I think we have to go back and look at why the No Sail order was issued in the first place.
It wasn't just about covid spreading on board the ships (actual or potential for).
IN another thread I made a post that included multiple quotes from a Federal Registry document that is a September Rule by HHS that gave some explanation as why the No Sail Order was issued:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/s...-recommendations.3813784/page-8#post-62349890
From that explanation it is clear the reasoning was multi-facted. Among the issues:
- cruise ships as a vector for bringing the disease into the US and the obligation to keep the disease out of the US
[aside: there remains a long list of countries to this day whose citizens are not allowed to enter the US at all or for non-esential travel; for Canadians for example, we cannot enter by land for non-essential travel, though for some reason we are allowed to fly into the US; the US has seen travel by Canadians drop by over 90%; so while banning cruise ships tackles the mode of transportation, the US has also implemented other measures to tackle the issue in other ways, such as limiting travel from many countries, stopping issuing many types of visas, etc: basically, implemented many ways to prevent people from elsewhere from entering the US]
- introducing covid onto cruise ships and it transmitting among passengers and crew on the ships
- the issue of quarantine and dealing with sick passengers/crew; this is a significant one because the quarantines were federal quarantines which meant tremendous resources on the part of the federal government - and which was unsustainable [see the quotes for explanation]
The public proposals from the cruise lines/industry association dealt heavily with the "on the ships" issues, but seemed fairly light on the "but what if all that doesn't work and an outbreak happens anyway" which would lead to the need for quarantine and offloading to quarantine.
From my reading of the explanation of the No Sail, the unsustainability of federal quarantining issue was a MAJOR if not THE major factor for the no sail order. They quite simply did not have the resources to sustain quarantine operations and if more ships with outbreaks kept coming it just was not possible. Therefore, No Sail order. Stop the ships, therefore eventually bring the need for the federal quarantines to an end.
So not only are the cruise lines going to need very robust and workable plans to PREVENT outbreaks, but they are going to need REALLY REALLY good pans for what to do if outbreaks DO manage to happen despite precautions - including the possibility of a large scale outbreak - and how that will be managed, including large scale quarantine on land that would NOT be a federal government-
run quarantine [but would be approved by etc].
It may require some federal laws or rules changed to be able to make it happen.
Hopefully now the conversation can at least be "in order for resumption of sailing to happen, this is what is needed to be done, and these are the things that need to happen in order for those things to be able to be done" and both sides working collaboratively towards the same goal instead of whatever was the case before [which isn't clear].