bodies to the warm breeze, and their noses to the intensity of salt and smoke.

When they’d adjusted, neither moved. Both were too stunned.

They were on a huge ship.

A grey ocean bled into a colorless sky every direction they looked. Parts of the deck were smoldering, the smoke curling to disappear into the bleached landscape. Various charred boards looked like they were patched together with broken dreams and wishful thinking.

There was a hollow carnival atmosphere to the ship, like an abandoned theme park. A pool was in the center, filled with crystal clear water and formerly white patio chairs with blue towels scattered around. A bar extended from the deck into the pool for easy access.

Before the Pax brothers recognized any of the people drearily shambling past the broken spots in the floor, they saw the posters on the bar shack’s outer wall: one was for an Orpheus Metal concert. The depiction of Jack’s maniac grin above his emaciated body felt uncomfortable. Axel and Pax looked so much younger with their drums and guitar. That was back when Axel had long hair in a ponytail and Pax had pink highlights.[2]

A few feet away, another poster depicted Percy Jackson with a drawn on mustache. Several knives and tail spikes protruded the wall, illustrating someone’s target practice.

Axel didn’t need to see the mast’s statue of a princess in chains to state, “This is the Princess Andromeda cruise ship.”

They both puffed up their cheeks and popped them.

Axel and Pax removed their helmets and attached them to their belts so it was easier to look around.

Pax felt himself tremble. He glanced at the door they’d come through, only to find a Johnny Rocket’s entrance. The circular window in the center of the door showed the remains of a food fight in the restaurant. But there were no grinning Camp Othrys members. Just a few people scrubbing the floor with their heads down. Something about them looked familiar.

“But… but why is it here? And… and how? Did the whole ship decide to take a joy ride out of Tartarus? Are we in Tartarus already?” Pax whispered.

Axel shook his head. He clenched his jaw, trying to pretend the sight of their dilapidated ship didn’t bother him. “What did Jack say when he sang?”

“What? The song about geography?”

“No,” Axel shook his head, “It’s about being there for a lover and conquering geography to get to them, right?”

“I don’t listen to old people music and I was a little preoccupied with the earth splitting to listen to lyrics. But, if it was something about that, then why are we on a ship looking for Jack’s lov—”

Then Pax saw her.

He felt like he’d eaten a full backpack’s supply of walnuts. The world tunneled until everything was fuzzy but her black, jagged hair and her mutilated, scarred face. Pax didn’t know he’d stopped breathing until he gasped out, “Flynn.”

She was mopping the deck, staring at the boards with that icy, absent glare she often got when Jack wasn’t around. Like when he’d last seen her at the Massacre of Mount Othrys, her legs and lower waist looked crippled and crushed from where Jason Grace had blasted a pillar onto her and Krios, and from when Pax couldn’t protect her like he’d promised Jack he would.

The random shades doing chores on the boat weren’t strangers. They were their friends that died during the war.

Pax could feel his cold sweat when Flynn looked up at the sound of her name. Her eyes softened for an indiscernible moment, then they narrowed. Get the fuck out of here, she mouthed.

Yep. That was Flynn.

But Pax couldn’t move. He felt too nauseous. He wanted to curl up and sob on Axel’s arm, but he also wanted to never touch another human again.

Axel would have normally noticed his brother’s increase into hyperventilation, but movement from one of the only non-ghosts aboard distracted him.

A beautiful woman stretched out on one of the white beach chairs. There was another non-ghost beside her, lounging on a chair facing away from them. All Axel could see was the man’s muddy sandals.

She folded up her tanning reflector, set it on the stool beside her, picked up a bottle of suntan lotion and a fruity drink, and stood.

For an instant, Axel thought it was Reyna. The woman’s hair billowed in loose, black waves down her back. A complicated, revealing purple swimsuit clung tightly to her caramel skin, one with way too many unnecessary straps. Something Reyna would never wear.

“Fei Lin, my wonderful daughter, you missed a few spots on the deck. And you forgot it’s rude not to properly welcome guests,” the woman said with a warmth of a pillow used to smoother puppies.

She’d walked up to Axel before he smelled the aroma of roses intermixed with the smoke and seawater.

Faster than he could block, Aphrodite slapped him across the face with the bottle of suntan lotion. “You,” she said with the same tight sweetness, “scorned me for a demigod. And not just any demigod, one that gets all sweaty and gross from fighting too much, and reads really boring books!”

Axel thought about breaking Aphrodite’s neck. The more childish side of him wanted to uncork that suntan lotion bottle and pour it on her hair, since he knew it would make her squeal and amuse Pax.

But Pax was trembling so violently, Axel feared the shakes might dislodge a floorboard and drop them into the mess hall. Pax probably wouldn’t notice Aphrodite’s cringe.

They didn’t have time for the Goddess of Love. He hadn’t registered that she’d stopped her night visits when they got to New Rome. Too much had happened.

And this wasn’t the place for a confrontation. He needed to get Pax away fast.

Axel focused on Aphrodite’s ear, to prevent himself from identifying any of the ghosts around them, and to decrease the effectiveness of her love magic. Despite his attempts, he was furious to find himself thinking about nipping her lobe.

“Why did you bring us here?” he demanded, trying to find something wrong on Aphrodite to ward off any attraction.

“Eris brat, take this,” Aphrodite instructed, handing the bottle to his little brother.

Pax squeaked as the charmspeak took over. He reflexively extended a trembling, sweaty hand. Tears streaked down his cheeks when he glanced from the goddess to Flynn, who had gone back to swabbing the deck.

Aphrodite began to rub herself down with the lotion, moving her straps in a way that made Axel avert his gaze. Each motion was so deliberate and tender. He tried to picture Reyna’s face when they were cleaning up the war tent, the way her cloak had loosened on one side to look goofy and lopsided, the strands that had come out of her braid—

“Stop that,” Aphrodite snarled, the sweetness temporarily dissipating. When Axel glanced back at her, she went back to smiling and applying lotion.

“I didn’t bring you here. I was just having a pleasant, quiet vacation with one of my lovers and your friends interrupted it. The Plague Bringer and the clueless daughter of Demeter, right?” She sighed and went to flip her hair, though the locks had shortened to a dark, pixie cut and her eyes shifted from dark to brilliant blue. “It seems like Jack was looking for his love as a way to lead him and his friend to Tartarus. Oh, Jack and Flynn’s love story!” She grabbed the suntan lotion from a flinching Pax and hugged the bottle to her chest. “Such a delightfully tragic one. Just a pity the heroine forsook her beauty and cut up her face.”

Flynn had stopped mopping. She glared at her mother in a way that told Axel—if Flynn’s charmspeak worked on Aphrodite, Flynn would force her mother do worse than cut up her face.

“Flynn’s still beautiful,” Pax whispered.

Aphrodite dabbed the lotion along the ridge of her brow and gave the bottle back to Pax. He jumped. “That’s cute and sweet of you to say that, Ajax. Peitho[3] and I were wondering if saying that makes you feel better about what happened.”

“Which way did they go?” Axel interrupted. Out of all their fallen comrades, Pax had the hardest time with Flynn. Pax could make jokes about everyone else, and reminisce on stories, or cry about how much he missed Alabaster, but never anything about Flynn. Axel didn’t need Aphrodite teasing his little brother when the dead girl was in front of them.

A glance down at Pax confirmed Axel’s suspicion. Pax was biting his lip to keep himself as together as the softhearted kid could.

“Hm?” Aphrodite asked, “Did you say you wanted my help?” In a gesture that looked absentminded, she took the suntan lotion from Pax and motioned it towards Axel. Meanwhile, she licked the rim of her fruity drink.

Axel had nothing to bargain. He could try to kill her again, but that had left him on his knees, pining over her for weeks. He knew what she wanted, but he could never humiliate himself like that. As much as the smell of her perfume made him want to droop his eyes, they were surrounded by the destruction caused by negligent, vengeful, and sadistic parenting by her and gods like her.

A thunk came from the chairs by the pool. Aphrodite’s boyfriend stood up, stretched, and slung an AK-47 across his back. He wasn’t wearing a shirt over his muscles, but did have a scarf tied around his head to hide his face, like a Somalian pirate. His sunglasses blazed with a backlit fire. Just the sight of him made Axel furious.

Aphrodite sighed and tossed her suntan lotion onto the ground.

“Oh, you’re not going to be able to follow your friends off this ship. If you want to tail them, you’ll have to go a different route, assuming I let you,” Ares said, smirking.

Axel scowled. Any worry he had about Aphrodite’s wiles evaporated in the presence of the war god. He reflexively went to grab his sword hilt, only to remember that all his weapons other than his obsidian blades were in pieces in the Paxmobile. He didn’t even have his frying pan.

“What in Xibalba are you doing in Tartarus?” Axel snarled.

“What in Tartarus are you doing in Tartarus,” Pax corrected quietly.

The war god gave a billowing laugh. “We’re not in Tartarus! What? Did you forget I control the souls and vessels of all the fallen losers in battle? Hades and I had a field day—”

“—Fields of punishment day—” Pax said.

“—drawing lots on who got your crew.” Ares reached over and ruffled Flynn’s hair. Axel could feel her hatred. He remembered how she’d publically humiliate people if they dared to initiate contact with her at Camp Othrys. Well, everyone other than Jack or Pax.

Although Axel hadn’t always agreed with Flynn’s brutal methods, he found himself wondering how he could free her and the rest of his crew from servitude to this godly child. But where else would their souls go? Could they have a worse fate?

Ares released Flynn. He cracked his neck. “I couldn’t justify getting Jack though. He had to get his own specialized eternal torment. Though, it looks like he’s got the Orpheus curse now.”

As much as Axel wanted to obliterate his least favorite couple off this ship, Euna and Jack were getting further away every second, and Pax looked closer and closer to a mental breakdown.

Axel set a hand on his brother’s arm.

Pax flinched.

Axel withdrew and frowned. “Ajax, let’s get out of here. I’m sure we can find another labyrinth entrance somewhere on the ship. I think we had one in the boiler room.”

If there was one thing Axel knew gods hated, it was being ignored. He went to gently corral Pax towards the Johnny Rocket’s entrance.

“Oh, you think I’m going to let you go after you helped Hephaestus gather the parts for his giant rat trap?” Ares asked.

Rat trap? Axel paused. He remembered Hephaestus hiring him for a retrieval quest in exchange for the location of Leo Valdez.

“Ugh, Stygian ice is SO bad for your skin!” Aphrodite complained. When Axel glanced back, he could see both she and Ares rub their arms at the distasteful memory.

