The Vaccine Discussion Thread

[brentm77]

I wrote; "we currently think immunity wanes STARTING at 6-12 months". The waning could go for a longer period of time, and that will be individual (as it is for other immunizations). People who were in the trials are still being followed, and recently Pfizer stated they believe immunity may *start* to wane at around 8 months. They are doing quantitative titer testing.

Got it. I am a bit tired and didn't read it closely enough.

The good news is the memory b cells may provide some protection well beyond the waning of the regular antibody response.

 

[mevelandry]

Carnival announced today that they will require all passengers to be vaccinated for their Alaska cruises that start in July (pending passage of the PVSA exemption):

https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/...land-america-set-for-alaska-july-cruises.html

*fakes shock*

 

[Mousequake]

Just FYI: On the other hand, a ton of MDs are very comfortable having their kids vaccinated, and a good number of those enrolled in the under 12 Pfizer and Moderna trials are MDs' kids.

Agreed. I know dozens of MDs closely. All of them that I know with 12-15 year old children rushed to get them vaccinated as soon as they could.

At my wife's hospital system, they knew demand would be so high that they set up a special clinic just for employees' children last weekend. I'm so thankful that we're in a place with vaccine distribution where things like that can happen without having to worry about having enough vaccines for everyone.

 

[DCLMP]

[

Agreed. I know dozens of MDs closely. All of them that I know with 12-15 year old children rushed to get them vaccinated as soon as they could.

At my wife's hospital system, they knew demand would be so high that they set up a special clinic just for employees' children last weekend. I'm so thankful that we're in a place with vaccine distribution where things like that can happen without having to worry about having enough vaccines for everyone.

That's funny because I've experienced just the opposite. I wonder what the truth really is.

 

[Mousequake]

That's funny because I've experienced just the opposite. I wonder what the truth really is.

The truth is that I experienced what I experienced, and you experienced what you experienced. Why would you insinuate that I'm being less than truthful?

 

[tink2424]

I may edit my post to word this more clearly: You are not getting the virus from the vaccine, correct; you are getting instructions to build a small part of the outside of the virus. You are also correct that if you had Covid previously, you can expect a more intense reaction to your vaccination.
As far as "in no way related" - there is no basis for that. Perhaps I should have worded more precisely though what I meant; I hear people say they are concerned about the adverse effects they experienced after the vaccine, I acknowledge that: However, there is no telling how that particular individual's immune system (who did not go through Covid first, but received the vaccine first) may have reacted to the full Covid virus (if they are only exposed to a copy of Covid's spike protein through vaccination).

Thanks for clarifying but I still don't see the connection to the immune response to the vaccine versus how your immune system would respond if you got COVID (without the vaccine). One thing has nothing to do with the other. ALL vaccines artificially stimulate the immune system with adjuvants. Normal infections have no adjuvants.

Got it. I am a bit tired and didn't read it closely enough.

The good news is the memory b cells may provide some protection well beyond the waning of the regular antibody response.

Yes, for pretty much all infections your antibodies wane and then you have long/longer term memory B & T cells that can quickly react if you come in contact with that specific virus/bacteria again. This is how immunity works.

The other thing that researchers have found is that even if you have a small antibody response to COVID the B & T cell responses seem to be very robust. So there is a lot of evidence to show pretty long term immunity from natural infection.

[

That's funny because I've experienced just the opposite. I wonder what the truth really is.

The truth is that I experienced what I experienced, and you experienced what you experienced. Why would you insinuate that I'm being less than truthful?

I didn't take it that anyone said you were lying @Mousequake. I think we all just need to remember that we can all be correct when we say we feel a certain way or we know people think a certain way. All of us are different and that is a good thing.

In the grand scheme of things there are very educated people on both sides of this issue. There are valid points for and against vaccination and no one should be called names for making either decision. We all don't know why someone has made the choice or maybe even that they aren't able for medical or religious reasons. Let's just try to understand where we are all coming from.

No one is going to change anyone's mind by being condescending to another person.

 

[DCLMP]

The truth is that I experienced what I experienced, and you experienced what you experienced. Why would you insinuate that I'm being less than truthful?

I wasn’t. My internet crashed last night before I could finish. It’s just interesting how we experience different things in our own inner circles. I prefer to see the data.

 

[jrapps]

As of this morning I am receiving promotion emails from Royal Caribbean that have changed language to indicate that all cruises will require vaccination.

 

[belle032]

Carnival announced today that they will require all passengers to be vaccinated for their Alaska cruises that start in July (pending passage of the PVSA exemption):

https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/...land-america-set-for-alaska-july-cruises.html

I think I'm more surprised that they're trying to pull off an Alaskan season in general! Our NCL sailing for September was cancelled a few months ago. Super interested to see how all the sailings in July roll out!

As of this morning I am receiving promotion emails from Royal Caribbean that have changed language to indicate that all cruises will require vaccination.View attachment 576637

Not sure which way they're going here - it states all guests must be vaccinated, but then it states any unvaccinated guests must submit a negative test? Am I reading that correctly? Or do I just need coffee?

