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Transcript11 lines
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A
The hits apparently really do just keep on coming. And in this case, the hits I'm referring to come in the form of virus outbreaks aboard cruise ships. Just as the hantavirus situation got resolved aboard the Hondius, another cruise liner was hit with a massive viral outbreak as well. Although the silver lining here in this story is that the virus in question isn't as bad as the hantavirus, which had a mortality rate somewhere between 30 to 50%. The new ship, according to the CDC, had an outbreak of the norovirus with more than 110 people falling ill. Already up on your screen right now is a new report that was released by the CDC detailing the outbreak aboard a cruise ship called the Caribbean Princess, owned by Princess Cruises. It was traveling along the North Atlantic Ocean after leaving Fort Lauderdale, Florida in late April. And the ship is huge. It was carrying over 3100 passengers as well as 1100 crew members. And within about a week of leaving Florida, people unfortunately began to get sick one after another. Here's what the CDC said happened. Quote, More than 110 people aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise ship have fallen ill due to a norovirus outbreak. The norovirus outbreak was reported on the ship on May 7, affecting 102 passengers and 13 crew members, with diarrhea and vomiting identified as the predominant symptoms since then. Since the initial reporting, According to the CDC's breakdown, as of right now, you have 145 passengers alongside 15 crew members who have begun to experience the symptoms of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, vomiting and headaches, all of which are symptoms of the norovirus. Now, once the passengers aboard this Caribbean Princess began to get sick one after another, the cruise liner took a number of steps to try and mitigate the damage, including disinfecting the common areas, as well as, funny enough, collecting stool samples of the passengers in order to send them to a CDC laboratory for testing. Which is funny because I'm sure the people who were booking their vacations did not consider the fact that they would wind up in a situation where their stool samples are now being collected and sent to the federal government for testing. For your reference, though, cruise ships are required to report cases of gastrointestinal illnesses to the CDC and send them stool samples when it happens. And to that end, the CDC actually has an entire task force set up. It's called the vsp, the Vessel Sanitation Program, which helps crew members assess and mitigate outbreaks like these. The CDC has actual people that they send out to ships to do a full assessment and control the outbreak. Although again, I bet it was not in the people's purview when they were booking their vacations online that they were signing up for a situation where they're now stuck inside their cabin and you have these hazmat wearing CDC members going around the hallways disinfecting everything Regardless, in terms of what the norovirus actually is, the symptoms of it appear to be very similar to those of the common stomach flu. Here's how the CDC describes it. Quote Symptoms include forgetting to smash those like and subscribe buttons below this video. Don't to subscribe forget. Now I am of course just kidding about that. But please do consider smashing those like and subscribe buttons because it forces the YouTube algorithm to pick up the episode and share it with ever more people. Thank you so much for that. Now getting back to the document, here's how the CDC actually describes the Norovirus is a very contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea. It is sometimes called the stomach flu or the stomach bug. However, norovirus illness is not related to the flu. The flu is caused by the influenza virus. The norovirus causes acute gastroenteritis and inflammation of the stomach or intestines. A person usually develops symptoms 12 to 48 hours after being exposed to norovirus. Most common symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain. Other symptoms are fever, headache and body aches. Now, in general, for healthy individuals, this is not too much to worry about, not more so than worrying about the common cold or the seasonal flu. However, in tight enclosed spaces like for instance, cruise ships, it becomes a bigger issue. Here's how the CDC describes it. Quote Norovirus can be especially challenging to control on cruise ships because of the close living quarters, the shared dining areas, and the rapid turnover of passengers when the ship docks. Norovirus can be brought on board in contaminated food or water or by passengers who are infected while ashore. Repeated outbreaks on consecutive cruises may also result from infected crew or environmental contamination. This is because norovirus can persist on surfaces from for days or weeks and is resistant to many common disinfectants. Now, we here at the Epoch Times did reach out to Princess Cruises, which is the company that owns this cruise liner, for an update on the situation, but they have yet to get back to us. However, it is perhaps worth mentioning that this is the fourth time this year that the CDC has reported an outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness on board a cruise ship. As you can see on your screen right there out of the four