Two tourists on virus ship die

[dArKeR]

London - Two tourists who were on a luxury British cruise ship where hundeds of passengers came down with a highly contagious stomach virus have died, the shipowner P and O said on Wednesday.

However, it said that their deaths were not related to the bug.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1440934,00.html

Fishy.

[displacedtexan]

1. i have always thought these cruise ship illnesses could be bio terror

which would support the premise that bio weapons don't work on a large scale.

but i've never seen anything in the media that even hints at the possibility of terrorism.

kinda makes me go hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

[smallprint]

2. Me too.

Except that I was thinking more along tinfoil lines... maybe the govt needs some unwitting subjects to test out their biowarfare bugs...

but that's just too paranoid.

:tinfoilhat:

[MostlyBlackCat2]

3. before everyone goes off half cocked here...

Take off the tinfoil hats people. This is not bioterrorism.

First, after a brief google news search:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/7531290?source=PA

"Later, P&O said that one of the deaths had happened at the beginning of the cruise which started on October 20, and that the other happened last weekend.

A spokeswoman added: "Both were male passengers in their 70s and both deaths were heart-related."

There are a LOT of elderly people on cruises, and it's not that unusual for an elderly person, under stress, to have a heart attack. It's simply a sad coincidence, and even sadder that the all too predictable media is jumping all over it. (not surprising though)

Second, from the CDC site (google search for Norovirus)
Noroviruses (genus Norovirus, family Caliciviridae) are a group of related, single-stranded RNA, nonenveloped viruses that cause acute gastroenteritis in humans. Norovirus was recently approved as the official genus name for the group of viruses provisionally described as “Norwalk-like viruses” (NLV).

The incubation period for norovirus-associated gastroenteritis in humans is usually between 24 and 48 hours. Noroviruses are transmitted primarily through the fecal-oral route, either by consumption of fecally contaminated food or water or by direct person-to-person spread. No evidence suggests that infection occurs through the respiratory system. Food can also be contaminated at its source, and oysters from contaminated waters have been associated with widespread outbreaks of gastroenteritis.

Theres a lot more here:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/gastro/norovirus-factsheet.htm

I read this sheet before going on a cruise last year. When we got off the cruise ship the media were there just waiting for any sick people to come stumbling off the ship. Given the above, we washed our hands, didn't eat from the troughing buffets that are everywhere on cruises (I don't do buffets...ever), and carried hand sanitizer to use after using the restrooms. You would not believe the number of people I saw use a public toilet, and leave without washing their hands on this ship! And that is how such things get transmitted. Most of these viruses have a heyday in schools, prisons, and hospitals, but the bottom line is you have a greater chance of getting a staph infection (from a hospital)(which can kill you, by the way) than getting this virus on a cruise ship. if you take basic hygeienic precautions.

Does that mean you won't ever get it? no. But this stuff has been happening on cruise ships, airplanes (love that recycled air), and anywhere you have lots of people confined in the same space, for a long long time. The media jumps on it when they're bored, and the governments who are refusing entry to this ship are simply overreacting. Remember the "rash of kidnappings" and the "rash of shark attacks" in recent years.

[Spazito]

4. I agree!

Cruise ships have morgues because a certain percentage of their passengers are elderly and the longer the cruise the more likely it is to have a death on board. I have been on three cruises and everyone had at least one elderly person die.

I do think that if someone boards with an infectious disease, because of the "circulated air" it can spread more quickly as it can in any confined area.

[NeonLX]

5. What? Did somebody say "sharks"??

AAAAUUGGGH!! Run for you lives!!

Oops, sorry...I went off the deep end there...

What? Did somebody say "hospitals"?? AUGGGHH! Run for your lives!!