Britain is in the grip of the worst outbreak of norovirus, the winter vomiting bug, since records began.
So you’d think for once that the media might begin to see norovirus for what it is – a common, highly infectious virus that occurs mostly in winter, just like a cold, and can affect any community. Not ‘cruise ship virus’, as it’s often dubbed.
An outbreak of ‘noro’ onboard P&O Cruises’ Oriana, which is currently on a Baltic Christmas markets cruise, has provoked hysterical headlines like The Sun’s ‘Fury over cruise ship vomit hell’ and the Mirror’s ‘Plague Ship’, both quoting an affected passenger who claims: “It’s a scandal – misery on the high seas”.
P&O’s account of the situation on Oriana is widely different from the ranting in The Sun and the Daily Mail, both of which claim between 150 and 300 passengers have been struck down. The official statement says that today, six, out of 1,843 on board, are ill. Those that have seen the doctor have not had to pay for their medical treatment.
So why are cruise ships always picked on by the media as hotbeds of disease and poor hygiene, and the cruise lines themselves blamed for every outbreak?
The fact is, all passengers are asked to sign a declaration before boarding confirming that they have had no symptoms for the last 24 hours. Are all of them really honest? Does everybody really scrub their hands for three minutes after going to the loo and use the hand sanitisers before entering the restaurants? Probably not. In fact, almost definitely not.
Perhaps cruise ship passengers should take a look at their own hygiene before jumping on the bandwagon of blame when the simple fact is, the most likely way you’re going to catch norovirus, wherever you are, is by not washing your hands properly.
–Sue Bryant
Are you onboard Oriana? Have you been affected by norovirus? Tell us below.
5 Comments
December 14, 2012 at 9:56 pm
Yes dont blame the cruise lines its down to just other filthy passengers not adhereing to hygene rules properly cmon
passengers u pay good money f a cruise buck up on ur hygene regime and let everyone have a pleadant trip
December 27, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Just got back from one.
Totally agree, never seen so many people go in for 1s and 2s and not washed there hands.
Had to mention it occasionally as well .
But on Cunard earlier in the year they mentioned it all the time.
MSC not so particular.
December 17, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I completely agree with this! Personal hygiene plays a huge part in trying to prevent yourself from catching highly contagious illnesses, and P&O have definitely taken far too much of the blame for this!
The simple facts are that, no matter how big they are, cruise ships are confined spaces, and if a bug like the Norovirus can spread round a town in a matter of days – it is inevitable that any passenger carrying it and boarding the ship is EXTREMELY likely to pass it on!
The only people responsible are the individuals themselves. In a way cruise ships are like schools – contact is constantly inevitable and so such a highly contagious illness cannot easily be confined. It was very good of P&O to waive all medical fees.
December 18, 2012 at 11:10 am
I was on this cruise and it was me that organised meetings with the view to getting the Captain to speak to us about the lack of communication and the miss-management of the virus. Few passengers ever saw the Captain or any other officers; they totally isolated themselves from the guests. I addressed all three meetings and many people came to me with their stories, some beggared belief.
I’ll start my story from the beginning. We were delayed boarding the ship, most waited more than two hours, and there were only two security scanners in use. When we finally got on board we were told our cabins were not yet available and we should wait in the public areas. Maximum precautions were in place in the buffet area, there was no self-service, when we went to dinner the tables were bare, no condiments or flowers, this is normal when a ship has Norovirus on board. Soon after leaving Zeebrugge we ran into very stormy weather, when we reached Amsterdam we were told we were unable to get a pilot on-board as it was to rough, our docking was some seven hours late. What we were unaware of at this time was that virus was spreading out of hand, the buffet was closed that afternoon with the excuse was that it was causing the virus to spread, a smoke screen, the truth was, they needed all the staff they could muster to wait on those confined to their cabins and to make up cleaning teams to clean the infected cabins. People were complaining that cabin service was taking from one and a half to two hours, some didn’t arrive at all, the cabin service phone lines were permanently engaged and when, or if, it arrived it was not what they had ordered. That evening, at the first sitting the restaurant was nearly half empty, strange as it is the most popular sitting and the buffet was closed, it should have been bulging, where was everyone? It was rumoured that there were 150 cases at this point; additional nurses were drafted in from the UK. We didn’t sail until late morning of the next day, we were told the weather had been too rough to sail the previous evening or overnight, when we eventually got to sea the weather was fine.