reported ships thus far this year. Two of them belong to Princess Cruises. And both of those had an outbreak, outbreak of the norovirus. The most recent one aboard the Princess Cruise liner was the one over in March, which was just a month before the April outbreak. Which makes you wonder if how the CDC described that maybe it was an environmental contamination that caused one outbreak followed by the other. But that's of course speculation. We don't know if that's the case yet. Meanwhile, the other two ships had an outbreak of E. Coli. Now for your reference in that earlier Princess Cruise outbreak which took place in March, this is what happened. Quote. In March, a norovirus outbreak was reported aboard the Star Princess, also owned by princess cruises, affecting 104 passengers and 49 crew members. But again, the silver lining to all of this is that unlike the hantavirus that we discussed earlier this week, which literally killed three people on board that ship, the norovirus is a lot less dangerous. It can definitely ruin someone's vacation by making them horribly sick and nauseous. But the mortality rate is very, very small. On average, Norovirus causes around 900 deaths, mainly in adults age 65 and older, 109,000 hospitalizations, 465,000 emergency room visits, and 19 million to 21 million illnesses in the United States each year. And so 21 million illnesses down to 900 deaths is a very low mortality rate. If you want to read the CDC's full report regarding this latest outbreak as well as a list of the most recent outbreaks in 2026 and each one of those items on the list you can actually click into and read more about each case. I will throw those links down into the description box. This video, if you're the type of person that actually likes to dig into the weeds. And then lastly, on sort of a related topic, I guess, the epic Times, we recently published a phenomenal documentary called Healthcare Decoded where we go through and unpack the situation with the American healthcare system. Because we all know on the one hand it's the best health care system in the world where, you know, millionaires and billionaires from everywhere flock to America to get their procedures done. We know that. But on the flip side, as actual citizens of the country, when we need to get something done, even if, especially if we have health insurance, the whole thing is weird. It's, the pricing is strange, nothing is clear cut, everything seems like overpriced and it's like patchwork solution on top of patchwork solution. Getting actually a hold of your health insurance company is a disaster. And so it's like it's a real juxtaposition between the quality of the actual care with the smartest doctors, the best nurses, and the best facilities. But then you couple that with this weird labyrinth system on the back end. It's strange to say the least. And the documentary does a good job of exposing the actual underlying problems within that system. Plus it gives you real practical solutions that you can really implement to make your healthcare experience that much better. So check it out. It's called Healthcare Decoded. Great documentary. I'll throw a link to it. You can find it down in the description box below this video. Hope you check it out.
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400,000Americans die every year from a misdiagnosis. 400,000 more have a long term disability as a result of a misdiagnosis.
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C
How does that happen?
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B
Right now the United States spends more on health care than the total GDP of every nation in this world besides China.
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C
The patient really has to understand what system they're in. For starters, because in this system you're gonna have to fight to get care, and in this system you're gonna have to fight not to get care.
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It's also very money driven. The entire population's the market. People need to be cautious about to what extent they seek medical care when they're. Well. When you go to a doctor, you're the one who's the boss, not the doctor.
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B
Doctors are very smart, they're very dedicated, they're very hard working. But they're rushed. They have to get to the next patient and the next patient. And as a result of that, mistakes get made.
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D
Look, our healthcare system is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year. We know that. It's been well studied.
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It's important to ask, what are we doing this for? Why are we doing this treatment? Why are we taking this medication? It's important to find out what is the end result here. Where are we going with this? And it's really important in the health care system to know that every action you take has consequences. Being a good patient is not being a compliant patient. Being a good patient is one who takes an active role in their health care care.
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B
I think a crisis is upon us.
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And then, until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times. Stay informed, stay free, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, stay off of cruise line.