Vaccine This: A Shot in the Travel Economy’s Arm

by Robert McGarvey

The headline in Travel Weekly jumped out at me: “Several cruise lines require vaccines, but not everybody is on board.”

Back up a step. Let us review facts.  At least 83 are known to have died a Covid-19 related death on a cruise ship.   There were thousands of cases among passengers.  Tens of thousands of passengers were grievously inconconvenienced, in some cases doing a Flying Dutchman journey in search of a safe harbor, sometimes for weeks.

Literally tens of thousands of crew were horribly inconvenienced – denied exiting the ship in many cases, sometimes for months on end.

No travel vendor had a blacker eye than cruise ships in the Covid era. No vendor of any kind – not grocers or restaurants, nothing – had a worse reputation.

That’s part of the reason the CDC continues to deny cruise lines the right to sail from US ports.

I have cruised perhaps 10 times – more? – and I like it, especially for certain destinations (the Greek isles are a favorite, as is Alaska).  But I still have no interest in cruising and the Travel Weekly headline is why.

The cruise industry knows it has to restore passenger confidence.  Many cruise lines already are doing the right, smart thing and requiring crew – who typically live in cramped quarters with scant personal space – to be vaccinated.  What about crew who feel that’s a violation of their rights?

There are other jobs on this planet.  They should look for them.  They will. Crew aren’t the problem.

Some passengers apparently are.

A growing number of cruise lines now require vaccinations for passengers, usually 18 and over.

But that has triggered a potential passenger grumble.  Reported Travel Weekly, “Although the majority of potential cruisers are on board with the idea of vaccine mandates, some travel advisors say many of their clients are not and are disappointed with cruise line vaccine requirements for sailing.

DeeAna Archer, owner of Texas-based Archer Luxury Travel, said that about 80% of her clients have told her they would refuse to get a vaccine this year.”

I have three words for those refusers: Go pound sand.

Of course it is their choice not to cruise and, given their refusal to get vaccinated, they also have decided they do not plan to cruise.  Simple as that and I for one will hold the cruise lines to a vaccine mandate because only a village idiot would cruise this year without a mandatory vaccine policy in place.

Are the travelers who say they won’t get vaccinated village idiots?  That’s a topic for them to discuss with cognitive experts.

I just won’t plan to cruise or in any way travel with them this year, or next, and, yes, I am dually vaccinated, meaning the full protection of the Pfizer vaccine has kicked in for me and still I have no interest in lowering my protections to accommodate people who doubtless also believe in hordes of Satan worshippers inside the Beltway.

Count me as also wanting airlines to require vaccinations for passengers and crew – and there’s growing support for that idea at least as regards international travel.  

Yes, I know that having the vaccine does not prove a person is Covid free.  Latest test results show about a 90% effectiveness for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.  The J & J vaccine’s effectiveness is nearer 70%.  

And yet I am dramatically more comfortable with the concept of cruising or flying with others who have proof of vaccination than I am of flying with an uncertified rabble.

There really is no way a person who wants travel to resume fastest could possibly be against vaccine requirements because there is nothing that will accelerate travel recovery with the alacrity and numbers that widespread vaccinations will bring.

About 25% of us – one in four – now say they will not get vaccinated. There are no good arguments against getting vaccinated and, yes, initially I expressed personal hesitancy, mainly due to an abiding distrust of anything touched by Trump and his acolytes.  But now with 50 million of us fully vaccinated, and 90 million more partially vaccinated, and comparatively few side effects of significance, there is no good arguments against it.

Opposing vaccinations and vaccination requirements is another way of supporting a sputtering failing economy and a dead travel business.  

I know which side I am on.