Despite everything, Axel crackled a smile. He hoped Hephaestus enjoyed hatching whatever trap he’d concocted.

Pax released a nervous laugh. Since Axel had directed him away from Flynn, color started to return to his face.

Ares seemed too relaxed with their reactions. The war god lowered his hands, resting one on the pistol grip of his rifle. “I gotta hand it to you, kid. Normally, I like punks like you with all of your spirit and anger—”

“—oh, it’s monologuing time—” Pax said.

“—but, at least pricks like Percy are useful. You… I haven’t hated anyone as much as you since Ghandi.”

“Give me a medal of honor,” Axel grunted.

“After upsetting this fine lady—” Ares gestured beside him to where Aphrodite was examining her perfect nails like she wasn’t part of the conversation. “—I’ve been thinking a lot—”

“That must have been very difficult for you,” Pax said sympathetically. Axel probably should have stopped Pax’s side commentary, but he was a bit too proud of his little brother to do so.

The war god seemed unfazed as he finished, “—thinking about what to do with you.”

“I’ve beaten you before, Ares,” Axel reminded him, struggling to ward off a smirk.

Though… Axel wasn’t sure he could defeat Ares now. He had no weapons but his claws and teeth. He was exhausted from fighting Percy and Reyna. And he needed to keep Pax safe and hunt down Euna and Jack. Plus, there was the ghost army at Camp Half-Blood with Reyna…

Axel thought about continuing to ignore Ares to find the closest labyrinth entrance. Then every ghost on this ship—all their dead friends—would be sent after him and Pax to drag them back to the deck.

He was not in the strategic position to smirk. Axel sighed.

“No… no…” Ares chuckled and unslung his rifle. As though to emphasis how unnecessary the weapon would be, he leaned it against the closest patio chair. “You’re not going to fight me. See, I’ve been Googling the best godly punishments. Normally, I just kill people.” Ares shrugged. “But I found out Hera had a way more brutal suggestion.”

Axel wanted to make some snarky comment about a 4,000 year old man going to his mother for advice, but the words died on his lips.

“Some little myth about a guy named Hercules? Something about his first family…?” Ares said.

Aphrodite giggled.

Axel couldn’t puff up his cheeks and pop them. His insides felt frozen.

Ares couldn’t do that, could he? That wasn’t normally in Hera’s department of power either but, she was the queen of the gods—

But Axel could already feel his claws lengthening without his consent.

From the energized grin on Ares’ face, the god knew what Axel was thinking. He slung an arm over Aphrodite’s shoulder and pulled her close as they watched Axel struggle with himself. “I know you love to hunt and battle, kid. Now you’ll hunt and battle the things that you love. I think that’s well within Aphrodite’s and my domain.”

Throughout their trip down Jack’s corridor and onto the ghost ship, and—really—throughout most of his interactions with the Greek gods, Axel hadn’t been scared. Annoyed and enraged? Definitely. Now, for what Axel thought was the first time ever, he found himself trembling in fear before a god.

When Pax saw Axel’s shaking hands reach up and clutch his head, Pax asked, “Um, Lord of Primordial Awesome?”

“Ajax…” Axel whispered, “Run.”

We’re almost at the end! Only one chapter and an epilogue to go!!!! :D Thanks for reading! *ehem* please don’t kill the author.... >>’‘

Footnote:

[1] As Mel pointed out: books Pax should write.

[2] This is actually a continuity error from Ch 21, Blood of a Mayan. Making a note here for me to fix it (since I care deeply about my character’s hair… apparently?) XD

[3] Goddess/personified spirit of persuasion, seduction, and charming speech.

#Traitors of Olympus #Heroes of Olympus #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #HOO #PJO #fanfiction #The Attrition of Peace #Pax #Axel #Chris #Ares #Aphrodite #And this is why the Triple A Chimera can't sleep at night ^^#And why I'm terrified of what my characters will do to me if they ever come to life >>''

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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Stuck on cruise ships throughout pandemic, crews ask to go house

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MIAMI — Carolina Vásquez lost track of days and nights, unable to see the sunlight while stuck for two weeks in a windowless cruise ship cabin as a fever grabbed her body.

On the worst night of her encounter with COVID-19, the Chilean lady, a line cook on the Greg Mortimer ship, summoned the strength to take a cold shower fearing the worst: passing out while separated from others.

Vásquez, 36, and tens of countless other crew members have actually been trapped for weeks aboard lots of cruise liner around the globe– long after federal governments and cruise lines negotiated their travelers’ disembarkation. Some have actually gotten ill and died; others have actually made it through however are no longer getting paid.

Carolina Vasquez rides a tender in the Falkland Islands, as a team member on board the Greg Mortimer in this undated picture offered by Vasquez. She has actually been stuck in a cruise cabin with no windows and COVID-19 (Carolina Vasquez through AP)

PRINCESS CRUISES EXTENDS CORONAVIRUS CANCELLATIONS THROUGH END OF SUMMERTIME

Both nationwide and city governments have actually stopped teams from disembarking in order to prevent new cases of COVID-19 in their territories. A few of the ships, including 20 in U.S. waters, have seen infections and deaths amongst the crew. A lot of ships have had no validated cases.

” I never believed this would turn into a terrible and frightening scary story,” Vásquez informed The Associated Press in an interview through a cellphone app from the Greg Mortimer, an Antarctic cruise ship floating off Uruguay. Thirty-six team members have fallen ill on the ship.

The Centers for Disease Control and Avoidance said last month that about 80,000 team members remained on board ships off the U.S. coast after a lot of travelers had disembarked. The Coast Guard stated Friday that there were still 70,000 team members in 102 ships either anchored near or at U.S. ports or underway in U.S. waters.

The overall number of team members stranded worldwide was not immediately readily available. Thousands more are trapped on ships outside the U.S., consisting of in Uruguay and the Manila Bay, where 16 cruise ships are waiting to test about 5,000 crew members prior to they will be permitted to disembark.

In this May 8, 2020 picture, individuals aboard the Norwegian Epic cruise ship docked at PortMiami in Miami, rest on their verandas. Tens of countless team members, including U.S. citizens, remain confined to cabins aboard cruise ships. (AP Photo/Wilfred

ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES EXTENDS CANCELLATION POLICY

As coronavirus cases and deaths have actually risen worldwide, the CDC and health authorities in other nations have actually expanded the list of conditions that need to be satisfied before crews may disembark.

Cruise business must take each team member straight home through charter airplane or personal vehicle without utilizing rental automobiles or taxis. Making complex that objective, the CDC requires business executives to consent to criminal penalties if team members stop working to obey health authorities’ orders to stay away from public transportation and restaurants on their way home.

” The criminal charges offered us (and our lawyers) pause,” Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley composed in a letter to team members previously today, however he included that business executives eventually consented to sign.

Melinda Mann, 25, a youth program manager for Holland America, spent more than 50 days without stepping on dry land before lastly disembarking from the Koningsdam ship Friday in Los Angeles. Prior to she was moved to the Koningsdam, she attempted to stroll off another ship with other U.S. crew members last week however the ship’s security guards stopped them.

In this April 28, 2020 photo supplied by Melinda Mann, she shows the empty deck on board the Koningsdam, a Holland America cruise ship off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico. (Melinda Mann by means of AP)

NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE SEEKS $1.4 B TO WEATHER CORONAVIRUS SHUTDOWN

For 21 hours a day, Mann remained separated in a 150- square-foot cruise cabin that is smaller sized than her bedroom in her Midland, Georgia, home. She checked out 30 books and was only able to leave her room 3 times a day to walk the ship. Her agreement ended April 18, so she was not spent for weeks.

” Keeping me in close captivity for so long is definitely ludicrous,” Mann said in a telephone interview.

Previously today in Nassau, Bahamas, team members from Canada aboard the Emerald Princess were told to prepare to be flown home in a charter aircraft. The Bahamian federal government did not allow the ship to dock in the end.

Leah Prasad’s other half is among the stranded crew members. Prasad said she has invested hours finding government companies to assist her spouse, a Maitre D’Hotel for Carnival.

” He is getting dissuaded. He is stuck in a cabin,” Prasad said. “It is bad for his psychological health.”

Angela Savard, a spokeswoman for Canada’s foreign affairs, said the government was continuing to explore alternatives to bring Canadians home.

For those aboard the Greg Mortimer in Montevideo, desperation is setting in, crew members informed the AP.

The Antarctic cruise set sail from Argentina on March 15, after a pandemic had actually already been stated. The ship’s physician, Dr. Mauricio Usme, said that when the first passenger fell ill, on March 22, he was pushed by the captain, the cruise operator and owners to modify the health conditions that needed to be fulfilled for the ship to be admitted into ports.

Dr. Usme declined. The boat anchored in the port of Montevideo on March27 Over half of its passengers and crew checked favorable for COVID-19 On April 10, 127 passengers, consisting of some who were contaminated, were enabled to disembark and fly home to Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., Canada and Europe. Team members were told to stay on board.

In this undated picture provided by Dr. Mauricio Usme, he is on board the Greg Mortimer, a ship operated by the Australian company Aurora Expeditions and owned by a Miami company. (Mauricio Usme through AP)

ROYAL CARIBBEAN Took Legal Action Against OVER CORONAVIRUS-RELATED DEATH OF CREW MEMBER

The medical professional was hospitalized in an extensive care system in Montevideo, together with a Filipino team member, who later died.

” People are tired and mentally drained,” said Dr. Usme, now recovered and back on the Greg Mortimer. “It’s a complex circumstance. You feel extremely vulnerable and at impending threat of death.”

CMI, the Miami-based business that manages the boat, said it has been “unable to get the necessary authorizations” to let team members of 22 citizenships go home, however stated they were all still under agreement receiving pay.

Marvin Paz Medina, a Honduran man who works as the ship’s storekeeper, sent a video to the AP of his tiny cabin of about 70 square feet (6.5 square meters), where he has actually been restricted for more than 35 days. “It’s difficult being locked up all the time, gazing at the same four walls,” he stated.

Paz Medina says his kids keep asking him when he’s getting back, however he doesn’t have an answer.

” We are trapped, feeling this stress and anxiety that at any moment we can get seriously ill,” stated Paz Medina. “We do not want this any longer. We want to go house.”

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO LEARN MORE ON FOX COMPANY

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/stuck-on-cruise-ships-throughout-pandemic-crews-ask-to-go-house/

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yessadirichards · 4 years

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Florida finally takes cruise passengers, some on stretchers WILFREDO FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla

Passengers from an ill-fated cruise were carefully freed from their cabins and allowed to touch dry land Friday for the first time in weeks, following the removal of 14 critically ill people who were wheeled off to Florida hospitals bracing for an onslaught of coronavirus patients.

