Turning cruise ships into floating hospitals or...

[EightFingers]

... quarantine facilities. Is it possible? I know there are many available for sale.
They could be easily positioned where needed and after all this is over, maybe could be used to house the homeless.

Puna: Our roosters crow first

[Punatic007]

nope doesn't work as quarantine, they'll keep reinfecting themselves and medical staff.

where will the majority of homeless buy their drugs while adrift at sea?

[Guest]

I think hospital, or quarantine, ships is a great idea. The issues are many, but so are the issues with any facility.

I believe the hangup comes not so much with where to acquire facilities, commandeering ships, hotels, etc., but how to provide the equipment and staff to man them.

Yesterday the new state incident commander, when asked if he was considering employing national guard medical personnel, said the problem was all those in the guard in that capacity were professionals already employed in the private sector as the same. As such any repurposing of them would take away from already busy hospitals.

[ironyak]

Given the spread we saw on the Princess Diamond in Japan, using a cruise ship would only work if the expectation is that everyone without PPE on board is sick or will get sick (which is true in a quarantine center)

Whether it could be used as a hospital would depend on what services are needed and could be retrofitted. At least it provides many more beds (10x more than in all of the hospitals on island on a single ship)

Probably better than trying to acquire thousands of beds to put in Edith Kanaka#699;ole Stadium.

[terracore]

FEMA has contracts with the cruise ship companies that require them to dump their cruises (not an issue now) and provide them to be used for temporary housing. I believe after Katrina they used 4 ships.

But as others have implied, the only real use for a cruise ship in a pandemic is akin to a leper colony.

ETA: The mayor of NYC has suggested using college dorms as temporary hospitals. It makes sense because many of them each room is individually plumbed (bathroom and shower) and already have beds in them. From my daughter's experience the dorm rooms at Manoa aren't air conditioned and the electrical situation doesn't allow for window units to be used. Also the roof leaks. I don't know about the dorms in Hilo.

[Kelena]

When things start to get really dystopian, the last place I'd wanna be is on a cruise ship. This is going to be like a zombie apocalypse -- once you are on that ship you will never be allowed to dock again. The Rotterdam had to beg to leave its passengers in Honolulu, far from its home port. And as far as we know it is not full of infected passengers.

[terracore]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/carniv...=home-page

"Carnival offers use of its cruise ships as temporary COVID-19-care hospitals"

[twofeet]

The weak point of cruise ships are their ventilation systems. They could be retrofitted with negative pressure systems, like is used in quarantine rooms in hospitals. Last week in Seoul they have added 28 negative pressure ambulances for the outbreak.