Day 11: COVID

Don't get too excited -- we don't have COVID. I've just providing a COVID update because the things I should be writing about are... hard to write about. And updates like, "We spent the day at the beach!" are boring AF. So I'm filling some space with something easy and hopefully interesting.

There's a COVID outbreak on the ship. Threads started popping up on the Facebook group for this cruise (there's apparently a Facebook group for every cruise) about an increasing number of crew members masking. Then we started getting posts from people being isolated on Deck 3 because they have COVID. Deck 3 started to have kind of an ominous feel to it. Like Room 101.

Reports of cases vary from a few dozen to a few hundred. The most recent information we heard (from someone whose reliability is hard to determine) is about 100. That's 3.5% of the passengers. Is that a big deal? I don't know. What I can tell you is that I have no interest in getting it again, regardless of how mild the symptoms are; and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my ability to enter Australia. Caution is now the order of the day.

But Deron, I hear you say. Didn't everyone have to provide a negative test 72 hours prior to boarding? Why yes, that was exactly what people had to do. We managed to get a supervised test over Zoom with a company from Toronto. Plenty of other people had tests done at clinics in Hawai'i. These negative tests had to be shown to cruise staff before anyone could get on the ship.

But here's the thing: we know someone from Saskatchewan who tested themselves at home and came up positive, then went to the hospital for a second test and came up negative. The difference was that they swabbed both their throat AND nose at home, but the hospital only swabbed their nose. Apparently this might be a big deal.

Our supervised test was kind of a joke. I mean, both Tamara and I took it seriously, but there were lots of ways we could have scammed our way through if we wanted to. And we only had to swab our noses. From the reports of some people we've spoken to, no one has been asked to swab their throats. That, and a little less laissez-faire attitude from the testing companies, might have been the difference in preventing some COVID-positive people from boarding.

Since passengers are not being tested regularly, people are only being isolated if they self-identify, either with symptoms or through a RAT they administered themselves. It's impossible to know right now what passengers or crew are COVID-positive and asymptomatic, or have mild symptoms they're dismissing as unimportant.

Cruise staff have told a number of stories about operating during COVID -- how the ships were empty, how they had to deal with crew isolation and meal logistics, and things they learned from this ordeal. Very interesting stuff. Right now we're getting reports of how the crew is currently struggling with COVID cases, potentially indicating there are more cases than they expected to have to deal with. But like in the early days of the pandemic, there's lots of information out there, but the signal to noise ratio is low. It's hard right now to determine how much is valid and how much is speculation (and how much is just plain horse pucky).

We're masking in close quarters right now and trying to limit our contact with people. Tamara and I both knew we had COVID before we confirmed with a RAT, and I'm sure we'll know again if something suddenly seems a little off. I'll be paying closer attention to how I'm feeling. But I'm hopeful this is only a little blip we'll be able to skate on past.

The ship is currently anchored off the island of Moorea (mo-or-AY-ah) in French Polynesia. We spent the day here, and Tamara and I had to each eat eight tiny bananas before we could get back on the ship. Was this some kind of odd local custom or elaborate hazing ritual? I'll try to find time to explain this tomorrow.