How much would you pay me to take you on a tour of most of the countries hit hardest by the Zika virus? Unless your job is public health or biomedical research, I’m guessing the answer is “not much.” Yet isn’t this precisely the offer made by Caribbean cruise lines? The cruises are planned out a couple of years in advance so at this point I guess they are locked into the route. But wouldn’t it make sense for everyone who is currently going to the Caribbean to instead cruise around the Indian Ocean or South Pacific?
Related:
It’s just a cold unless you’re trying to conceive. And even then I don’t think the epidemiology on the birth defects claims is settled yet. It’s probably just organizations trying to scare up funding.
The Caribbean cruise industry is surviving the Zika-SCARE (not the virus!) by distributing free mosquito-repellent skin cream, admonishing esp. femme guests to wear long-sleeved garnents and leggings, and generally downplaying the threat image. After all, what else could they do – change their hot-climate cruise tours to such around (so far Zika-free) Greenland?