Postscript on the Virus

The last few days have been lovely - fluffy Mediterranean seas and blue skies. Even Gibraltar looked good in the sunlight. I’m now chilled enough to finish the blog about Norovirus. Cruisers need to read this - others can, if they wish, look away now.

I went to the Pursers office to mention, politely, that I didn’t think they should charge for poisoning Janet. I would have had a better chance of winning an argument with a Speak Your Weight machine. After a lifetime working for government and large organisations I can spot a corporate policy at 100 yards in thick fog. The Princess Line (sorry) on the virus is – IT’S ALL THE PASSENGER’S FAULT

Since then I’ve pieced together the bones of what I assume is now Carnival’s worldwide policy on what has to be called a Gastrointestinal Virus. This implies a normal tummy bug frequently found ashore as opposed to the word Norovirus which has become associated with cruise ships. The spin is that passengers bring this virus on board just like they bring on board colds and verukas. Because the passengers don’t wash properly they then infect each other despite the crew’s valiant attempts to stop the spread of the Noro - sorry gastrointestinal virus.

To reinforce this position the Captain reads out a daily ‘update’ which was obviously written by corporate lawyers with minimal input from human beings. This stresses that that there has been an “increase in the occurrence of the virus” - not an outbreak because, like death and taxes, this bug is always with us. Numbers are not announced unless the daily “increase” is less than twenty.

From inadequate data, I‘ve extrapolated that we’ve had in excess of 300 cases. In a cafe in Ajaccio, Saint Julie was helping the family on the next table translate jambon & fromage on the menu (the demographic isn’t quite what we’d hoped for) when they told us that they, and their two children, (obviously educated at home but not in French) had all been ill for eight days! The couple on the next table then joined in to describe their illness so, from this random sample, I may have underestimated the total.

The rest of the scam goes something like this - You have to report any incident of gastrointestinal virus. If you do someone from the Medical Department will have to talk to you. This is what is called a consultation and everyone knows that medical consultations have to be paid for. You will automatically be given anti diarrhoea tablets because they’ve got several crates to shift at $10 a pack.

Finally the really brilliant bit - By the middle of the cruise everyone on board has twigged that reporting the virus will cost you around $100 a pop. The number of reported cases then drops day by day until, amazingly, as we near Southampton the “increase in occurrence” approaches zero. On turnaround the ship is given a special deep clean to be absolutely sure that the virus has been eradicated so if it appears again on the next cruise it can only be the fault of dirty passengers.

Carry on Cruising?

Dave C