Originally Posted by
STS-134
I don't know what in the hell they are doing. They should get those folks off the boat and into land based quarantine ASAP while the tests are run. If nobody has SARS-CoV-2 on board, it's not going to hurt, but if someone does, all this is going to do is increase the number of cases they have to deal with. Didn't they learn this from watching the situation in Japan?
Problem is nowhere to put that many people besides their own homes, and how do you get them safely from ship to home, how do you monitor them to prevent me noncompliance, and what to do about international passengers? These cruise ships, once they get into trouble, suck up an incredible amount of resources that at this point, are needed more by communities on land.
I hope that at tomorrow's meeting with cruise industry CEO's, Mike Pence delivers an order for a minimum 2-month shutdown and cancellation of further departures, effective immediately. If he can't do that, he needs to require each cruise line put up $50 million each per ship that remains in service, deposit to cover services rendered when the ship gets into COVID-19 related trouble. It's galling to expect US taxpayers to bail out a pleasure-oriented, non-essential industry.