SLIPPING FURTHER INTO IT

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By William H Harriss. 2/3/2024. [email protected] [email protected]

I don't like writing about nasty medical events in the hospitality sector.

I wrote an article only a couple of weeks ago about a Norovirus medical event on a Celebrity Cruise Ship’ “WELL AND TRULY IN IT” - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/well-truly-william-harriss-viree%3FtrackingId=XrkhKZbtK%252FxIPTa341Tn4Q%253D%253D/?trackingId=XrkhKZbtK%2FxIPTa341Tn4Q%3D%3D

If you still need to read that article, I ask that you please take time to read it before you read this current article.

“While medical guidelines previously said Noroviruses are spread by touching contaminated objects or eating food or drinking liquids that contain the virus, a study showed it can be and is also airborne. Researchers from Canada tested air samples at eight hospitals and long-term care facilities affected by gastroenteritis outbreaks. They found that the virus could spread by air up to several meters from an infected person. The study results were presented in an issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Caroline Duchaine of the Université Laval and the Québec Heart and Lung Institute Research Centre says, "Our lab is equipped to do this. Other studies have supposed it could be present because of epidemiological evidence, such as transmission of diseases with our droplets or direct contact."

If norovirus is now also known as being airborne, then for a certainty, you can catch it from unsterilized bed pillows, like COVID, TB, Influenza, and a host of respiratory diseases. Like all those other diseases, it will be located at the heart of the pillow, not just on the surface.

An incubation period is the time from exposure to an infectious agent to when you develop symptoms. Most people do not develop symptoms immediately after exposure to a virus or bacteria. It will take time for the virus or bacteria to infect you enough to feel sick.

For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] report that COVID-19 symptoms may present anywhere up to 14 days after exposure to the virus. A food-borne bacterial infection like Salmonella can cause symptoms almost instantly but often up to six days. Conversely, the flu virus has an incubation period of about four days.

Norovirus outbreaks often occur in healthcare facilities, long-term care facilities, restaurants, childcare centres, schools, and cruise ships; the virus can remain in the intestines for weeks or months and cause lingering inflammatory bowel problems, according to a 2018 report published in the journal Science.

The virus, often called the Cruise Virus or Norovirus, has a short incubation period, usually about 48 hours. Once contracted, the virus can remain in the intestines for weeks or months and cause lingering inflammatory bowel problems, according to a 2018 report published in the journal Science.

Noting the association between norovirus outbreaks and cruises, ‘The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] says that more than 90 per cent of “outbreaks of diarrheal disease on cruise ships” are caused by the virus.

But people do not realize that hotels are probably more dangerous than cruise ships for catching nasty infections. But I hear you asking yourself, why do we not hear more about illnesses caught in hotels?

People tend to stay for much shorter periods in hotels [according to Hotel Tech Report- The average length of stay in a hotel is 1.8 nights] than on cruise ships [the average length of a cruise is seven days], so from hotels, they catch diseases and take them home with them before the symptoms show. The incubation periods that vary from disease to disease expire on a ship, and people show symptoms onboard, and some get very ill. So, it looks like more people get infected on cruise ships than in hotels. But that is simply untrue. Because people stay in hotels for a shorter time, the incubation period is a takeaway that most people take home and are unaware that they even caught it in the hotel they previously stayed in.

Resorts tend to have higher illness figures than hotels because, once again, people tend to stay longer in holiday resort accommodation [average length of stay 8.5 days].

Motels have almost no reports of people getting ill. That is because people are there only for one or two nights [average 1.2 nights], yet motels may be dangerous places for catching infections and diseases due to the higher turnover of guests. But the travellers that stay in motels often move on to another motel, the symptoms not yet showing of what they caught last night onto that next motel, or they take it home with them. So, reports of illnesses caught in motels are deficient, if at all, but you can be sure the infection rate is very high.

Contagious diseases are recorded to happen to a much greater degree in retirement homes where older adults stay for extended periods; they never go home because the retirement establishment is home. Evidence shows that retirement homes have many more people getting ill than cruise ships and undoubtedly many more than hotels and motels.

Once again, a report of ‘Unknown Illness’ occurs on a cruise. The CDC says that 135 people were sickened with an undisclosed illness while sailing on a cruise ship.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that 135 people were sickened with an “unknown” illness while on board a cruise ship operated by Cunard Line. In an update issued on January 31, 2024, the agency said that the predominant symptoms include vomiting and diarrhoea, but the “causative agents” are “unknown.” It's the same old story but a different cruise.

Out of about 2,700 passengers and crew, 135 were sickened on Cunard Line’s Queen Victoria, which is on a planned voyage from Jan. 22 to Feb. 12. However, the cases that have been currently reported “do not represent the number of active (symptomatic) gastrointestinal cases at any given port of call or disembarkation,” the agency said.

The actual figures for all ports and cruises are traditionally many times more, and many people are not ill until they return home, so reports do not include illness at home.

The incident comes about a month after nearly 100 passengers on a Celebrity Cruises vessel, the Celebrity Constellation, were sickened with norovirus when it departed in early January from Florida, according to the CDC in a separate update. The agency said that 92 passengers and eight crew members were sickened in that outbreak, with the main symptoms being diarrhoea and vomiting.

It’s the second official cruise industry-reported outbreak for 2024 by the CDC.

You can read the full story here: - https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/cdc-confirms-outbreak-on-cruise-ship-due-to-unknown-illness-5577878?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&src_src=morningbriefnoe&utm_campaign=mb-2024-02-01&src_cmp=mb-2024-02-01&utm_medium=email&est=e07O7OoRtHXa07Ed6ynCq1W%2FdH0eyZMdkzChm2DTH288IKGYK6mJuJM7%2F9djNnfmms0%3D

If any of the Cruise Lines [but only one initially] would like me to install two of our ozone gas chambers for sterilization on board a vessel as a test, I am willing to install two chambers on a ship with a lousy record of contamination. Let us see if we can solve the sickness problem. I am eager to sail with an engineer to try and demonstrate the system's effectiveness in controlling contagions. I will guarantee complete secrecy of the procedure and will not use the results in any advertising literature or online media without their permission. All secrets belonging to the cruise company will remain theirs and will never be disclosed. We expect the Cruise Company to pay for transporting the equipment to and from the vessel, including loading and locating onboard. Onboard accommodation and meals for myself and engineer to be provided by the Cruise company.

Talk to me; I want to help; if we work together, we may end these sickness problems that are destroying the Cruise business. Cruisers are frightened, and once they or someone they know gets ill on a cruise, that person is lost as a client forever. Just reading about the problem in the international press is damaging and destroying the industry.

If you really want to help your industry, please comment below and pass this article to others in your organization.

William H Harriss

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