The exodus from the Zaandaam and its sister ship the Rotterdam could extend into Saturday, officials said. Floridians disembarked first, followed by other passengers. Buses were taking passengers who were showing no symptoms after being screened and cleared by third-party paramedics directly to the airport, escorted by deputies on motorcycles.

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony dispatched more than 70 deputies to disembark and transport the passengers.

“It’s a lot of manpower. But it’s worth it. We don’t want to have people dying on ships,” Tony said, adding the vessels have been turned away enough. It “wasn't some pirate ship...these are our brothers and sisters on this planet."

As for those needing medical care, Broward Health officials said in a statement some of the 10 patients taken to its hospital were in fair condition, without specifying the number. Three others were taken to another local hospital.

Before disembarking, passengers received instructions to wear face masks at all times when traveling and go immediately into 14 days of self quarantine when they arrived home.

At least four buses brought the first small groups to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday morning, where they boarded two planes waiting on the tarmac. Paramedics and airline workers were fully suited up and masked in protective gear. The first planes left for Toronto and Atlanta, officials said.

Carnival Corp. said the next ship to arrive would be its last carrying passengers to a U.S. port since the pandemic was declared. The Coral Princess is expected to arrive at the Port Everglades terminal on Saturday with more than 1,000 passengers who have been isolating in their cabins, including 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on board.

The U.S. Coast Guard has directed that hundreds of crew members should remain on the dozens of cruise ships that are either docked or waiting just off Florida's shores, and that cruise lines should be prepared to treat all but the most serious cases of people who are ill on board to avoid adding more stress to Florida's health care system.

Already, crew members are getting sicker. One has died on the Celebrity Infinity and two others were medically evacuated from the Oasis of the Seas, according to an email Friday from their company, the Miami-based Royal Caribbean cruise line. The Infinity is waiting off Florida’s west coast, and the Oasis of the Seas is positioned off Broward County’s shores.

Seemingly following the new directives, Holland America indicated in the docking plan that 26 passengers who were mildly ill would have to stay on board until they recovered, but all passengers ultimately needed to be cleared by paramedics before disembarking. Nine people had tested positive for the new coronavirus, said William Burke, chief maritime officer for Carnival Corp., which owns the ships.

Burke said earlier this week that two of the four passengers who died had COVID-19. The docking plan said the offices of the medical examiner and sheriff would remove the deceased from the Zaandam.

The Rotterdam was sent last week to take in some of the 1,200 passengers of the Zaandam and provide assistance since it was denied permission to dock at ports in South America.

About 250 people reported influenza-like symptoms since March 22, including 17 aboard the Rotterdam.

Originally firmly opposed to the ships’ arrival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he had a change of heart after realizing many passengers were U.S. citizens and about 50 of them Floridians.

In an interview with Fox News, DeSantis said that allowing passengers to disembark and transferring critically ill patients to hospitals was “the humanitarian thing to do.”

Emily Spindler Brazell, of Tappahannock, Virginia, was still in her cabin waiting for instructions early Friday but said she was relieved to be back home.

“People greeted us, came out to their balconies, blew air horns and shouted, ‘Welcome home!’” she said. “It was surprising. We went to many countries that said, ‘We are not going to talk to you.’”

#yessadirichards

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years

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%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

Usa today Kansas man admits to strangling girlfriend, pushing her off Carnival cruise ship balcony - USA TODAY

Usa today

Associated Press Published 8: 33 a.m. ET Dec. 20, 2019 | Updated 2: 53 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2019

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has pleaded responsible to killing his female friend by strangling her then pushing her over a balcony on a cruise ship off the trudge of Florida closing 365 days, federal prosecutors acknowledged Thursday.

Eric Duane Newman, 55, of Topeka, pleaded responsible to second-stage execute within the January 2018 loss of life of his longtime female friend, Tamara Tucker, 50, of Lawson, Missouri, the Division of Justice acknowledged in a news birth.

The couple was on a Carnival cruise from Jacksonville, Florida, to the Bahamas and was staying in a cabin on the 13th deck of the Carnival Elation. Newman admitted during his plea listening to in federal court docket in Kansas that the couple argued of their cabin. He acknowledged he strangled Tucker then pushed her over the cabin room balcony railing to the 11th deck. Tucker died from blunt force trauma attributable to the autumn.

On the time, the cruise ship was about 30 nautical miles (55 kilometers) from Original Smyrna Seashore, Florida.

Sentencing was scheduled for March 18, 2020.

Tucker was a fats-time school member within the social work department at Park University in Parkville, Missouri, from 2012 to 2017. She was an adjunct instructor sooner than that, origin in 2007.

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paulwbenjamin · 5 years

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North to Alaska

Planning for this had started nearly 19 months ago, but it was finally happening. Bags were packed, I had taken Lizzie to the Jet Pet Resort, and Super Shuttle was at the end of the driveway.

In 1996, my mother had died and left us with a little bit of money. We decided to use some of it on a family vacation. We took our sons, Mike and John, then 15 and 13, on a cruise. We flew to San Juan and embarked on the Carnival Fascination on a 7 night Southern Caribbean cruise that took us to St. Thomas, Guadeloupe, Grenada, Caracas and Aruba. One of boys told us, as an adult, that that had been our best vacation ever.

In a somewhat similar situation, after the death of Susan's father in 2017, we decided to take the family on another cruise. The family had grown, both sons had married and Mike had two daughters. We decided on Alaska as none had been there and it was a bucket list item for many. My list of states not visited was down to Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Connecticut and Rhode Island. We decided on early summer 2019 and sent out invitations in December of 2017. We talked about it over the holidays and everybody was on board.

Then the planning began. When to go? What itinerary? What cruise line? I love that kind of stuff. I should have been a travel agent, I think.

We had a fairly brief window to work with. Our granddaughters Kaelyn and Emily had to be out of school and they had extracurricular activities (dance, lacrosse, mountain biking) to work around. John was in graduate school at the University of Texas and was likely to be going to Berlin in June for a teaching assignment that he had done before for Princeton. John's wife Agnieszka typically went to Poland to visit her family in the summer. We isolated a short period in late May and early June of 2019 that would work for everybody.

There are two basic types of 7 night Alaska cruises on the major cruiselines. One does a round trip out of Seattle or Vancouver. The other does a one way deal that either starts or ends near Anchorage, with either Seattle or Vancouver at the other end. I wanted to do a one way. I wanted to actually be in the fat part of Alaska, while the round trips only visit ports in the coastal region that trails south toward the lower 48.

Disney and Carnival only do the round trips, so they were off the table. I eliminated Holland America because they cater to an older demographic and we wanted there to be kids on the ship for the girls to meet. That left Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Princess and Norwegian. When we traveled with the boys in 1996, we got a cabin with a balcony, got an inside cabin across the hall for the boys and pretty much left them to their own devices, catching up with us at meal times. Kaelyn and Emily would be 12 and 8, so that was not a good plan for them. The best plan would be to get two connecting cabins for them and their parents. We couldn't find connecting cabins on Princess or Royal Caribbean so it was down to Celebrity or Norwegian. The age groups for the kids' club on Celebrity would have grouped Kaelyn with older teenagers, so Norwegian won by default.

We chose the Norwegian (NCL) Jewel, southbound from Seward, leaving May 27th, cruising Hubbard Glacier, stopping at Icy Strait Point (Hoonah), Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan, disembarking in Vancouver on June 3rd. We booked 4 mini-suites, all on Deck 11. Two connecting aft-facing cabins for Mike, Lori and the girls, and two port-facing cabins or us, and for John and Agnieszka. The port side was preferred over the starboard side as there would be more scenery on that side.

One scheduling issue was a question for months. John was close to finishing his PhD and would be looking for jobs. If he had a job lined up he would defend his dissertation and receive his doctorate at a ceremony that would occur 2 days before the cruise began, and we would fly to Austin for the ceremony. As it turned out, he did get a job. He starts as an Assistant Professor of German at West Point this summer.

We wanted to use American Airlines miles if possible. Whether we flew to Anchorage from Phoenix or from Austin we needed to be on the same flight from DFW to Anchorage on the 26th. We made reservations for John and Agnieszka for AUS to ANC on the 26th and for us from DFW to ANC on the 26th. This was in January of 2019, before we knew whether John would graduate. Later, when we knew what was happening we booked the PHX to AUS flight for us for the 24th, and the AUS to DFW flight for the 26th. This would be significant later.

So plans were set. Super Shuttle was at the door and we were heading to Austin to see our son get his doctorate and then on to Alaska...

North to Alaska (Day 1)

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businessliveme · 4 years

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Cruise to Nowhere Passengers Spend Easter on ‘Ghost Ship’

(Bloomberg) — For some passengers, this has become a cruise to nowhere.

After enduring a coronavirus outbreak on a Carnival Corp. luxury cruise liner, some passengers say they are still trapped aboard another luxurious “ghost ship,” isolated and unable to get home — more than a month after they first set sail.

Four passengers from Argentina and one from Uruguay spent Easter confined to their cabins on Holland America Line’s Rotterdam, at sea in the Caribbean. Holland America said they were blocked from going home by the Argentine government’s Covid-19-related restrictions.

They are among thousands of passengers still aboard ships almost one month after the world’s major cruise lines agreed to halt cruises because of the dangers of sailing during the pandemic.

“It’s like we are ghosts on a ghost ship,” said Claudia Osiani, 74, of Mar del Plata, Argentina, in an phone interview from her cabin in the Rotterdam. “We just want to go home.”

Osiani began what she hoped would be a dream cruise on the Zaandam on March 7 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “Then it turned into a nightmare,” Osiani said.

The Zaandam was stranded at sea for three weeks as a flu-like outbreak sickened roughly 250 passengers and crew. Four people died, including two with Covid-19, according to Holland America. Hundreds of people, including Osiani and her husband Juan Henning, were transferred from the Zaandam to the Rotterdam at sea, near Panama, as passengers and crew were sickened.

The couple have been quarantined since March 22, first in a small cabin with a sealed window, and now in a spacious suite on the near-empty Rotterdam. Six medical exams have shown them to be free of Covid-19, Osiani said.

Holland American had evacuated 1,200 passengers from the Rotterdam and Zaandam soon after the ships docked in Fort Lauderdale, on April 2. “But not us,” said Osiani. She and the other Argentines on the Rotterdam were blocked from boarding a charter flight Thursday because their government declined to authorize their return, citing restrictions imposed during the pandemic.

As of April 7, 53 guests and service staff remain on the Rotterdam, Holland America said. And some crew members may be stuck at sea for awhile as well.

