Posts Tagged ‘Da Magnificent Seven’

Norovirus and my cruise ship trip

Posted: February 18, 2024 by John Ruberry in business, medicine
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By John Ruberry

Okay, let me get say this before I get into the details of our ten-day cruise. Yes, barely, we can afford a cruise. So I’m not bragging about our wealth. Because we have nothing to brag about.

To celebrate an anniversary birthday for Mrs. Marathon Pundit–I’m not going to reveal the year–we departed on a Caribbean cruise earlier this month which concluded last Friday where it began, Fort Lauderdale.

Which cruise line? Let’s just call it Joyful Cruises.

This post is designed to start an honest conversation about cruise ships, one that you will be less likely to find in dinosaur corporate media, largely because cruise ships are major advertisers with them. 

I have no such restraints. Oh, I am not a doctor or any sort of health professional.

On the upside, a cruise makes affordable–barely again, for us–visits to remote places such as Carribean islands. I can drive from my home near Chicago and reach Key West, Florida in a couple of days. I can make it a week-long trip with extended stops. I cannot drive from Key West to the Bahamas. 

The highlight of the cruise for us were the excursions in Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, Martinque, and Antigua. Issues with high waves cancelled plan stops at “Joyful Cay” in the Bahamas and Dominica. I understand, snowstorms and hurricanes force highway closures and baseball games are rained out. But according to a cruise Facebook group, those stops were also cancelled on that same Joyful cruise ship, which departed the same day our cruise ended. 

To compensate for the missed stops, our already paid for excursion was refunded and we each receivedc a $75 on-ship credit.

Fewer stops means more time on the ship–more time to interact with other passengers–and more time to become ill.

And people get sick–not just motion sickness–on cruise ships. Norovirus, commonly but mistakenly referred to as “stomach flu,” is a big problem on cruises.

From Today.com last year:

Outbreaks of the stomach bug have surged on cruise ships this year, reaching the highest levels seen in 10 years. Since January 2023, there have been 13 confirmed norovirus outbreaks [My note–there were just 12, one of those was salmonella and E. coli] on cruise ships under U.S. jurisdiction — that’s more outbreaks in six months than there have been during any full year since 2012, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More…

Most recently, a norovirus outbreak in June on the Viking Neptune sickened 110 passengers (over 13% of the ship’s guests) and nine crew members with vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal cramps, according to the CDC. The CDC has tracked outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness on cruise ships through its Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) since 1994. 

Several weeks prior, a Celebrity Summit cruise ship reported an outbreak of norovirus that sickened more than 150 passengers and 25 crew members, per the CDC. It was the third norovirus outbreak on a Celebrity Cruises vessel this year. Another popular cruise line, Royal Caribbean International, has reported four outbreaks since January.

Late on the eighth day of our Joyful Cruise, Mrs. Marathon Pundit became quite ill, and her symptoms were fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. I visited the medical center of the ship on her behalf, the medical staffer explained that my wife would need to be confined to our stateroom–really, it was a tiny cabin—for 24 hours. Or longer if her symptoms continued. Notably, he didn’t say “quarantine.” Per CDC protocol, my wife was required to complete a form about her illness and conditions. He provided her with anti-diarrheal medication, the charge for it was $14. 

A day later it was my turn to get sick. How sick? 

While sitting on the toilet doing, well, you know, I took advantage of the compact bathroom in our stateroom, which allowed me to simultaneously and painfully vomit into the sink. A two-for-one cruise ship special! And four days later the soreness remains. The lower back muscular pain from the unnatural vomit-induced contortions severely challenged my fit body.

I didn’t bother to visit the medical center–I already knew what was wrong with me. And I didn’t need fill out a report. As we disembarked our ship in Fort Lauderdale, I overheard a few other passengers complain about “stomach flu,” and there was a mention of it on the unofficial cruise Facebook page organized by another passenger.

Getting sick with norovirus on a cruise is surprisingly common. Last year, the Miami Herald reported, “Some people know it as the ‘cruise ship virus’ because it’s often the cause of over 90% of diarrhea outbreaks on cruise ships, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Neither Mrs. Marathon Pundit nor I were officially diagnosed with norovirus. But that 90 percent CDC statistic works for me. 

Yes, norovirus on cruise ships is also an official thing, a federal thing. The CDC even has a Facts About Noroviruses on Cruise Ships page on its website.

So far in the seven weeks of 2024, the CDC has reported official illness outbreaks on two cruise ships, one was confirmed as norovirus.

On the flipside, norovirus is not a cruise ship-exclusive bug, it’s far more common in schools and nursing homes, according to the CDC. 

The CDC reports on norovirus cruise ships outbreaks are incomplete, because they don’t include people like me who silently suffered in their staterooms, or passengers who didn’t exhibit symptoms until after disembarking. 

