Month: March 2020

To be honest, I haven’t really been obsessing too much over cruise ships for the last 36 hours or so. I pretty much stated my case here and moved on. Because as large as this story is, there is a lot of big news right now, with profound implications for so many populations and industries.

I sort of expected some dramatic action yesterday, and it didn’t happen. But there were some hints. Pence made mention of a 72 hour action plan that started from the Saturday meeting. Trump made some remarks yesterday about big news coming today. But no big news. This evening I went back for another look.

I mentioned in my first post on cruise ships that I was watching two ships, the Pacific Princess and the MSC Opera. There have been a few others that I’ve kept an eye on that I don’t have to drag out right now.

The MSC Opera is docked in Genoa. I thought I read somewhere that the passengers and crew were cleared to disembark, but now I’m not sure. It will come out soon enough. I’d bet my last dime on there being infection aboard. I hope the actions of port and health authorities in Greece and Italy with this ship will come under close scrutiny. Malta turned the ship away under pressure from doctors there. There’s a story there if anyone wants to find it.

A point I’d like to make on Pacific Princess is one of spin. They went aboard, tested a small group of occupants, and came back with close to a 50% positive rate. 21 people total, according to the Princess web site. And the headline number everywhere has remained small. It’s not a stretch to suggest that the majority of crew and a good number of passengers are currently infected. The true numbers will no doubt be available somewhere, some time. I want to emphasize that perception is being very tightly managed. They could easily have tested all passengers by now and made summary results available. But 21 doesn’t raise the same alarm as 867, or some such number. The CV-19 numbers being thrown around in the US lately have been largely bullshit. I’ll talk about that lots. Just a heads up.

One more Pacific Princess thought: US announced they would take passengers but not crew. I’d bet that there was a plan in place, if only briefly, for the ship to depart Oakland for BC. That’s probably back in the air now, but a relatively minor concern in the scheme of things. It sounded like US was expecting owner to handle it.

Now, to some current at-a-glance pics from my free Android App. These are cruise ships shown.

What I think I’m seeing is that ships that are at sea are mostly lollygagging around. Ports seem very empty. Destinations appear to be almost completely empty. I’m sure there’s data out there to support or disprove my thesis, but all will become clear soon.

I have a narrative on the last few days. Here’s some points:

1) US and cruise chiefs met Saturday under the cloud of Pacific Princess and with other alarming information just bubbling up. I’m pretty sure there were clear negative indicators in Florida over the previous week that were at best willfully ignored, at worst understood and suppressed.

2) while wanting to be supportive of the business, I think the administration likely laid down the law on avoiding another Pacific Princess. And put the onus squarely on the business to make sure it didn’t happen, and that if it did they would own it.

3) public messaging changed quite dramatically on Sunday. Public health official’s concerns were winning the day through the weekend. I mentioned the State Dept announcements earlier.

4) Pence made specific mention of at least one other ship they were interested in. Can’t remember the details, but there could very well have been others. One other ship I was watching as likely known infected was due in two days ago but is now loitering around Grand Bahama.

I’m going to venture that limited or possibly full onboard testing started on the weekend across multiple ships, and after positive results started pouring in, the magnitude of the problem became clearer.

I’m also convinced that no ships with known cases will enter port in the US. Not their problem.

The magnitude?

I’m not going to speculate much further, but if ports insist on seeing negative test results for all passengers and crew in order to land they may remain largely empty. There are some very tough decisions ahead on how to deal with this, and the magnitude of the challenge may be much higher than anybody was expecting.

Just dug out a post that I made to Trawler Forum when the subject was introduced. Feb 17. It didn’t get much traction then.

I was pretty much bang on. But it’s not a couple. It’s much more than that.

@jeff_zolo

Anyway, I’ll offer up my highly individualized plan for social distancing and how I got there. There’s lots of credible information out there, so I’m not going to try to explain too much.

Not long after I started following CV-19 closely I started thinking about risk. It’s the kind of guy I am. I like to make qualitative decisions and manage risk. Get the big stuff right and don’t sweat the small.

Question one: How afraid am I to get the virus personally? For me, not terribly. I’d likely survive, and for the moment I have top notch care available locally. I don’t work or care for others, so a stint in the hospital wouldn’t be a huge disruption.

But that’s just the beginning. Think about your close circle. Those who are most at risk of catching the virus from you if you become infectious. People you work with. Family. And identify those who are high risk From what we know age is the big leading indicator, but there may be others with health concerns.

For me, there are really only two people who are at significantly higher risk from the virus in my immediate orbit, my mother in law Kathleen and my sister Susan. I’m in regular close contact with both of them.  The other people that I have regular contact with are not at high risk, so I am less concerned with unknowingly infecting them.