Osiani had a brief break on land. She said she spent Thursday being ferried by bus from the Rotterdam to a nearby airport –twice — and were sent back to the ship after Holland America failed to get authorization from Argentina to fly them home on a charter flight. Two other Argentines and one Uruguayan national with Argentine residency were also blocked from traveling to the country.

“It’s a big mystery, what will happen to us,” Osiani said. “When will we be able to get home?”

Argentina didn’t authorize their return because the government can only process a limited number of people a day returning from Covid-19 hot spots, like the U.S., said a spokesman for the Argentine foreign ministry who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name. The country banned flights to Argentina on March 12, and there wasn’t the capacity to process the passengers on the Rotterdam, the spokesman said.

On Friday, Argentina extended a nationwide lockdown to April 26 amid signs shelter-in-place measures imposed to curb the coronavirus outbreak have succeeded in flattening the rate of infections. President Alberto Fernandez said in a TV interview late Sunday that while the restrictions have slowed the pace of contagion, he couldn’t say when they would end. The country has 2,142 cases of Covid-19 and 90 deaths, according to the health ministry.

Holland America said it’s trying to find another way to get the Argentines on the Rotterdam home. “We are sorry that their travel home is delayed, and we will continue to work on a plan to get them home as soon as possible and when their country permits their entry,” Holland America’s spokesman Erik Elvejord said via email.

The cruise industry is working to get thousands home after the coronavirus pandemic sparked the global shutdown of the cruise industry on March 13. Holland America’s parent company Carnival, the largest cruise line company in the world, has 3,600 passengers on six ships around the world, spokesman Roger Frizzell said.

For now, Osiani spent Easter with her husband in her cabin on the Rotterdam fielding calls from their grandchildren. “We are comfortable, they are giving us everything we need,” she said. “But we don’t have is what every human being wants: freedom.”

The post Cruise to Nowhere Passengers Spend Easter on ‘Ghost Ship’ appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Coronavirus Live Updates: Iran Reports 2 Coronavirus Deaths https://nyti.ms/2uaz0XI

Coronavirus Live Updates: Iran Reports 2 Coronavirus Deaths

The country had reported no cases of the new virus until Wednesday. Officials said both of those who died were older adults and one was an Iranian war veteran.

RIGHT NOW

After releasing hundreds of passengers from a quarantined cruise ship, Japan is preparing to let more leave on Thursday.

READ UPDATES IN CHINESE: 新冠病毒疫情最新消息汇总

Here’s what you need to know:

IRAN REPORTED TWO CORONAVIRUS CASES, AND THEN TWO DEATHS.

Two people have died of the coronavirus in Iran, a country that until Wednesday had reported no confirmed cases of the illness.

According to the state-run news agency IRNA, Alireza Vahabzadeh, an adviser to Iran’s health minister, confirmed the deaths, saying both were in the central city of Qum. The adviser described both of those who died as “old” and said one was a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war and a victim of Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks.

The patients were the first confirmed cases of coronavirus in Iran, and raised the number of countries where it has now been detected to at least 27.

According to the semiofficial Iranian Students’ News Agency, the ministry said that it had isolated an unspecified number of people while they underwent testing for the virus, and that the results of those tests would be made public.

HUNDREDS BEGAN LEAVING A QUARANTINED CRUISE SHIP IN JAPAN.

Hundreds of passengers disembarked on Wednesday from a cruise ship docked off Yokohama, Japan, as a two-week quarantine of the vessel was coming to an end with a major coronavirus outbreak still raging on board.

An initial group of 443 people were allowed to leave the ship on the first day of what the Japanese authorities have said will be a three-day operation to offload those who have tested negative for the virus and do not have symptoms. Passengers who shared cabins with infected patients have been ordered to remain on the ship.

Several countries have arranged charter flights to take their nationals home after they leave the ship. Most if not all of these passengers face an additional two-week quarantine in their home countries.

At least 621 people aboard the ship, the Diamond Princess, have been infected. On Wednesday, the authorities reported an additional 79 cases on the ship, which originally carried about 3,700 passengers and crew members.

More than half of all the recorded cases outside China, the center of the epidemic, have been aboard the ship.

Many of the infected had already been taken to nearby hospitals. More than 300 Americans, at least 14 of whom were infected, had also been taken off the boat earlier this week and placed in a 14-day quarantine at military bases in the United States.

But another 100 or more Americans will not return home for at least two more weeks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

The agency said in a statement that “the rate of new infections on board, especially among those without symptoms, represents an ongoing risk.”

U.S. passengers who have tested positive and are hospitalized in Japan, or who are still aboard the ship, will not be allowed home until they have been off the ship for 14 days, without any symptoms or a positive test for the virus, the agency said.

[ A QUARANTINED Ship. Experts are raising serious questions about how Japan has handled a cruise ship that has been an outbreak hot spot. SEE BELOW ]

CAMBODIA GAVE ITS CRUISE SHIP PASSENGERS 740 ALL-CLEARS.

More than 700 passengers from another cruise ship, which was allowed to dock in Cambodia last week after being turned away by ports across Asia, have tested negative for the virus, Cambodian health officials said on Wednesday.

The 740 passengers have been in Cambodia since their ship, the Westerdam, was permitted to dock in the port city of Sihanoukville on Feb. 13. An additional 233 passengers, who had been forced to remain onboard, will be permitted to disembark on Wednesday.

Holland America Line, which operates the Westerdam, initially said none of the passengers or crew had been infected. Cambodia allowed more than 1,000 passengers to disembark after checking them for fever; only a few underwent laboratory testing for the virus.

But on Saturday, an American passenger was found to be infected after flying to Malaysia, raising concerns that others onboard the ship had also been exposed. She was one of hundreds from the Westerdam who had left Cambodia.

Cambodian officials said the 740 passengers checked since then had undergone laboratory tests for the virus. The results suggested — for now, at least — that a large-scale outbreak had not occurred. Before landing at Sihanoukville, the ship carried 1,455 passengers and 802 crew members.

“This completes the guests’ testing,” Holland America said in a statement. “These results provide the required clearance for remaining guests in Cambodia to begin their onward journey home.”

The cruise line said that those passengers who had already returned home “will be contacted by their local health department and provided further information,” but gave no details about how that would happen.

Passengers have flown home to countries on at least three continents, including the United States, the Netherlands and Australia.

A total of 747 crew members who remain aboard the Westerdam are being tested for the virus, the company said. It was unclear whether 55 crew members who previously left the ship had been tested or what countries they were in.

The ship will remain in Sihanoukville while the crew tests are conducted.

It’s two crisis-hit ships, but one cruise giant.

Both of the cruise ships caught up in the coronavirus outbreak belong to parts of the same company: Carnival Corporation, which finds itself facing an international crisis and financial pain.

Carnival runs Holland America Line, whose fleet includes the Westerdam cruise ship that docked in Cambodia. Another Carnival ship, the Diamond Princess, has been moored outside the Japanese city of Yokohama with hundreds of coronavirus cases reported onboard.

[ CARNIVAL’S Crisis: How the outbreak could hurt the cruise industry’s biggest beast. SEE WEBSITE]

Carnival serves nearly 11.5 million travelers a year, roughly half the global cruise market. In the coming months, industry analysts say, the coronavirus crisis could take a financial toll on the company, which has been looking to make inroads into the fast-growing Chinese market.

It is not the first time the company has faced an international crisis. In 2012, one of its ships, the Costa Concordia, ran aground off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people.

In 2016, Carnival’s Princess cruise line agreed to pay a $40 million penalty for illegally dumping oil-contaminated waste into the sea and trying to cover it up. Carnival acknowledged in June that it had violated probation terms from that case and was ordered to pay an additional penalty of $20 million.

China revoked three Wall Street Journal reporters’ credentials over an opinion headline.

China on Wednesday said it would revoke the credentials of three Wall Street Journal reporters working in mainland China, in a significant escalation of Beijing’s pressure on foreign news organizations.

A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the move was in retaliation for a headline on a Feb. 3 opinion piece about the economic impact of the coronavirus, “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.”

“Sick man of Asia” was a derogatory characterization of China’s weaknesses in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when it suffered internal divisions and was exploited by foreign powers.

Chinese officials have “demanded that The Wall Street Journal recognize the seriousness of the error, openly and formally apologize, and investigate and punish those responsible,” Geng Shuang, the ministry spokesman, said in a transcript provided by the Chinese government.

The revocations come less than a day after American officials said they would treat representatives of five government-controlled Chinese news organizations — Xinhua, CGTN, China Radio, China Daily and People’s Daily — as foreign government functionaries, subject to rules similar to those applied to diplomats.

[FALLOUT FROM CORONAVIRUS ESSAY: The Journal has identified the three reporters whose credentials were REVOKED. SEE BELOW]

NEW CASES IN CHINA APPEAR TO BE SLOWING.

On Wednesday, the number of confirmed new cases in mainland China appeared again to be slowing, was 1,749, the health ministry said. That brought the country’s total number of reported infections to 74,185. The ministry reported 136 deaths in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total in the mainland to 2,004.

HONG KONG REPORTED A SECOND DEATH FROM THE VIRUS.

Hong Kong reported its second death from the coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing the number of deaths from the virus outside of mainland China to six.

The victim, 70, had underlying health conditions and had traveled to the mainland for a day in late January, according to the Hong Kong Department of Health.

He was taken to Queen Mary Hospital on Feb. 12 after a fall at home, the department said. The hospital said in a statement that he died Wednesday morning.

Hong Kong has had 63 confirmed cases of coronavirus and has isolated more than 100 other patients as they await test results. The semiautonomous Chinese city has restricted entry from the mainland, and has so far avoided a large-scale outbreak.

But several confirmed patients had no recent travel history outside Hong Kong, and some transmissions may have occurred between colleagues, neighbors and friends who had shared meals, officials have said.

TRUMP SAYS Xi IS DOING ‘A VERY GOOD JOB.’

President Trump doubled down on his support of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak on Tuesday, calling his counterpart’s efforts “a very good job.”

“I think President Xi is working very hard,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “President Xi loves the people of China, he loves his country and he’s doing a very good job with a very, very difficult situation.”

He added that the United States was “working with him and helping him as of the last few days.”

The president’s praise for the Chinese Communist Party’s handling of an outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people in China contrasts with comments made by members of his administration.

Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, last week said the White House was “disappointed in the lack of transparency coming from the Chinese” and said China had turned down American offers of help.

THE OUTBREAK RAISES THE PRESSURE ON THE WILDLIFE TRADE.