Still, not everyone gets sick on cruise ships. Most don’t. And of the folks we mingled with on our Joyful cruise, most said, even after over a dozen cruises, that they’ve never gotten sick.

Where did we go wrong? Out of convenience, we ate all but one of our cruise meals–three of them most days–in the crowded “hot bunk” style set up in the buffet dining hall, even though our cheapskate package allowed us, with a reservation and paying an eighteen percent “cover charge,” to dine in some of the restaurants. Mrs. Marathon Pundit, who you’ll remember got sick first, spent a lot of time in the ship’s spa.

Our cruise ship boasts that it can hold over 3,600 passengers–our trip was sold out–and it has a crew of over 1,300. Most of the crew sleep in compact steerage rooms in bunk beds. Perhaps that’s too many people in too small of a space for too long of a time.

Our two port cancellations increased the odds of illness. You’re more likely to get sick with any bug on a massive cruise ship as opposed to a beach or a rain forest. 

I’m not a germophobe. During the COVID pandemic, I was against the lockdowns and mask mandates. While I don’t have any specific suggestions, I believe cruise lines can do better, even if that means simply informing passengers that they face a norovirus risk. COVID warnings, many that have turned out to be exaggerated, have desensitized us to health advisories, so it’s no surprise that the handwashing stations outside the buffet halls were little used. Washing hands of course is a good thing.

My guess was that the median age of the passengers on our cruise was 65–and most were overweight. That meets my definition of a vulnerable population. 

When I returned home, I entered “norovirus” into the Joyful Cruises website search box. I received just two matches.

Do better.

Will we go on a cruise again? Perhaps on a smaller ship. And not for ten days. Supposedly a norovirus vaccine is in the works. If it’s available and we decide to head to sea again, I’m taking that jab.

I’m going out for a run now, despite that back-muscle pain from the puking.

And once again, Happy Birthday Mrs. Marathon Pundit!

John Ruberry, pictured on that cruise, regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Treating military members as health care expenses

Posted: February 17, 2024 by navygrade36bureaucrat in News/opinion
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Not a week goes by without someone remarking that I must be lucky to have military medical insurance. A few years ago I would agree that military health care, despite the ups and downs, was actually not too bad. I’ve had surgery, preventative and acute care, and almost all the time it was decent.

The Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) makes her way through the Panama Canal to cross into the Pacific Ocean on June 3, 2009. The Comfort is participating in Continuing Promise 2009, a four-month humanitarian and civic assistance mission providing medical and other services in seven countries throughout Latin America. DoD photo by the U.S. Navy. (Released)

That’s not true anymore. It’s now taking months to schedule an appointment. I called in January and was given first availability in April. The visits I have had recently are rushed, and I notice more doctors being borrowed between facilities to make appointments happen. Increasingly, I have to seek care at facilities more than an hour’s drive from my home.

What happened? Well, to put it bluntly, the military decided that health care is an expense, not an investment. Last year the services combined all military health records and scheduling into one system called MHS Genesis. This in itself is a good thing, since it means if I seek care at an Air Force hospital, they can get my records electronically without me having to bring physical records along from a Navy hospital

But someone used the merger to lay off thousands of employees. From the perspective of a twidget sitting behind a desk, heath care is an expense. You do everything in your power to minimize expenses, including firing people, shuttering facilities and offering less services in the pursuit of “finding efficiencies.” I’m sure it padded someone’s pockets, but it’s now resulting in less and less health care.

I’ll use myself as an example. I need a routine surgery. Normally it takes 2-4 weeks to schedule. Right now I’m looking at summer time at the earliest, because the USNS COMFORT is deploying, and when she deploys, they empty the nearby Naval hospitals of doctors to go underway. Great for Central America, terrible for our own military members.

Gee, the US government caring more about foreign citizens than their own people? Where have I seen that before?

If you need mental health appointments, better schedule a month out. While there are lots of suicide resources available on the spot, they are almost all over the phone and haven’t made a dent in suicide rates:

“Active Component suicide rates have gradually increased since 2011.  While the 2022 Active Component rate is slightly higher (3%) than 2021, both years remain lower than 2020.” -Department of Defense Releases Annual Report on Suicide in the Military: Calendar Year 2022

Surprising no one, the military’s solution to lack of care is…bring more dependents into military health care?

Seriously, I’m not joking, read about it here.

Hicks laid out a plan to grow the number of patients who receive care in a military treatment facility by 7% by the end of 2026, compared to the number of beneficiaries in December 2022. That would mean 3.3 million people would be using the MTFs in three years, according to Military Times calculations.

