If it can be mitigated, why is noro an annual problem?
And between WuFlu and noro, I’d rather have the former.
Because ship to ship the implementation vary even in the same cruise line. That’s because humans are involved. But on most ships they do a very very good job of keeping surfaces and hands clean.
If it can be mitigated, why is noro an annual problem
For example Royal C sends staff out at 3:00 am and disinfects everything. Some lines are better others . After all this if they survive they will get a handle on the problem with screening, sanitizing etc. millions love cruising it’s big business that employs a lot of people.
Noro is NOT an annual problem.....there can be an outbreak at any time. We.ve been on 85 cruises and not had Noro once.
mewzilla wrote: “If it can be mitigated, why is noro an annual problem?”
You’re absolutely correct. Noro is an annual problem. But not on cruise ships. For example, the CDC reports that: “Each year, on average in the United States, norovirus: causes 19 to 21 million cases of acute gastroenteritis. leads to 1.7 to 1.9 million outpatient visits and 400,000 emergency department visits, primarily in young children.”
IOW, noro is everywhere, not just on cruise ships.
The CDC reports that: “People often associate cruise ships with acute gastrointestinal illnesses such as norovirus, but acute gastrointestinal illness is relatively infrequent on cruise ships.
From 2008 to 2014, 74 million passengers sailed on cruise ships in the Vessel Sanitation Program’s jurisdiction. Only 129,678 passengers met the program’s case definition for acute gastrointestinal illness and only a small proportion of those cases (1 in 10) were part of a norovirus outbreak.”
So, lets play the numbers game. Using CDC numbers:
- there is a 0.00175 chance of getting Noro on a cruise ship
- there is a 0.0645 chance of getting noro at home.
IOW, your 36.9 times as likely to get noro at home versus a cruise ship.
“Noro” is an annual problem? Are you kidding? There are/were 2,500 cruise ships on the ocean at any given time all over the world. Why is it news if one ship has a norovirus outbreak? Does Disney get dinged for any infectious diseases traced to their parks?
The disease outbreak protocols on most cruise ships are far beyond anything you’ll encounter on land. On land if you get sick you usually don’t know where. And if you do will they blare it on the media?