Among some conservationists and scientists, the spread of the new coronavirus has prompted a renewed focus on the dangers of the global trade in wildlife.

The SARS epidemic, caused by a different coronavirus, began in China with the consumption of a catlike animal called the palm civet. The MERS epidemic began with a coronavirus transmitted to humans from camels in the Middle East.

Experts still do not know which species transmitted the new coronavirus to people. But pangolins, also known as scaly anteaters, are now the leading suspects.

Scientists describe live meat markets like the one in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus appears to have originated, as unintended laboratories for creating new viruses.

“You have a bird pooping on a turtle that poops on a civet,” said Christian Walzer, executive director of health at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “For getting new viruses to emerge, you couldn’t do it much better even if you tried.”

Last month, as the coronavirus spread, the central government in Beijing issued a nationwide but temporary ban on all trade in wild animals, including their transport and sale in markets, restaurants and via online platforms.

Officials in Beijing have now drafted legislation to end “the pernicious habit of eating wildlife,” according to a statement released on Monday by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress.

But experts fear pressure for such a ban will ease as the crisis passes.

“Once a disease jumps into humans, all the responses are reactive and the focus is on human health,” said Dr. Alonso Aguirre, a wildlife ecologist at George Mason University. “We never go back to the source of why these things happen in the first place.”

[HOW TO STOP THE NEXT OUTBREAK: Some conservationists say the only way is to halt the global wildlife trade. SEE BELOW]

15 MORE SOUTH KOREANS, INCLUDING 10 MEMBERS OF THE SAME CHURCH, HAVE BEEN INFECTED.

South Korea reported 15 more cases of the new coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing the total number of patients infected with the disease to 46.

Of the 15 new patients, 13 were residents of Daegu, 186 miles southeast of Seoul, said the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a daily news briefing.

Ten of those infected were members of the same church, it said.

Of the new patients, 11 were believed to have contracted the disease through contact with a 61-year-old woman in Daegu who had earlier been diagnosed with the virus.

Officials said they had shut down or quarantined hospital emergency rooms in Daegu where the patients passed through.

South Korea has tested more than 10,000 people for the virus. Of the 46 who have tested positive, 12 have recovered and been discharged from quarantine, officials said.

RUSSIA IS BARRING MOST VISITORS FROM CHINA.

Russia has barred entry to most Chinese citizens, a significant escalation of the country’s scramble to stop the spread of the coronavirus from its neighbor to the southeast.

The entry of many Chinese citizens, including residents of the semiautonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau, onto Russian territory will be halted indefinitely as of Thursday, according to an order issued on Tuesday by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

In a separate statement on Wednesday, the country’s Foreign Ministry clarified that the move would be temporary and that it applied only to visitors with tourist, private, student and work visas. Russia will continue to issue official, business, humanitarian and transit visas, and allow entry to their holders.

Russia, which has so far reported only two confirmed cases of the coronavirus, closed its 2,600-mile land border with China last month and limited travel between the two countries. But it allowed some flights from China into Moscow to proceed.

The new move carries significant economic and geopolitical implications: China is by far Russia’s biggest trading partner, with more than $100 billion in imports and exports in 2018. The Kremlin has looked to cement tighter strategic ties with Beijing amid both countries’ confrontations with the West.

More than 1.5 million Chinese tourists visited Russia last year, helping to prop up regional economies across the country. Russia’s Association of Tourism Operators said on Tuesday that if the ban continues into the high summer season, the industry will lose more than $500 million.

ADIDAS IS THE LATEST COMPANY TO SHOW THE OUTBREAK’S ECONOMIC EFFECTS.

Adidas, the German sportswear maker known for its three-stripe logo and rivalry with Nike, said on Wednesday that its mainland China business had been decimated by the coronavirus outbreak.

Sales in the region since Jan. 25 fell by about 85 percent, the company said, compared with the same period a year ago. A sharp drop in Chinese tourism has shrunk the company’s sales in Japan and South Korea, and affected other sectors of the economy, including aviation and hospitality sector.

The region is a critical manufacturing hub for sportswear makers, with millions of sneakers sourced annually from China, Indonesia and Vietnam, among other countries.

“The magnitude of the overall impact on our business for the full-year 2020 cannot be quantified reliably at this point in time,” Adidas said in a statement. It said it would provide further details on March 11, when the company is to publish its full-year results.

Puma, another German sportswear maker, also confirmed on Wednesday that its first-quarter forecast earnings would be lower than analysts’ estimates as a result of disruption related to the spread of the virus, with roughly half of its mainland China stores closed.

[WOUNDED LION: As challenges mount in Asia, one of the region’s most established banks takes a hit. SEE WEBSITE]

The W.H.O. says China’s harsh tactics worked.

The restrictive measures adopted by China delayed the spread of the virus to other countries by two to three weeks, World Health Organization officials said on Tuesday.

Harsh internal measures — like canceling train, bus and airline travel; closing schools and factories; and pressuring citizens to stay home — slowed the virus’s spread from Wuhan to the rest of China by two to three days, they added.

“Right now, the strategic and tactical approach in China is the correct one,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, the agency’s chief of emergency response.

“You can argue whether in this case they are excessive or restrictive on people, but there is an awful lot at stake here in terms of public health — and not only public health within China.”

Some health experts have condemned China’s restrictions, saying they could lead to panic, economic hardship, stigmatization of Chinese people, difficulty moving supplies to affected areas and possibly a recession. On Jan. 30, as it declared China’s outbreak a public health emergency, the World Health Organization advised against restricting travel or trade.

In the past, agency officials — including the director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — lavishly praised China’s sacrifices and leadership but declined to comment on its use of harsh measures. At the same time, agency officials reiterated that they opposed travel restrictions by other countries.

On Wednesday, a global ministerial summit on patient safety planned in Switzerland this month, was postponed. The Swiss authorities said in a statement that “numerous participants” had to remain in their own countries to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

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Reporting and research were contributed by Motoko Rich, Alexandra Stevenson, Choe Sang-Hun, Russell Goldman, Gerry Mullany, Austin Ramzy, Steven Lee Myers, Anton Troianovski, Ivan Nechepurenko, Hannah Beech, Richard C. Paddock, Tiffany May, Elaine Yu, Elizabeth Paton, Rachel Nuwer and Donald G. McNeil Jr.

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China Expels 3 Wall Street Journal Reporters as Media Relations Sour

Beijing said it revoked their credentials over a headline the newspaper published in its opinion pages.

By Alexandra Stevenson | Published Feb. 19, 2020 Updated 1:35 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted Feb 19, 2020 |

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

HONG KONG — China on Wednesday said it would expel three Wall Street Journal reporters working in mainland China, in a significant escalation of Beijing’s pressure on the foreign news media.

At a daily news briefing on Wednesday, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the reporters’ credentials would be revoked in retaliation for a headline on an essay that ran in The Journal’s editorial pages earlier this month. The headline read: “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.”

Chinese officials have “demanded that The Wall Street Journal recognize the seriousness of the error, openly and formally apologize, and investigate and punish those responsible, while retaining the need to take further measures against the newspaper,” Geng Shuang, the ministry spokesman, said in a transcript provided by the Chinese government.

“The Chinese people do not welcome media that publish racist statements and smear China with malicious attacks,” he added.

The expulsions are the first involving a foreign correspondent since 1998, according to The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, which called the simultaneous revocation of three press credentials “an unprecedented form of retaliation.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned China’s decision, saying in a statement: “Mature, responsible countries understand that a free press reports facts and expresses opinions.”

The Journal identified the reporters as Josh Chin, its deputy bureau chief in Beijing and an American citizen; Chao Deng, also an American; and Philip Wen, an Australian citizen. The reporters were ordered to leave the country within five days, The Journal said.

William Lewis, chief executive of Dow Jones and publisher of the paper, said in a statement that he was “deeply disappointed” in China’s decision and requested that the visas for the three journalists be reinstated.

“Our opinion pages regularly publish articles with opinions that people disagree — or agree with — and it was not our intention to cause offense with the headline on the piece,” Mr. Lewis said. “However, this has clearly caused upset and concern amongst the Chinese people, which we regret.”

Matt Murray, the editor of The Journal, described the action as “harsh and unprecedented” in an email to the paper’s newsroom.

“The Wall Street Journal news department has maintained a robust staff in China for 40 years and a deep commitment to covering one of the most important stories of our era,” Mr. Murray wrote in the email. “We will support our journalists and their work and safety. And we will continue in the coming days to push for this action to be reversed.”

China’s move to expel the journalists comes just months after Chinese officials failed to renew the visa of another Journal reporter, Chun Han Wong, from mainland China.

Officials did not provide a reason for what amounted to his expulsion, but his departure came after he co-wrote an article about a cousin of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and an investigation by Australian authorities into accusations that the cousin was involved in a scandal involving money laundering, immigration favors and organized crime. The other author of that article was Mr. Wen, who had his press credentials revoked on Wednesday.

Beijing’s decision to punish The Journal coincided with a move this week by American officials in Washington to treat five government-controlled Chinese news organizations — Xinhua, CGTN, China Radio, China Daily and People’s Daily — as foreign government functionaries, subject to similar rules for diplomats stationed in the United States.

Responding to the U.S. move, China accused Washington of “ideological prejudice and Cold War zero-sum game mentality,” and emphasized the important role that media played in “facilitating communication and understanding between people of different countries.”

Yet under Mr. Xi’s leadership, the country has taken an increasingly hard stance with both foreign and domestic media, punishing foreign reporters by refusing to renew their visas.

Foreign correspondents are not allowed to work in China without credentials, which in turn are required in order to apply for a residence visa that is typically valid for one year. In recent years, officials have taken to shortening the length of these visas to six months or less for some journalists, apparently in retaliation for reports by the individuals or their news organizations.

Beijing’s combative stance with the media has come into sharper focus in recent months as it tried to control the coverage of anti-government protests in Hong Kong. In recent weeks, China has also cracked down on reporting about the coronavirus outbreak, in some cases stipulating that medical professionals must stop speaking to the reporters.

“The action taken against The Journal correspondents is an extreme and obvious attempt by the Chinese authorities to intimidate foreign news organizations,” the The Foreign Correspondents’ Club said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

It was unclear whether The Journal reporters named on Wednesday would be able to comply with Beijing’s order to leave the country this week. Ms. Deng is currently reporting in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak and the site of a lockdown that makes it nearly impossible for most people to leave.

Other Chinese cities now have strict quarantines for those who have recently been to Wuhan. If Ms. Deng were to return to Beijing, for example, she would be subject to a 14-day quarantine there.