So let me get this straight. You can’t see patients in a timely fashion now. You “right sized” health care so that it barely gets by. You prioritized treating foreign citizens over your own. You did one thing right, which was move dependents out into civilian care so they can get treated and not suffer. And instead of hiring more people, or changing how you man the USNS COMFORT, or any number of ways to address the inability to provide health care, you want to bring on MORE patients into an already stressed system?

This makes no sense except in one case: financial. In the FY2024 request for funding, there is this section:

Controlling Health Care Costs
DOD’s budget request noted that private sector care accounted for 65% of the total care delivered to
beneficiaries and that it “will continue to represent an important part of the overall health system in [FY2024] and beyond.” DOD did not state a long-term strategy to control these health care costs while sustaining military medical readiness requirements and other health-related program investments.

So well over half of military health care is delivered by the private sector. Literally, the military couldn’t make it work if it tried. But that’s expensive, and in typical fashion, the military thinks it can do it cheaper, despite not having a great track record in doing so.

Treating health care as an expense, rather than a mission enabler, means we’ll never get the surge capacity needed to deal with wartime injuries and never get appointment scheduling to a reasonable level. This limits the use of Tricare as a recruiting and retention tool, and will exacerbate an already difficult recruiting problem. It’ll force more people, including myself, to pay out of pocket for care we were promised when we first signed up. And for some reason, the military wants to shoot itself in the foot over this.

I don’t recommend it…I heard gunshot wounds take 4-6 weeks to schedule an initial appointment.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Declining birth rates have nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with society

Posted: February 10, 2024 by navygrade36bureaucrat in abortion, catholic
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There, I said the quiet part out loud.

People are finally beginning to pay attention to declining birth rates, since it will send Social Security into a death spiral, and there are plenty of efforts in Congress to provide tax cuts to promote people having more children. These efforts are doomed to fail, because more tax dollars motivates exactly zero people to have more children.

I have five kids at home, and in honor of them today, I’ll give you the top five reasons people don’t have more kids.

Number 5: Our public schools suck

I live in a fairly nice community, and my oldest daughter goes to a high school “academy” which has a specialized track for medicine. You have to apply to get in, so you would think it would be a fairly rigorous education. Sadly, you’d be wrong. There are kids that have failed classes in multiple semesters still hanging out, and just like how not prosecuting criminals brings more crime, not punishing poor performance brings more poor performance.

The older families at our church say “Well just homeschool,” but that is NOT cheap if you use a co-op, online curriculum, or anything other than doing it yourself…which takes a lot of time. Worse still, the child-hating Democrats in my state shot down bills that let homeschoolers participate in sports or get tax credits for expenses, so you get punished socially and financially for choosing homeschool. Worse still, the price of private education has skyrocketed, so if you’re a one-income family with mom or dad at home with lots of kids (like my family is), you better be loaded with money or else it’s a non-starter.

The fact is most large families have to rely on public school, and because they suck so bad, parents spend more time than they did in the past to supervise them, which takes away time from their own activities. You either tolerate loser teachers that don’t understand history, homeschool your kids or pay out the nose for education. Not exactly desirable. And speaking of the time suck…

Number 4: Most after school activities are run by inconsiderate people with no children

My son was in rec league baseball for a while. Good fun, but he would be out at games until 9 pm some nights…on school days, when he’s in middle school. When I was growing up, 9 pm was considered late as a middle schooler. You might be awake at home, but certainly not doing regular activities.

Not anymore. I regularly have kids in activities until 9 or even 11 pm at night! Ballet dance competitions and late night sports are by far the biggest offenders, but it’s everywhere now. These involve driving at night, getting home late, and then (for you as the parent anyway) waking up early to drive the 30-60 minutes to get to work (or more if you live in a big city). Talk about wearing you down! Worse still, half of these places have no pauses for dinner, so if you have a big family with small kids, pray you can pack enough food and that your little ones aren’t tired and cranky.

I particularly hate people that plan meetings or activities over dinner or lunch…pet peeve of mine.

All of this means most of my friends with two kids can manage a grueling rec softball season, but I have to balance five kids desires against my desire to get some sort of sleep. All at the expense of any hobbies I might want. Which brings up the next point…

Number 3: Society constantly tells you to not have kids

Now, I won’t begrudge people their hobbies, just like I don’t begrudge people that make more money than me. Everyone makes choices, and having more kids is a choice. But I’d be a rich man if I had a nickel everytime someone offered me advice along the lines of “You know how birth control works right” ***insert snicker here***.

A more salty friend of mine once, in a group conversation, replied with “I do, and I know your wife does too!”, which was the most alpha-male verbal throat chop I’d seen in a while. But I digress.