I had a brief chat with Susan about this. She has a terminal illness and is carrying on with life in downtown Toronto, walking to work at her government office and free of interactions with the general public. She’s relatively protected there. But she still goes out to community events and her church. I can’t fault her choices, and am relieved that I’m off the hook. If she catches C-19 it’s not likely to have been from me.

Kathleen is a different case. She and I have lived under the same roof for more than 20 years. I love her dearly. She’s 77 and vibrant, but not invincible. So I’ve worked with other members of the household to implement a regimen that I hope will allow us to live together while taking appropriate precautions to protect her. It’s an evolving situation, but I’m pretty comfortable with it right now.

Lots more to come on this, but thought I’d throw it out.

@jeff_zolo

Wow. I’ve been muttering that for the last 24 hours. But I’ve finally put the pieces together I think.

Those that haven’t read my earlier posts should read this one first.

The big final piece for me was recent US State Dept announcements saying (my words) 1) don’t go, and 2) we won’t rescue you from quarantine if you do. They’re getting ready to pull the trigger.

So, the big question is whether the cruise lines fold their hand immediately. One assumes they will. If they don’t they’ll be willingly and knowingly risking people’s lives. Cancel all future sailings immediately and get to work managing the fallout.

On that assumption, what to do with the passengers afloat? Here’s what I think will happen. I should note that the Caribbean trade is several hundred thousand passengers. I should also note that I expect this to happen world wide.

1) entry will be delayed until onboard inspections and testing can take place and results received. This is entirely at the port’s discretion.

2) many ships will fail testing and will be refused entry to the port.

What I’ve been wondering all along in my doomsday scenario is what would happen to the ships that get turned away everywhere. No port is obligated to take them. They don’t have home ports. They’re ‘international conveyance’ in the eyes of the WHO.

The recent CBC report on preparations at Vancouver and Victoria got me thinking of Halifax. Helluva place to moor a few dozen big ones. Fill the Basin.

It’s a remarkable thought. Are we ready to do this? Canada, that is. I’m pretty sure the US has landed its last infected ship.

Wow.

I should note that I’m not an authority on any of this. Just informed speculation. I’ve been tracking this since Pacific Princess.

@jeff_zolo

I’ve been saying it for a while now, ever since the Pacific Princess case. The cruise industry is going to shut down due to COVID-19. Until recently that’s been in fringe lunatic territory, so I haven’t said much publicly apart from one or two conversation stopping posts on social media. I did however buy some put options on CCL on Feb 10. I was confident then that there was trouble coming. They’ve proved to be a good hedge against broad market losses in recent weeks.

Things are developing very quickly as I write this, but in the last day or so two cruise ships have turned up as index cases in onshore testing for the virus. Passengers who got off ships recently are getting sick.

The two ships I’ve been watching are the Grand Princess in San Francisco and the MSC Opera in Greece.

Now what’s going to happen? Here’s my doomsday scenario:

1) as authorities in both the US and Europe try to decide what to do both ships will remain at sea

2) there will be on board testing that will confirm infections in passengers and crew

3) there is already concern over other recent passengers as part of public health authorities, especially if test results are high. Don’t forget that the index cases just got off a cruise with 2500 others. More cases will heighten the panic.

4) as the publicity ramps up and the consequences sink in other cruises are going to become suspect. Further testing in Europe and/or US will point to other ships.

5) Ports will close to cruise ships, first on an individual basis as we’ve seen in the Caribbean recently, but eventually as temporary bans to all.

6) returning to home port and disembarking passengers and crew will become problematic even if there are no known issues. If a growing number of ships are proven to be infected all will be suspect.

7) the scale of an orderly wind down would be daunting. Ten million passengers a year take a Caribbean cruise. This is the busy season. The economic consequences are huge, particularly at busy or remote ports. But I don’t think there’s any hope of an orderly wind down at this point.

Go ahead. Poke holes in it. We’ll know fairly soon how it goes. But I’m throwing it out there. If I’m right it’s going to be very bad.

It’s pretty clear to me that there’s a serious threat coming our way from COVID-19. I’ve been chatting with family members and thinking about preparedness and risk.

I’ve really been enjoying living alone on my boat in downtown Toronto. Will write more on the experience, but it’s comforting right now in view of a possible health crisis. The city and overseeing health authorities learned a lot from the SARS outbreak, and I have confidence in our systems. And I’m not worried about possible medical bills.

One of the joys of living alone on a traveling boat is mobility. I’ll be out of here and heading north in 2 months. In the meantime I’m in the best place I could possibly be.