Like other media organizations, including The New York Times, The Journal runs its news and editorial departments as separate operations, meaning none of the newspaper’s reporters in China would have had any involvement with the essay, including the writing of the “Sick Man” headline.

The opinion piece was written by Walter Russell Mead, a professor at Bard College and a scholar at the Hudson Institute. It criticized China's initial response to the coronavirus outbreak as well as the state of the country’s financial markets. (Mr. Mead declined to comment.)

The expression “sick man of Asia” was a derogatory characterization of China’s weaknesses in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when it was torn by internal divisions and exploited by foreign powers.

Top editors held two meetings with newsroom staffers to discuss the headline and the potential impact on the The Journal’s China operations, according to three people with knowledge of the events that preceded the ouster of the journalists. The headline was widely considered offensive within the newsroom, these people said, and was even coming up when staffers went out in the field to interview sources.

In one meeting last week, said one of the people, reporters expressed their anger over the headline to Mr. Murray, the editor. Mr. Murray agreed that the headline was bad, this person said, and agreed to talk to Paul Gigot, who runs the The Journal’s editorial page. However, Mr. Murray cautioned that his hands were tied because of the traditional separation between the news and editorial sides of the The Journal.

Mr. Lewis, the Dow Jones C.E.O., participated in a more recent meeting. Newsroom staffers again pushed to get top editors to change the headline.

The Chinese government has publicly complained about the piece several times since it was published on Feb. 3. At a Foreign Ministry news conference last week, a spokeswoman said the article “belittled our efforts to fight against the epidemic,” was “racially discriminatory and sensational” and hurt the feelings of its people.

The Communist Party-run Global Times also touched on Beijing’s displeasure in an article in its Chinese version on Monday. The article said that The Journal wrote a letter to the Chinese authorities last week emphasizing the editorial independence of the paper’s opinion section.

China typically uses language about the feelings of its citizens being hurt when it is chastising and punishing foreign companies for not bending to Beijing’s will. Over the past year companies like Coach, Versace and the N.B.A. have come under similar fire.

While the Foreign Ministry formally oversees foreign journalists, accreditation decisions appear to involve other arms of government, including security and propaganda agencies, and the decision to expel the reporters was unlikely to have been made solely by the ministry.

Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, said The Times objected to China’s expulsion of journalists.

“Now more than ever, it’s critically important that independent news organizations are able to report freely from China,” she said.

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Marc Tracy and Edward Wong contributed reporting.

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JAPAN LETS CRUISE PASSENGERS WALK FREE. IS THAT SAFE? As a two-week quarantine over a coronavirus outbreak ended, experts expressed alarm over the protocols on the ship, which now has 621 confirmed infections.

By Motoko Rich and Eimi Yamamitsu | Published Feb. 19, 2020 Updated 2:26 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 19, 2020 |

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Even as infections aboard a cruise ship contaminated by the new coronavirus continued to climb, Japan declared on Wednesday that 443 people had satisfied the terms of a two-week quarantine and let them walk free.

Much of the world seemed far from reassured.

The United States, Australia, Canada and South Korea have said that the passengers they are flying home on chartered planes will face an additional two-week quarantine, some on military bases — evidence that those countries do not believe the shipboard quarantine worked, and that more people could later test positive.

At the Yokohama port, Japanese workers also did not appear confident that those disembarking were virus free. Drivers of the buses that ferried the passengers to airports and train stations were blocked off by plastic sheeting and tape. Workers walked around the terminal in hazmat suits. Local taxi drivers who would ordinarily meet arriving cruises said they were avoiding the ship.

For those leaving the ship, the Diamond Princess, it was a long-awaited end to a 14-day ordeal. Over the course of five hours, the first set of passengers emerged under a bright blue sky. One of the earliest to disembark, a woman wearing a conical rice hat and a heavy-duty face mask with a strap hanging loose, was mobbed by journalists as she walked out of a guarded gate, pulling a red suitcase.

The Japanese government said that the passengers coming ashore had tested negative for the coronavirus and were safe to ride public transit and go home to their families.

But experts expressed alarm over the quarantine protocols. The number of confirmed infections on the ship reached 621 on Wednesday as 79 new cases were announced. It is the largest outbreak of the virus outside the epicenter in China.

In videos posted on YouTube, a Japanese infectious disease specialist at Kobe University said he had visited the ship on Tuesday in the hope of advising public health officials on how to prevent the further spread of infection.

The specialist, Kentaro Iwata, described the infection control measures on board as “completely chaotic.” Health ministry officials, crew members and psychiatrists would mingle and eat together, he said, while some wore full protective gear and others did not — a violation of typical procedures.

Dr. Iwata, who said he had feared contracting the coronavirus himself while on the ship, is now in a self-imposed quarantine away from his family.

The United States government came to a similar conclusion about the infection control measures when, in an apparent reversal of its early advice to passengers that they should stay isolated in their cabins to minimize the risk of infection, it decided to evacuate hundreds of its citizens on Monday.

In a letter to American passengers on Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo wrote that because of mounting infections on the Diamond Princess, “the Department of Health and Human Services made an assessment that passengers and crew members on board are at high risk of exposure.”

Dr. Iwata said in an interview that Japanese health authorities had taken only “half measures” to prevent infection and “did not protect” the 3,700 passengers and crew members.

Of the people who disembarked on Wednesday, he said, “I would not be surprised if they spread infections.”

Dr. Iwata said part of the problem was that Japan’s response had been conducted by public servants who did not necessarily have expertise in infectious disease. The country does not have a government agency that specializes in disease control.

“They want to handle the case based on a successful plot that the bureaucrats created, and they just want to follow it,” he said. “Without setting an objective or goal, they just want to show they are trying hard enough, even if they end up with many infections.”

Japanese officials defended their decisions. In remarks to reporters on Wednesday, Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said the country’s authorities had “made the maximum consideration to secure the health of passengers and crew.”

Gaku Hashimoto, the vice health minister, said on Twitter that upon discovering Dr. Iwata on board the ship on Tuesday, he asked him to leave. Mr. Hashimoto said the health ministry was “currently receiving help from many experts both within and outside of the ship, and is conducting an extraordinary quarantine.”

He acknowledged, though, that after three health ministry officials who had tended to passengers on the ship tested positive for the virus, “I cannot say that things are being controlled completely.”

And Katsunobu Kato, the health minister, urged those disembarking on Wednesday to limit outings to necessary trips and advised them to monitor their health conditions in the coming days.

Other infectious disease experts said they were distressed by Dr. Iwata’s description of the conditions on board.

“Hearing his account was pretty harrowing, actually,” said Benjamin Cowie, an infectious disease physician at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia.

Dr. Cowie said that after analyzing data on the new coronavirus cases reported by Japan’s health ministry since the quarantine began, he had concluded that people on the ship were contracting the virus during the period of confinement.

“Something is driving ongoing transmission on board,” he said. “There is very little doubt about that.”

The Japanese health authorities said that any passenger or crew member who tested positive would be taken to a hospital, and that anyone who showed symptoms would have to remain on board until cleared by a negative test result.

More disembarkations were scheduled over the next two days. Officials said that the 443 people who left the ship on Wednesday had no symptoms and had tested negative for the virus.

It was not clear when they had taken the test, however. Some indicated that they had been tested over the weekend, which would mean they had possibly been exposed to infection for another three days.

Dr. Cowie said that people who were newly infected could test negative for the coronavirus only to become ill a few days later.

“If the government is correct and those individuals are not only clear of infection but are not incubating infection, then the decision by the authorities to release them will have proven to be the correct one,” he said. “If indeed transmission was ongoing on the ship, then ultimately I suspect that decision will be proven to be incorrect.”

One Japanese passenger chose to evacuate to South Korea with his wife, who is a South Korean citizen, because the government there is mandating a 14-day quarantine and he is concerned that he may have been infected on the ship.

The man, Yasuhito Hirasawa, a former teachers union official, said he had been tested on Saturday.

“We’re served by the kind crew members who might be possible virus carriers all the time,” Mr. Hirasawa wrote to The New York Times. “Even professional quarantine officials only wear masks and vinyl gloves, and we cannot deny the possibility of infection from the crew members, who are not experts.”

Masako Ishida, 61, who remained on board on Wednesday as she waited to receive her test results, said she was frustrated by the suggestion that anyone who tested negative should have to remain in quarantine any longer.

“I heard that some people think us passengers should be put in another two weeks in quarantine,” she said. “We were quarantined, and if we test negative, we will be given a certification that proves we’re negative. We’re one of the safest people right now.”

A mother of a customer service agent on the Diamond Princess has been exchanging text messages with her daughter, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job. In the texts, the crew member, who had watched Dr. Iwata on YouTube, said he had accurately captured the conditions on board.

The crew member said she was frightened after carrying luggage for passengers who had tested positive for the virus. The crew will be required to stay on board to help disinfect the ship after all passengers disembark. It is not clear whether they will undergo a separate quarantine period after that.

Kyle Cleveland, a sociology professor at Temple University’s Tokyo campus who has studied Japan’s response to another crisis, the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns, said he saw troubling similarities.

“It’s illustrative of a larger problem with crisis management in complex bureaucratic organizations,” Mr. Cleveland said.

“The lack of a coordinated response in which genuine experts are responsible for decision making is problematic,” he said,” because what happens instead is that you have political functionaries who are placed in roles of authority beyond their competency. For me, the echoes and analogies with Fukushima are just really disturbing.”

Mr. Cleveland said that Japan had been handed an extremely difficult and fast-moving situation when the cruise ship arrived.

“Japan is sometimes a victim of its own competence,” he said. “Everything works and it’s a highly structured, functional society in every respect, and then when things go off the rails, they think that normal everyday processes are going to be sufficient.”

“But exceptional circumstances,” he said, “require exceptional responses.”

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Hisako Ueno and Makiko Inoue contributed reporting from Tokyo.

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To Prevent Next Coronavirus, Stop the Wildlife Trade, Conservationists Say

Conservationists see a persistent threat of epidemics so long as tens of millions of animals are traded in Southeast Asia.

By Rachel Nuwer | Published Feb. 19, 2020 Updated 10:45 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 19, 2020 |

The coronavirus spreading from China has sickened at least 73,000 people and killed at least 2,000, setting in motion a global health emergency. But humans aren’t the only species infected.

Coronaviruses attack a variety of birds and mammals. The new virus seems to have leapt from wildlife to humans in a seafood and meat market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were slaughtered and sold as food.

That’s a familiar story. The SARS epidemic, also caused by a coronavirus, began in China with the consumption of a catlike animal called the palm civet. The MERS epidemic began with a coronavirus transmitted to humans from camels in the Middle East.

