Taking the Kids: On a cruise this summer
At the same time, U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, have introduced the Alaska Tourism Recovery Act to alleviate restrictions for cruise ships bringing passengers between Washington state and Alaska without stopping in Canada. The Alaska congressional delegation has urged the Biden administration to issue clear guidelines for the Cruise ship industry, citing the “dramatic negative ripple effect on Florida and Alaskan families, business, ports and communities that rely on the cruise industry.”
Meanwhile, Travel Weekly reports, the state of Florida has filed suit against the CDC for shutting down the cruise industry and Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has indicated Alaska may follow.
According to CLIA, restarting cruises as part of the broader travel industry will provide a much-needed boost to the U.S. economy. The cruise industry supports nearly 450,000 American jobs and contributes over $55.5 billion annually.
Certainly, people are anxious to sail. Based on what we’re hearing from cruisers so far, there is a strong demand for these cruises, “ said Colleen McDaniel, editor-in-chief of Cruise Critic.com. “Combined with the fact that only select ships will be sailing and they’ll be sailing with limited capacity, it’s likely we’ll see demand outweigh the current supply.”
According to a Cruise Critic survey last month, nearly half of cruisers are already looking to book a future cruise and 85 percent report they plan to book a future cruise.
But is it safe to sail? It depends on who you ask.
“If you are vaccinated, you have nothing to worry about,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an infectious disease physician who has been treating COVID-19 patients since the beginning of the pandemic. Children, he added, are less likely to spread the disease and are most often spared serious illness. He added that flying doesn’t give you COVID. “It’s what you do afterward,” he said.
Other public health experts aren’t so positive. “Personally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable because of new variants that are circulating,” said Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, an epidemiologist and vice chairman of the department of preventative medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We know the vaccines are good for some variants and not others.”
“There aren’t enough people around the world who are vaccinated,” she said, “And whenever you have unvaccinated people in the general population, including children, “it provides the opportunity for the virus to continue to mutate and circulate,” she said.
Do you want to take that chance, especially when you don’t have the best cutting-edge therapy in the middle of the ocean or an island?”
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