It’s already hard enough to find alone time with your spouse as a Catholic who follows the Marquette Method. It sucks having doctors push birth control on you every. single. visit. It’s even more fun to have them tell you that NFP doesn’t work and that you’re stupid for doing it (their words, not mine). And it’s rare to have anyone respond to “I have five living kids” with “Wow, what a beautiful family,” when the more common response is one of disdain. Speaking of disdain…

Number 2: Companies making having kids hard

Car seats used to be thin. Now they are thrones. And you can’t fit three across without making a sacrifice to the car seat goddess. It’s so bad that it is a form of birth control. And before you chime in about “safety ratings,” I looked up the safety ratings of these thrones, and I found the changes between seats to be similar to how professors change chapters in a book to force students to buy new books. The ratings are getting a whole lot better compared to the real estate they consume.

Unless you can explain how adding 5 pounds of side force to an already high rating significantly affects the safety rating, I’m going to always say that car seat manufacturers hate large families. I’ve done the math, it doesn’t add up.

Try eating out now…even McDonalds (which I don’t visit) is expensive. Now multiply it by 7. Try finding a home with enough bedrooms and fighting off investors to buy it, and definitely don’t tell your friends that your kids have to share a bedroom, because you’ll get looked at like some sort of monster. Or try fighting the little old lady HOA President that drives around your neighborhood and issues you tickets for your kids bikes in the front lawn.

Screw that lady…so glad I don’t live in a HOA…

Companies in general appeal to DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids), and if they do appeal to kids, they like you to have two. Anymore and you better be loaded. Which brings me to the last point…

Number 1: Society values work, not your family

If you say “I’m a homemaker” as a woman, you get looked down upon. Even if you manage five kids, which involves feeding them, balancing a checkbook, driving them everywhere, answering school emails and helping out on homework…somehow that isn’t “real work.” But you could sit in an office, drink coffee, chit chat with your office mates, and put in a whole 3 hours of work a day, and that’s “real work.”

Don’t worry though, like the Bobs, work will value you up to the point you are told your services are no longer required!

Face it, we stopped valuing stay-at-home parents a while back. We think they are lesser for picking their family over full-time paid employment.

And that’s the rub right there. When you create a toxic environment for people that have or want large families, you will get smaller families. The societal pressure permeates everything, far more than any financial incentive. Even if you got paid $20,000 a year per child, you’d be called a welfare rat for taking the money. It goes farther than even children, because when the point of getting married isn’t to raise kids, it makes it easy to simply “shack up,” which is why the current marriage rate is less than half that in 1976.

Until our society treats raising kids as a noble goal and worthy of the respect it deserves, we will continue to have declining birth rates among the majority of people that feel societal pressure.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Extinction vs. hope

Posted: February 6, 2024 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Extinction panic. That’s the latest worry that The New York Times says we must be concerned about. 

Tyler Austin Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College in Maine, writes an extensive analysis in DaTimes:

“What makes an extinction panic a panic is the conviction that humanity is flawed and beyond redemption, destined to die at its own hand, the tragic hero of a terrestrial pageant for whom only one final act is possible. The irony, of course, is that this cynicism — and the unfettered individualism that is its handmaiden — greases the skids to calamity. After all, why bother fighting for change or survival if you believe that self-destruction is hard-wired into humanity?”

Harper [no relation] blames politicians left and right for what he calls “doom-mongering.” He writes: “One way to understand extinction panics is as elite panics: fears created and curated by social, political, and economic movers and shakers during times of uncertainty and social transition. Extinction panics are, in both the literal and the vernacular senses, reactionary, animated by the elite’s anxiety about maintaining its privilege in the midst of societal change. Today, it’s politicians, executives, and technologists.” 

He cites several potential sources for extinction worries: Middle East war, “climate anxiety,” artificial intelligence, and China. “Climate is driving new fields in psychology, experimental therapies, and debates about what a recent New Yorker article called “the morality of having kids in a burning, drowning world.” 

Only once you dig into the analysis does Harper finally show his cards. His solution to extinction panic is to give the government more power. 

“We have gotten into the dangerous habit of outsourcing big issues — space exploration, clean energy, A.I., and the like — to private businesses and billionaires,” Harper argues. “We need ambitious, well-resourced government initiatives and international cooperation that takes A.I. and other existential risks seriously.”

After COVID, people may be even more prone to worry about extinction and perhaps turn to the government for solutions. 

I hope people remember just how badly that solution worked!

Instead of wringing one’s hands, I suggest that people read a few books about faith and hope. Education scholar James Fraser has one that fits the bill.

Fraser’s History of Hope chronicles “American history through the stories of the individuals and movements that dreamed of a better future and then took action to make that dream a reality, arguing that the much-heralded American spirit was not born as a gift of our founding, but was forged through our adversity and triumphs.”

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