[ummwhat]

Better idea. They want a bailout? Sure. Turn all your ships to hospital ships for the next year. You won't miss them anyway.

One of these ships is basically a 10 floor high city block that can sustain itself off grid for over two weeks. Surely we have a good use for that.

[ransom1538]

"Turn all your ships to hospital ships"

Dear God no. Please don't create a covid19 death ship. Covid19 has proven to be a ruthless killer on recycled air systems. It would be impossible to screen for the virus - it would certainly find it's way on board.

[dredmorbius]

There are numerous non-covid medical conditions which could benefit.

Though whether or not recreational cruise ships could be reasonably repurposed, and staffed, in time is a bit of a stretch.

[pjc50]

In that case, the best use might be the "isolate mild cases" approach: everyone who tests positive goes on the ship, even (especially) if they don't have symptoms. If they deteriorate to severe, move them to a real hospital. This has been a big part of the Wuhan campaign.

[Donald]

Repeated exposure makes covid-19 cases worse.

[barry-cotter]

I doubt that. It’s more likely to depend on the viral load you’re exposed to. Being a nurse with inadequate PPE intubating someone and being exposed to large quantities of COVID once will give the virus a head start, whereas running through a cough cloud and just barely getting enough to infect you five times over the course of an hour will give your immune system a head start.

[dirtyid]

Many medical procedures have been pushed back, a bunch of surgeons twiddling their thumbs somewhere. Might be useful to have them operate out of retrofitted cruise medical ships.

[sjg007]

The army core of engineers would have to heavily modify them. We do have hospital ships. I am not sure it'd be possible though to get negative pressure in the HVAC.. maybe.

[iguy]

This didn't go so well with the Diamond Princess. Cruise ships seem like terrible sanitary environments at the best of times. Motels on the other hand are great, they have separate rooms each with its own windows & AC, and really simple plumbing.

[CaptainZapp]

Where do you take the doctors, nurses and paramdics to staff those ships? There is already a massive shortage in competent medical personal.

Add to this that cruise ships are notoriously bad in containing viruses. Before we had this massive mess there were regular noro virus outbreaks on cruise ships.

ASo no, I don't think that's a good idea.