In the spread of yet another coronavirus, conservationists see a public health lesson: If you want to prevent epidemics that begin in animals, halt the global trade in wildlife.

“This issue is not just a conservation issue anymore,” said Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “It’s a public health issue, a biosafety issue and a national security issue.”

China is a linchpin in the illegal trade. Last month, as the coronavirus spread, the central government in Beijing issued a nationwide but temporary ban on all trade in wild animals, including their transport and sale in markets, restaurants and via online platforms.

The government order warned that officials would “severely investigate and punish” violators and provided a hotline for citizens to report infractions. Officials in Beijing now have drafted legislation to end “the pernicious habit of eating wildlife,” according to a statement released on Monday by the standing committee of the National Peoples Congress.

Chinese citizens are “angry because they’ve learned that wildlife traded for food has once again caused a national health crisis, and because a small number of wildlife traders continue to hold the entire country hostage,” said Peter Li, an associate professor of East Asian politics at the University of Houston-Downtown who specializes in China’s domestic policies.

Experts still do not know which species transmitted the new coronavirus, technically called SARS-CoV-2, to people. But pangolins, also known as scaly anteaters, are now the leading suspects.

The world’s most trafficked mammal, pangolins are barred from international trade and are protected domestically in China. But pangolin meat and blood are considered delicacies on the black market, and sales of their scales for use in traditional Chinese medicine remain legal for certain hospitals and pharmacies.

Whatever the source turns out to be, the new ban on wildlife trade comes too late to stanch the spread of this latest coronavirus.

“Now that human-to-human transmission is happening, the ban has no real consequence for this outbreak at all,” said Christian Walzer, executive director of health at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The government’s ban also lasts only until “the epidemic situation is lifted nationwide,” according to the government’s order. Dr. Walzer and others believe that the ban needs to be permanent if it is to have any effect on reducing the risk of future zoonotic diseases.

“Otherwise, we’ll be having this conversation at regular intervals,” he said.

During the SARS epidemic in 2003, China enacted a narrower wildlife trade ban. Many conservationists and medical professionals, including members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, hoped it would be permanent, but the trade roared back after the crisis ended.

“Once a disease jumps into humans, all the responses are reactive and the focus is on human health,” said Dr. Alonso Aguirre, a wildlife ecologist at George Mason University.

After the crisis passes, attention turns away from the trade that brought the disease to humans, he added. Scientists have been calling for permanent restrictions for at least three decades.

“We never go back to the source of why these things happen in the first place,” Dr. Aguirre said.

LABORATORIES FOR CREATING NEW VIRUSES

China and Southeast Asia are hot spots for emerging zoonotic diseases, pathogens that naturally occur in wildlife and find their way to domestic animals and humans through mutation or new contact.

Biodiversity loss, combined with high rates of deforestation, raises the risk of these infections by bringing people and livestock into contact with wildlife, and by altering the environment to favor transmission of certain diseases, such as malaria, Zika and dengue.

Demand for animals and their parts — to eat or for use in traditional medicine — carries potential pathogens far and wide.

But the coronavirus outbreak has not snuffed out demand for wildlife, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit group based in London that researches and campaigns against environmental crime.

Even now, some online sellers in China and Laos are touting illegal traditional medicines containing rhino horn and other animal parts as cures for coronavirus, the group found. Some cite a document issued last month by China’s National Health Commission that lists traditional animal-based remedies as recommended treatments for coronavirus infection.

No one knows the full scope of wildlife trade worldwide, but the numbers are staggering — on the order of millions of animals of hundreds of species trafficked each day, according to Vincent Nijman, a wildlife trade researcher at Oxford Brookes University in England.

A study published last October in the journal Science estimated that wildlife trade includes 5,600 species, nearly one-fifth of the world’s known vertebrate animals.

While some wildlife trade is illegal, much of the hidden industry comprises legal, oftentimes unregulated trade of unprotected species like rodents, bats, snakes and frogs. Wildlife trade in Asia is especially risky to human health, because these animals are often transported and sold live.

“Even if one of these jumps is a rare occurrence, there are millions and millions of contacts that occur every day in these types of markets,” said Andres Gomez, an ecologist and veterinarian at ICF International, a global consulting services company based in Virginia. “You’re playing with fire.”

Live meat markets are perfect laboratories for creating new viruses. Stressed animals shed more viruses and are more susceptible to infections, and cages are often stacked on top of each other, facilitating exposure.

“You have a bird pooping on a turtle that poops on a civet,” Dr. Walzer said. “For getting new viruses to emerge, you couldn’t do it much better even if you tried.”

Basic hygiene is usually lacking as well, Dr. Nijman added: “The same chopping block is being used for every piece of meat, the same knife for all species. No one is washing their hands.”

Increasingly varied species and populations are mixed at markets. Better transportation — and the fact that many local species have disappeared — means that wildlife is imported from an ever-larger radius. Newer exotic species are frequently introduced for trade, as well.

China has approved 54 wild species for commercial breeding and sale, including American red foxes, Australian zebra finches and African ostriches.

This diversity was reflected at the market in Wuhan where the new coronavirus originated. A single meat shop there sold live peacocks, rats, foxes, crocodiles, wolf cubs, turtles, snakes, wild pigs and more.

“The billboard from that store advertised feet, blood, intestines and other body parts from over 70 species,” said Ms. Gabriel, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “It’s staggering.”

In Guangdong Province in 2003, these shops were temporarily shuttered as SARS emerged. Wildlife trade and consumption declined in the immediate aftermath, but the business resumed within about a year, despite calls for a permanent ban.

“China should not have forgotten the pain after the wound was healed,” Dr. Li said.

Some experts believe that a complete ban on wildlife trade is neither necessary nor practical.

“Wildlife trade is not some horrific habit people have, something awful that shouldn’t be done,” said Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research group in New York City. “It’s a deep-seated part of human culture.”

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vsplusonline · 5 years

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Criticism of Japan's effort on coronavirus cruise ship as passengers leave

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Criticism of Japan's effort on coronavirus cruise ship as passengers leave

Hundreds of people began disembarking a cruise ship quarantined in Japan on Wednesday as criticism mounted of Japan’s handling of the sea-borne outbreak where the new coronarvirus appears to have run rife and infected more than 540 people.

The death toll from the coronavirus in mainland China passed 2,000 but the number of new cases there fell for a second straight day, offering a sliver of hope and helping Asian shares and US stock futures rise.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, is struggling to get its manufacturing sector back on track after imposing severe travel restrictions to contain a virus that emerged in the central province of Hubei late last year.

In Japan, hundreds of people disembarked from the British-flagged Diamond Princess cruise liner docked at Yokohama near Tokyo, ending an ordeal that began when the ship was quarantined on February 3 after a former passenger was diagnosed with the virus in Hong Kong.

“I am very keen to get off this ship,” Australian passenger Vicki Presland told Reuters.

The outbreak on the liner, owned by Carnival Corp, resulted in the biggest concentration of new coronavirus infections outside China despite more than two weeks of quarantine for its approximately 3,700 passengers and crew on board.

As questions swirled over how the virus spread so readily on the ship, Japan’s state broadcaster NHK cited Health Minister Katsunobu Kato as defending Japan’s efforts.

“Unfortunately, cases of infection have emerged, but we have to the extent possible taken appropriate steps to prevent serious cases, including sending infected people to hospital,” Kato said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Japan’s efforts might have slowed down the virus but were not enough.

“CDC’s assessment is that it may not have been sufficient to prevent transmission among individuals on the ship,” it said in a statement.

Japan has repeatedly said its response to the outbreak on the ship has been appropriate.

The United States has flown home more than 300 American evacuees from the ship and other countries are queuing up to collect their citizens, including Australians.

The United States, Australia, and other countries, are making their citizens spend 14 days in quarantine upon their return.

With Japan just months away from hosting the 2020 Olympic Games, critics say the government’s response has seemed more concerned with managing public perception than the outbreak.

From the start, experts raised questions about quarantine on the ship. Passengers weren’t confined to their rooms until Feb. 5. The day before, as officials screened them, onboard events continued, including dances, quiz games and an exercise class, one passenger said.

Only passengers who test negative and do not show symptoms are being allowed to leave the ship. Those who have tested negative but were in cabins with infected people would remain on board for additional quarantine, Japanese officials said.

BETTER DAY IN CHINA

The promising sign out of China came from the National Health Commission, which reported the lowest daily rise in new infections since January 29, or 1,749 new confirmed cases. Hubei – the epicenter of the outbreak – reported the lowest number of new infections since Feb. 11.

The latest figures bring the total number of cases in China to more than 74,000 and the death toll to 2,004, three-quarters of which have occurred in Wuhan, Hubei’s provincial capital. Six people have died outside mainland China, including a new fatality announced on Wednesday in Hong Kong.

On top of tough steps taken to isolate Hubei, where the flu-like virus originated in a market illegally selling wildlife, state media reported the province would track down anyone who visited doctors with fever since Jan. 20 or bought over-the-counter cough and fever medication.

Chinese officials have said the apparent slowdown in infection rates is evidence that the strict measures are working but global health officials say it is too early to predict how the epidemic will play out.

The number of new cases in mainland China excluding Hubei has fallen for 15 straight days. The number of new infections outside Hubei totaled 56 on Feb. 18, down from a peak of 890 on Feb 3.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) emergencies program chief, Mike Ryan, said China had success with “putting out the fire” first in Hubei and ensuring that people returning to Beijing from the Lunar New Year holiday were monitored.

Ryan also said there were no indications the coronavirus was infecting people in North Korea.

Chinese officials have been putting on a brave face saying the economic impact of the virus would be limited and short-term. President Xi Jinping said China could meet its 2020 economic targets, media reported.

But despite the optimism, foreign analysts have issued a flurry of downgrades and China’s economy is still struggling, with many factories closed and others limping back to work after a New Year break that was extended because of the outbreak.

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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‘Inherently high-risk setting’: Are cruise ships unsafe – and will they change?

The CDC’s “no sail order” has left about 100 cruise ships in the Atlantic, Pacific or Gulf of Mexico idle, either in port or wallowing at anchor.

USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES – One of the last cruise ships bound for the USA arrived Monday with 115 passengers after an around-the-world cruise cut short by coronavirus fears.

The Pacific Princess will join the fleet idled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s order that all cruise ships stand down for more than three months before setting sail again. It’s hoped that will be enough time to get over the worst of the pandemic that swept through passengers and crews with devastating results.

