Norwegian Cruise Line, which offers seven-day trips from Seattle to Southeast Alaska, has asked the CDC to approve its cruising season beginning July 4 so long as all crew and passengers have proof of a COVID shot.
An April 5 letter from Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings President and CEO Frank Del Rio was sent to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky outlying the company’s plans for a summer season. The letter was also sent to White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, many top elected officials in Florida and Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan.
If permitted to resume cruises, Norwegian says it will mandate that all travelers and crewmembers submit to a COVID shot no less than two weeks before embarking. Similar proposals have been floated by other cruise lines, but Norwegian is the first to formalize it.
The proposal reflects a growing trend among major corporations to reward those who agree to vaccinate while banning services and employment to those who refuse to take an experimental vaccine that has not been approved by the FDA, except for emergency use.
Del Rio’s letter claims that his plan “should become the model for how the travel and hospitality industry operates in a COVID-19 environment,” adding that his company believes “vaccinations are the primary vehicle for Americans to get back to their everyday lives…”
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He lavished praise on the CDC’s April 2 guidance in which it stated that “fully vaccinated people” should be free to travel within the U.S. without having to undergo tests or post-travel self-quarantine so long as they wear masks, avoid crowds, socially distance and wash hands frequently while traveling.
Norwegian is the parent company of three cruise brands, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas. Travel on all three outlets have been suspended since March 2020, prior to the CDC issuing its first no sail order.
In restarting its cruises, Norwegian proposes launching operations in July at 60% capacity and gradually building to 100% over a two-month period.
Del Rio letter makes no mention of another obstacle to cruises, namely the Passenger Vessel Services Act, which requires large cruise ships with more than 100 passengers to stop in at least one international port before arriving in Alaska. Since Canada has banned cruise ships for the summer, federal law would need to be changed to resume the summer cruise season.
21 Comments
This is a violation of HIPPA Laws. I don’t have to share my medical information with anyone I don’t want to.
You need to revisit this illegal decision and stop it now.
The ability to cruise on a private company’s vessel is not a fundamental right. You don’t have to share your medical information with cruise lines, but they also don’t have to let you onto their ships. If they think it’s the best way to serve their target market, why should the government force a private business to take customers it doesn’t want to?
Why should we give up the right to free movement for a violation to medical privacy? If the Wuhan Flu has taught us anything, it’s HIPAA violations are “totally ok”.
Last I checked the government does tell private companies what to do, they call it “Regulations”. In the case of a bakery in Colorado, “Court Decisions”.
A public accommodation does not have a right to demand customers submit to medical procedures for the same reason they do not have the right to insist passengers consent to a strip search in order to check them for lice, even if they do think it’s the best way to serve their target audience. All persons are entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation without discrimination. Not even a licensed medical physician can refuse medical care because a patient did not consent to their medical advice. It is the governments job to ensure all individuals (even those who choose NOT to subject their bodies to an experimental, non-FDA-approved, gene therapy) have full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation without discrimination.
This is what happens when cooperations are merged with chinese investors. I see a lawsuit
Just remained astounded that natural immunity is ignored. Every study has shown the same or better immunity results from having had the disease than obtained by a vaccine. Why not either?
well, sending a letter to Sullivan was a waste of paper, he’s a swamper . the election is over, the great hoax can end now.
Ran into Sullivan on a walk last summer. He talked a lot, and I remember him saying basically that his plans are to “throw a bunch of money at it!…”
State legislators need to be written to. Only a handful are on our side. They want to extend the emergency. HB76 has the possibility of extending it into September. They need to hear that we will not accept mandatory vaccinations as well. They are getting really unresponsive to the citizens letters.
Their responsiveness is childlike oppositional to anything Alaskan investors inform them. They should be told their elongated stay is unauthorized, unlawful illegal group behavior. They should be arrested.
This is the most stupidest thing, making you get a shot, you don’t want or need.
Wait only 60% first two months I through everyone had a shot
Pack the boat like sardines. We’re all safe now, we have the shot,LOSERS.