 

[orum]

As of this morning I am receiving promotion emails from Royal Caribbean that have changed language to indicate that all cruises will require vaccination.View attachment 576637

Do you think they will watch to make sure that the percentage of <12 years old is under the CDC minimum? Or has the CDC clarified that their vaccination percentage is for vaccine eligible passengers?
(Or are these the ones sailing from the Bahamas?)

 

[jrapps]

Do you think they will watch to make sure that the percentage of <12 years old is under the CDC minimum? Or has the CDC clarified that their vaccination percentage is for vaccine eligible passengers?

There are stories on other cruise websites that indicate the CDC is about to come out with updated language that will "highly encourage" cruise lines to sail at 100% vaccination. I can only imagine that would mean that updated guidance would remove restrictions such as masks for cruises at sale 100% vaccinated.

I'm not sure where that leaves kids under 12. I think behind the scenes conversations are happening and we're starting to see some trickles and leaks of that information. We can only hope that in the next few days or weeks that trickle will turn into a flood and will finally have everything out in the open.

 

[DCLMP]

Do you think they will watch to make sure that the percentage of <12 years old is under the CDC minimum? Or has the CDC clarified that their vaccination percentage is for vaccine eligible passengers?
(Or are these the ones sailing from the Bahamas?)

I saw a rumor on cruise critic that Carnival will be announcing protocols next week. I wonder if protocols will be different for different embarkation states. It wouldn't surprise me if they were.

 

[Mousequake]

I wasn’t. My internet crashed last night before I could finish. It’s just interesting how we experience different things in our own inner circles. I prefer to see the data.

Thanks for the further explanation. It definitely is interesting to see how different everyone's experiences are. Now that we're vaccinated, my elderly mother visited us last week for the first time in a year last week, coming from an area of the country where things have been opened up for a while and mask usage is a suggestion at best. She was floored to see mask usage at around 100% here. She simply had no idea there were lots of areas of the country still like that.

 

[DCLMP]

Thanks for the further explanation. It definitely is interesting to see how different everyone's experiences are. Now that we're vaccinated, my elderly mother visited us last week for the first time in a year last week, coming from an area of the country where things have been opened up for a while and mask usage is a suggestion at best. She was floored to see mask usage at around 100% here. She simply had no idea there were lots of areas of the country still like that.

This is why I think we'll see different protocols in different states. It wouldn't surprise me to see vaccines required out of California and New York, but not out of Texas or Florida.

 

[jrapps]

I saw a rumor on cruise critic that Carnival will be announcing protocols next week. I wonder if protocols will be different for different embarkation states. It wouldn't surprise me if they were.

It wouldn't surprise me either however this email made it seem like Royals was more of a blanket policy.

Will be interesting to see what comes out of the new protocols next week.

 

[ahain]

I participated in a Zoom call yesterday for Norwegian Cruise Lines. In the conference call, when asked about masks, they said that all crew and passengers would be required to be vaccinated and because of that, they expected that besides some social distancing guidelines," that guests should be able to enjoy a cruise experience that was essentially the same as pre-pandemic, including no masks. They did mention that they would offer full buffet, but that crew members would do the serving

 

[sullivan.kscott]

I think I'm more surprised that they're trying to pull off an Alaskan season in general! Our NCL sailing for September was cancelled a few months ago. Super interested to see how all the sailings in July roll out!



Not sure which way they're going here - it states all guests must be vaccinated, but then it states any unvaccinated guests must submit a negative test? Am I reading that correctly? Or do I just need coffee?

The negative test carve-out is for kids. If you are of an eligible age to receive a vaccine, according to that announcement, you must be vaccinated. I can see the confusion, but really it should say guests 2-11 must submit the negative test. All guests over 12 (as of August 1), must be fully vaccinated. That means dose 2 by July 17, so there's still time to make appointments for those youth. Whatever happens between now and August 1, all guests over 16 must be fully vaccinated. There's still time to make that happen for a mid-July cruise if you haven't started your "course" yet, so this is more than fair to announce now considering RCCL's calendar and restart plan.

 

[belle032]

The negative test carve-out is for kids. If you are of an eligible age to receive a vaccine, according to that announcement, you must be vaccinated. I can see the confusion, but really it should say guests 2-11 must submit the negative test. All guests over 12 (as of August 1), must be fully vaccinated. That means dose 2 by July 17, so there's still time to make appointments for those youth. Whatever happens between now and August 1, all guests over 16 must be fully vaccinated. There's still time to make that happen for a mid-July cruise if you haven't started your "course" yet, so this is more than fair to announce now considering RCCL's calendar and restart plan.

Makes sense now, thank you for clarifying!

 

[mevelandry]

As of this morning I am receiving promotion emails from Royal Caribbean that have changed language to indicate that all cruises will require vaccination.View attachment 576637

It's almost as if most cruise lines were waiting for one of them to require vaccination so the rest of them could follow.

 

[Sykes]

It's almost as if most cruise lines were waiting for one of them to require vaccination so the rest of them could follow.

I imagine it's just that the cruise lines didn't want to announce the requirements until they were pretty sure they weren't going to change in a significant way, and it's only just now that the CDC and the cruise lines are aligned on what the first cruises from the US are going to look like.