The coronavirus is a crisis like no other. Not another economic downturn. Not another outbreak of norovirus. It’s yet to be seen whether the industry can find a way to reassure passengers, many of them senior citizens who are in a high-risk group for COVID-19, that cruising is safe and to formulate a comeback, which could include health safety improvements.

The CDC lists 20 vessels in which the coronavirus became an uninvited guest when they visited U.S. portsunder its jurisdiction. There were many more ships ravaged by the virus around the world. With COVID-19 cases aboard, some ships became unwanted nomads that country after country refused to let anchor or tie up to discharge passengers.

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More: Cruisers not deterred by coronavirus pandemic, still booking future voyages

Coronavirus invades cruise ships

Two passengers died aboard the Coral Princess, and another passed away at a hospital after the ship tied up in Miami. Passengers became ill after the ship left Chile, and countries refused to allow them to disembark as it sailed north.

After COVID-19 cases were identified on Princess Cruises’ Grand Princess, the ship was forced to steam in circles off San Francisco while a plan was formulated to isolate passengers coming ashore.

Four passengers died aboard Holland America’s Zaandam as it worked its way up from Chile, eventually being allowed to discharge passengers in Florida. Three of the deaths were linked to COVID-19.

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The Pacific Princess left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for its global voyage Jan. 5. Sailing west, its 111-day cruise was cut short when fears of the coronavirus swept through the industry. Most passengers flew home from Fremantle, Australia. The rest, deemed unfit to fly but not infected by the coronavirus, came home to Los Angeles with the ship.

Staying Apart, Together: A newsletter about how to cope with the coronavirus pandemic

Why do cruise ships get a bad rap?

Cruise ships place hundreds or thousands of guests into a relatively small space,and megaships play a prominent role in the industry. Royal Caribbean’s 1,188-foot Symphony of the Seas, for instance,can accommodate nearly 9,000 passengers and crew.

“Like other close-contact environments, ships may facilitate the transmission of respiratory viruses from person to person through exposure to respiratory droplets or contact with contaminated surfaces,” Aimee Treffiletti, chief of the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program, told USA TODAY.

Cruises, which have a more-the-merrier philosophy, are never a solitary affair. The fun centers around myriad group activities in a nonstop party atmosphere. It might be sipping cocktails around the pool, filling showrooms for Las Vegas-style revues, dancing, lectures, playing games or other activities. Lavish buffets, a cruising mainstay in which guests crowd around serving tables, are another opportunity for viruses to spread.

“The nature of cruise ships is when there is a virus, it spreads like wildfire,” said Michael Winkleman, a Miami-based maritime attorney who filed lawsuits seeking class-action status against cruise lines concerning the coronavirus on behalf of passengers and crews.

Uphill battle: Centuries-old laws may shield the cruise industry from huge payouts in coronavirus suits

Viruses have struck before

The cruise industry already had a reputation for outbreaks. Norovirus sickened 129,678 cruise ship passengers out of 74 million who set sail from 2008 to 2014, the CDC said. The virus, leading to nausea, stomachaches, vomiting and diarrhea, ruined many a vacation, but it’s rarely fatal.

Have fun, but don’t get sick! How cruise ship passengers should prepare for illness or injury

Norovirus is spread by contact with an infected person, contaminated food or water or a contaminated surface, which can happen on land as well as sea. Besides close quarters, passengers aboard cruise ships constantly go between decks and have to steady themselves by grabbing handrails, chair backs or any other fixed object when a ship rocks in heavy seas.

Coronavirus is more dangerous. Since it’s spread primarily through tiny droplets produced by coughing or sneezing, it can be contracted not only from touching surfaces but also from merely being downwind of an infected person. Many people who contract coronavirus may not show symptoms immediately, or at all.

COVID-19 is unlike anything the cruise industry has ever encountered.

“COVID-19 is a new disease, and we are still learning about how it spreads and the severity of illness it causes,” Treffiletti said. “Like outbreaks in shoreside communities, COVID-19 cases on cruise ships may not have been able to be avoided at the beginning of the pandemic.”

Some aboard may be more vulnerable to viruses than others, a report found. Those in crew cabins and congregating in restaurants are most at risk for respiratory infection, according to a study in 2015 in the journal Indoor and Built Environment by Qingyan Chen, a Purdue University professor, and two others.

An ‘inherently high-risk setting’

There are no easy defenses. Quarantining passengers suspected of having a respiratory illness or requiring masks for crew members “could reduce the attack rate only to a moderate extent,” the study warned.

“It’s an inherently high-risk setting,” said Claire Panosian Dunavan, professor of medicine emeritus in the infectious diseases division of UCLA’s School of Medicine. “Everyone was worried about norovirus. Respiratory infection has always been the scariest prospect as far as I was concerned.”

Panosian Dunavan saw it firsthand aboard an otherwise well-maintained ship with ample hand sanitizer dispensers a couple of years ago. She said her husband contracted human metapneumovirus, a respiratory illness, toward the end of the cruise.

A cruise ship involves “a lot of people crammed together touching the same surfaces,” Panosian Dunavan said. As for COVID-19, “I think this is the virus that is revealing the inherent vulnerability of this popular form of travel.”

The cruise industry could do a better job of filtering air aboard ships, though there is no proof air-conditioning systems can transmit the coronavirus. Modern jetliners, such as Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, run cabin air through high-efficiency particulate air, or HEPA, filters. Boeing said they are “effective at removing bacteria, viruses, fungi.”

The CDC’s and industry’s answer to health issues on cruise ships, both now and long before COVID-19 came along, is the Vessel Sanitation Program, or VSP. It was created by the CDC in the 1970s in response to gastrointestinal outbreaks on cruise ships. It sets a standard for health practices from stem to stern, whether it’s food contamination, pool and spa water quality, ventilation or pest control.

Investigation: Princess Cruises had high rates of illness even before coronavirus

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Industry says it faces tough inspections

The industry’s trade group, the Cruise Lines International Association, points to VSP as putting ships a cut above, “a level of federal scrutiny that is unique within the travel and hospitality industry,” said Bari Golin-Blaugrund, senior director for strategic communication at CLIA. “There is no similar federal program for hotels, airlines or restaurants.”

She said crews regularly clean and sanitize handrails, door handles, faucets and other commonly touched surfaces multiple times a day. Crews attack the possibility of an outbreak in other ways, such as “strict laundry protocols” aimed at eliminating viruses and bacteria on soft surfaces such as sheets. After a cruise ends and before the next passengers arrive, ships are cleaned from top to bottom, she said.

Against the coronavirus, even those procedures and others, such as checking passengers’ temperatures as they came aboard, weren’t enough.

Princess Cruises’ Grand Princess started having suspected cases of the virus reported last month after a passenger on a previous cruise became ill. Though that man had disembarked, dozens of passengers remained on board for a second voyage on the ship. On its second sailing, 21 people had tested positive by the time the ship was allowed to dock in Oakland, California.Passengers who weren’t infected were sent to military bases to go into quarantine.

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The CDC said the Carnival Valor had three back-to-back cruises in which cases of the coronavirus were reported.

In an interview with Axios on HBO last month, Carnival CEO Arnold Donald said that although there is “lots of social interaction,” overcrowding isn’t the issue on ships. They are “not a theater. It is not an arena. It is more like Central Park. There’s a lot of natural social distancing, the ships are large, people are not always gathered and clumped together.”

In an interview with CNBC, Donald predicted cruising will bounce back despite multiple cruise ships having been stuck at sea with ill passengers and turned away from ports in multiple countries. “Social gathering at some point will return, and when it does, people will want to cruise,” he said, noting reservations for cruises next year are up even though ships shut down operations after the CDC issued a 100-day “no sail” order that went into effect April 15.

Cruisers are still booking

A Morgan Stanley industry note to investors April 8 obtained by USA TODAY revealed customers are optimistic. They are still booking cruises from July onward. Many of them are rebookings of canceled cruises.

Veteran cruisers aren’t deterred from taking vacations at sea.

Alan Podrid and his wife, Sharon, endured the ordeal aboard the Coral Princess without becoming ill, though they were confined to their cabin for six days.

The Podrids have taken 45 cruises. After returning home to Marietta, Georgia, they started to put the experience into perspective.

“People either love it or they hate it,” Podrid, 70, said of cruising. “I don’t think the bad publicity is really warranted when you consider the state of affairs through the country and throughout the world. Everyone is kind of finding their way through it.”

Another Coral Princess passenger, John Hutton, 71, remained gung-ho about cruising after returning home to Oak Island, North Carolina.

“We are cruisers through and through,” he insisted. The retired school teacherstill plans to take a Princess Cruise to Tahiti in November and to the Baltics in August 2021.

Tanner Callais, founder of Cruzely.com, cruises about four times a year, for work more often than vacation. He said the risk is no worse than “being at a concert or a crowded airport.”

He’s looking for assurances about how the industry would deal with an outbreak of similar magnitude.

“I’d also like to know there is a plan to deal with any potential illness instead of seeing ships stranded for days, looking for a port to accept them,” he said.

Cruisers not deterred by coronavirus: Still booking future voyages, experts say

How cruises could change

Though CLIA has not announced any long-term changes on ships in response to the coronavirus outbreak, some may be on the table.

“As cruise lines begin planning for the future, they are exploring ways to go further still to improve upon their already robust public health protocols, including additional screening requirements and enhanced sanitation measures,” Golin-Blaugrund said Monday.

The CDC confirmed that plans are coming and noted they will be similar to protocol already in place to address gastrointestinal illnesses on board.

When the CDC issued its no-sail order extension April 9, it required all ships in U.S. waters to create plans to address coronavirus prevention and response.

“Ships are currently formulating similar plans to address outbreaks of COVID-19, and these plans could also be modified to prevent and respond to other communicable illnesses in the future,” said Treffiletti, chief of the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program.

It’s yet to be seen what those tougher measures could include. If rapid testing for the coronavirus becomes more readily available, that’s a possibility. It’s unclear whether crew or passengers would be required to wear masks on board.

Cruise lines “have a duty to mitigate foreseeable risks,” said Jeff Ment, an attorney who specializes in representing travel companies. It “requires a plan, screening people, kicking off people who are sick.”

Any obvious health risks, such as shared serving spoons for buffets, are likely to disappear, he said.

Cruise operators may feel compelled to require more social distancing, especially in dining rooms or theaters. But limiting the number of customers plays havoc with profitability.

Ment said cruise lines may improve air filtration on ships and beef up medical facilities. Some luxury cruises attract a high-end clientele, yet “you don’t know much about what’s in a medical facility on ships.”

Attorney Winkleman hopes the industry will make necessary improvements.

“I think the industry has to learn its lesson,” he said.

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