What do an upscale restaurant and a cruise ship have in common?

Covid-19 outbreaks, of course, and all the infected were vaxxed (no waiters were harmed, though); as a bonus: did you know Marine Vessel Tracker has a live map of "Coronavirus Ships"?

Let’s take a brief break from Central Europe’s descent into a farcical, but no less tyrannical form of despotism. Instead, I’ll invite you to an upscale lounge and restaurant in Oslo’s trendy business district. Or a Caribbean tour with Norwegian Cruise Lines. That is, if you’re ‘fully vaccinated’ (whatever that might mean right now) and up for these kinds of excitements.

The Oslo Omicron Outbreak

In late November, Scatec, a Norwegian solar energy company, invited its—‘vaccinated’ staff to a fancy restaurant in Oslo’s posh business district. Here’s the WSJ on this (paywalled), which cited Scatec spokesman Stian Tvede Karlsen: ‘Only vaccinated employees were invited. All had to take a rapid test the day before.’ The Christmas party included some 120 individuals, yet

‘More than half of those present have since tested positive for Covid-19, with at least 13 confirmed to have the new variant in what appears to be the world’s biggest Omicron outbreak outside southern Africa—and a glimpse into how it fares in a highly-vaccinated population.’

Note that the WSJ piece appeared on 3 Dec.

On 4 Dec., Sweden-based Expressen noted that a day later, 100 out of the 120 participants were infected. Do the math with me: n = 120, of whom 100 were infected: that’s an impressive infection rate of about 83%.

From Norwegian State Media (NRK), we also learn that ‘no waiters [were] infected’. Scatec insisted that there were strict infection control rules in place before the Christmas party: ‘everyone had to be tested in advance and only vaccinated employees were allowed to participate’.

Jorun Thaulow, a member of contact tracing in Oslo West, added (my emphasis): ‘This is something we have seen quite often lately, that is, many fully vaccinated people become infected and continue to spread the disease.’

Oslo-based daily Aftenposten (Norway’s NYT equivalent) added that ‘there continues to be great uncertainty’ and that it’s ‘too early to tell’ with respect to the qualities of Delta vs. Omicron.

Line Vold, crisis manager at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (IPH), added: ‘Another unanswered question is how well the vaccines protect against Omicron. The IPH’s assumption is that the vaccines will continue to protect against serious illness’ (my emphasis).

There you have it: an infection rate at the Oslo Omicron Event, public health officials confirming, in so many words, that ‘breakthrough infections’ are increasing lately—and the IPH’s only (half-) answer: an assumption (hope) that what hasn’t really worked so far (‘vaccines’) may or may not work in the future.

By the way, that upscale restaurant, opened again after ‘one tough weekend’, according to Norwegian state media (6 Dec.), with their owners hoping for ‘compensation’ for lost business during the three-day closure in the wake of the outbreak.

And now for Norwegian Cruise Lines (and then some)

Well, the only connection here is the adjective, I daresay. Everything else is quite comparable, according to Forbes: all crew members and passengers wre ‘fully vaccinated’, hence there’s really only one other thing to mention:

Is it just me or do these cruise outbreaks happen that often that a Wikipedia entry, entitled ‘COVID-19 pandemic on cruise ships’, on its own is warranted?

Still, Wikipedia is such a weird place, I mean, there is also an entry entitled ‘Sudden cardiac death of athletes’, which doesn’t mention ‘Covid’ (go ahead and try the ‘search’ function). While it’s noted, in this particular instance, that ‘this is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness’ (hilarious), it is worth mentioning that Wikipedia’s ‘List of association footballers who died while playing’ (see here) similarly omits the word ‘Covid’.

Check out this piece by Sarah Westall on Wikipedia’s censorship-by-omission; if you’re interested in this, check out Free West Media’s sad compilation (see here) and Stephen Connolly’s substack.

And now—for the promised (even more) weirder things, which brings us back to the cruise ships. If you thought that the sudden deaths of athletes were odd, may I present to you this ‘gem’: Marine Vessel Tracking has a live map of ‘Coronavirus Ships’.

Behold the sight (and weep for the future of humanity).