When we finally arrived in Copenhagen, a cleaning team from Southampton came aboard and the Captain had a visit from Carnival’s CEO David Dingle, (infer what you will from that).
It soon came to my attention that many people were contracting the virus, but not reporting it, having been on a great many cruises around the world, I knew part of standard procedure, when a potential large outbreak was possible, was to inform the passengers that a problem existed, explain the procedures being put in place, then most importantly, explain the importance of reporting any symptoms they you may have, finally there would no medical charges relating to the virus. P&O were charging for any medical attention, one gentleman who publically stated he had been charged just over a £1000.00, another gentleman approached me and told me his bill was more than double that. The majority who reported the virus were merely told to stay in their cabins for 48hours; they didn’t see any medical staff therefore received no charges whatsoever. No wonder people were not reporting their infection.
P&O finally stated that the figure was just over 300, that computes to average of some 33 cases a day, who’s kidding who? It hardly takes a mathematician to work out that double that number could easily be handled by a handful of cabin staff and as for the medical staff, well as they were actually only seeing a minority of cases, say a third, that’s 11 cases, 2 to 3 hours work maybe! I suspect the truth is the only recorded cases (300+), were those who actually saw a doctor or nurse and received medical attention!
Why would P&O want to hide the truth? (I personally believe between 800 and a 1000 were actually infected, maybe more, no one will ever know the true figure because so many went unreported. A show of hands at the meetings showed the numbers to be far greater than those admitted, bearing in mind only around 15 to 20% of passengers attended).
I would suggest that had the truth come out, the ship would have been delayed from sailing and put into quarantine. Such a delay would not only incur a great deal of expense, but with Carnivals accounts about to be published and a poor result expected, this could impact badly on their share price.
A few aside remarks that were heard and passed to me were, a nurse remarked, “that’s more than half the ship now”, another from a cleaning team when asked how busy are you, ” it’s OK now we only have 80 cabins to do today, we have been doing hundreds every day”, (he was referring to the workload of all the teams of course). All the staff were doing extra hours and I cannot speak to highly of the work they were doing, and still managing to smile.
I asked a waiter if he was doing extra hours, he said yes, I then asked if he was getting any extra pay he said “no I do what my supervisor tells me”.
I was approached by a passenger who said he was a retired microbiologist with 28 years experience of handling viral infections with the NHS, he said the handing of this virus outbreak broke every rule in the book.
The Captain stated that the infection was the passengers fault as they had brought it onto the ship and only had themselves to blame.
I would say that in all probability some people did bring it onto the ship, however, what I am certain of is that it was on the ship in a big way, remember what I said earlier about many not reporting, that would also have applied to the previous to the previous cruise, that begs the question how many cabins were infected and not deep cleaned?
The time between passengers dis-embarking and embarking was 4 to 6 hours, how could anyone possibly carry out such a mammoth cleaning task in this short time?
The Captain did confess eventually that the logistics did get beyond his control at one point, I would suggest that was on our second night when it was rumoured there were 150 cases, that would make sense.
I would state that I have made a number of assumptions, which I believe to be broadly accurate, based upon information passed to me by passengers personal experiences. As you will see from the reported incidents regarding logistics, the higher figure I suggested better matches the promlems experienced! Neither I nor my wife caught the virus, I was just standing up for everyone’s right to be informed.
Finally, I would say to anyone reading this blog, please don’t be put off of cruising, neither I, nor anyone I’ve ever met, have experienced anything like this before, my wife and I have cruised the equivalent of more than a year at sea and I have to say it’s a wonderful way both to holiday and to see the world.
January 16, 2013 at 3:11 am
Gerry, thank you so much for this careful story. I am an epidemiologist, and it was fascinating to read these carefully collected details. The media really missed all this nuance. Thanks again. I have never been on a cruise, but your post makes me want to try one!