And yet….the the school system has forced children to be vaccinated before attending school. Don’t say it’s different because “lots of kids”, in the instance of the cruise ships, it’s not different. I’m not an anti-vaxer but it does make you question the motives of the medical community, the education community and the government in regards to vaccines for decades.
Why do newborns need a HEP B vaccine? I don’t see a newborn from middle land USA making a trip on day 1 to a country that has HEP B problems. What was wrong with the chicken pox parties that were attended well into the 90s for herd immunity then no longer “acceptable” once there was a vaccine?
Is it the medical community making money, the educational community not wanting to send home a sick kid, or the parents not having time to take care of the sick kid because the income tax system has forced both parents to work to make ends meet?
There’s a native company and I heard today that AIH in Anchorage Is saying you have to get the shot to work for them.
The governor needs to get ahead of this just like Florida and Texas.
Not vaccine passport here in Alaska
Don’t tell me how to run my life it’s America. I thought we were a free nation.
Plus wear you stupid Double mask TOO!!
Norwegian Cruise Line may end up with a whole lot of dead and sick old people rotting on their cruise boats
Don’t go on their boats, let them go bankrupt. Speak with your $, not your mouth. This ALL corporations care about and the only language they speak.
They can go broke for all I care they are the worst cruise line in the fleet
Nothing changes even after you vaccinate you can still get it & spread it & just like Any flu it can kill those who cant fight it. The Antibodies from a donor is how to treat it after a persons immune system cant fight it off on their own.
Did ALL children who returned to school & ALL their parents who return to work get mandated to get this vaccine. No! Are other vaccines required to attend school. Yes! If a Vaccine works it take 2 weeks for you to make antibodies. Some people dont make enough to measure. Everyone is different. Some who take this or Any other vaccine will have a good response full coverage 80% others wont have 20% especially is they are on immunosuppressive meds/treatment (like Any steriod) it lowers the effect of the vaccine. Herd immunity is also very effective. But no one seems to bring it up. Boost your immune system with fresh fruits & veggies daily & wash your hands/cover your sneezes, coughs, & you will be ok. Read & see the repeated points in the report is you can still get a virus if you are exposed to it after vaccinated or not vaccinated. You can be exposed literally anywhere all you can do is stay safe by following the hygiene steps.
https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/vaccines/after-covid-19-vaccination-what-you-can-and-cant-do
Choose to withhold your $ for their service offered. And declare why.
Must be vaccinated but STILL told to wear a mask, socially distance and wash hands often. Why the vaccination then????
How do we organize to fight this infringement? And We need to be able to depend on our Governor to say “hell no” to companies who state they will require the experimental “vaccine”. Or any use of “vaccine” passports. Perhaps we should not let them land here if they are going to disregard human rights.
Stop obeying illegal mandates. Stop wearing masks that don’t work (they cause bacterial pneumonia and they have graphene oxide on them) Stop socially distancing -on a crowded cruise ship – HA!!!, that’s a joke (it’s meant to make you feel isolated). Stop washing hands with alcohol-based cleaner (15% of people don’t metabolize it and it can cause cancer. But they know that). Stop submitting to the fake tests that are actually a vax.
Don’t go on a cruise. When no one shows up, well, money talks, doesn’t it. There’s always an answer.
To John in Alaska, when you say “target market”, are you advocating dividing American people into two groups?
This whole thing is a hoax and it is SO OVER.
If you disagree, keep your mask on, keep getting boosters of that bio weapon that is MEANT TO KILL you.
It’s a long time between now and the day the ship leaves. If people don’t WAKE UP, there will be more rules next summer. It will never end.
While we’re busy opining about illegal rules on an inferior cruise ship, the next DC winners are being picked for us in Alaska. Anchorage is going to stop people from viewing the vote count. This wouldn’t be to help out Dum Young and Murky, would it??
I can’t wait to vote against Sullivan too!! Sick of these politicians interfering in every aspect of our lives!
Skip the cruise and stop the fraud.