Occam's Razor

Aboard the M.S. Nieuw Amsterdam, off Hispanola, May 11, 2020

We JoCo Cruisers don’t seem to be too upset about the coronavirus thing, here on Day 5 of our cruise. We have more pressing things to do, which is basically to nerd out with fellow nerds, something they don’t get to do much of once they are home. Life on the mainland is hardly like The Big Bang Theory. As best I can tell we two thousand passengers on the Nieuw Amsterdam have escaped the dread coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease.

The Dominican Republic let us into Santo Domingo yesterday where our activities went on without a hitch. Santo Domingo is the bright spot on the island of Hispanola: a chocolate city, thoroughly modern with crushing and relentless traffic. It’s a shining gem of a Caribbean city, despite being the oldest city in the Americas. Considering what Christopher Columbus did to the natives here (basically wiped them out, mostly through disease) you would think they would not revere him. But he is revered, and the current citizens of the Dominican Republic are mostly distant ancestors of slaves.

As for the Turks and Cacoas, they are giving our cruise ship a pass. We were schedule to stop at Grand Turk on Thursday, but that’s off. Instead, we’ll stop at Holland America’s private island, Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas on Friday instead. We can’t be kicked off an island that Holland America owns. We were scheduled to go there on Sunday, but stormy seas kept us from berthing offshore and tendering in.

I don’t blame the Turks and Cacoas for rejecting us, but it’s really kind of silly since no one on our ship is “presenting” signs of the virus. Another Princess cruise ship, one of those we saw leaving with us out of Fort Lauderdale, is sailing aimlessly off the coast of Florida. A cruise greeter at the Princess terminal apparently got COVID-19, so this ship is now suspect. Here on the Nieuw Amsterdam, we’re trusting to frequent hand washing and lots of Purell and doing our best to party on.

Our principle problem is there are lots of us in a confined space, so if one of us has the virus it is likely to get quickly passed on. It’s pretty clear that our government is clueless on how to intelligently manage this pandemic. There is some good news about this virus. Unless someone with the virus coughs in your face, you get it from touching surfaces that has the virus on it. The virus degrades with time, faster on certain surfaces than others. It looks like a virus could persist on a surface for 2-3 days. You shouldn’t get it from an air conditioning or heating system. Keep six to 12 feet away from people, wash hands frequently and avoid touching your face and most likely you won’t get it. Vigilance and regular hygiene are your friends. Act like a doctor who sees sick people every day and rarely gets sick because they wash hands before and after seeing you.

For us, success will be to make it home without the virus. Since incubation can take up to two weeks, if we make it then we probably won’t know for sure until two more week have elapsed. Even if not infected, getting home might prove problematic. Flights are being canceled. I had Wifi briefly in Santo Domingo (there is free public Wifi in much of the city) and so far no notices from JetBlue, our carrier home, on canceled flights. We’re getting a $50 per berth cruise credit, so my share went for Wifi here on the boat, where it is slow and costs a lot. Fingers are crossed.

We are fortunate to have Andy the epidemiologist and Tim the virologist on board. Both are paying passengers, but are spending some time giving us the straight dope, which mostly isn’t coming from the White House. My suspicion that we were probably safer on a tightly packed ship with lots of people doing proper sanitation than outside of it in a public that isn’t seems validated. Tim the virologist says even air travel is not that dangerous. Unless someone sneezes on you, the cabin’s HEPA air filters will keep viruses from hitting you. We’ve got sanitary wipes to clean nearby surfaces, in case the previous occupant was carrying the virus. Assuming authorities let us catch our flights, we should be fine. The dirty Fort Lauderdale airport we fly out of is more of a danger to us than this cruise ship is at the moment. We need to keep our distance from people there as best we can and wash our hands in the restroom frequently.

Markets though operate principally on fear, which is why they keep plunging. There’s no question though that this will all have an impact. A recession is a virtual certainty. Republicans and Democrats may come together to, temporarily at least, make employers pay sick leave for employees, at taxpayers’ dime most likely. The corporate welfare is likely to get larger as travel and other affected industries are likely to get bailouts. Maybe that will calm markets.

The long term impact of the coronavirus may be to convince people that looked unconvinceable to let government govern again. Joe Biden seems to be the primary beneficiary of coronavirus fear. Real relief may wait until January 2021 if he is elected, but in times like these sober people look a whole lot more vote-worthy than those at the extremes. That’s fine by me although Biden was never my first choice.

What I’m really hoping for is a political tsunami in November, so Democrats can regain all levers of government. Maybe next time we get a virus like this we won’t be caught so needlessly flat footed.

Post updated March 16, 2020 to indicate that coronavirus can persist on surfaces for up to a couple of days. Post updated again on April 12, 2020. It is now believed that in interior spaces the virus can persist in the air like an aerosol for an hour or more. So wear a mask and gloves when in these spaces.