Thanks for the info. It’s only been a couple of months & companies & the industry is still figuring this out. It’s going to be with us for a while & then behind us. Another chapter for the history books.
In the hypothetical sea story I told it would have been the client who paid for the medical evacuation helicopter to get the guys off. I guess some operations are so valuable it cheaper to play it safe & send in anyone with sniffles than shut down a multi million dollar job?
It’s interesting that the presence or lack of “the sniffles” has become important. The “sniffles" are a gauge for the efficacy of COVID19 screening procedures, and the commitment of the work force to follow the procedures. The sniffles don’t indicate COVID19, but they are the canary in the coal mine.
If a company develops effective screening rules for preventing COVID19 from getting on a vessel, and mariners follow the rules, not so much as a sniffle should be found in the crew (absent nasal allergies). Rules to avoid COVID19 infection will rule out catching the common cold.
So if someone comes down with a common cold aboard ship it means either the rules aren’t being followed or the rules aren’t tight enough.
Most companies take the temps of mariners before they board a vessel now. Overkill, perhaps, because a person with a fever is going to feel unwell, and will likely simply tell the screener this. Perhaps just as important, the screener should ask if the mariner has runny nose, and if so, why? No history of allergies? Then it could be a cold. And a cold indicates that the protection of the screening rules has been broken.
Great story in the Seattle Time about how Trident Seafoods, the biggest seafood producer in the U.S., with dozens of boats, is going whole-hog on screening their people before sending them to Alaska this summer.
For those that don’t know, the working population of Dutch Harbor, the center for Bering Sea fishing, consists of people from every continent. In Dutch Harbor, and in other Alaska towns, the workers brought from outside outnumber the native citizens.
Here’s part of a long article (might be behind a paywall):
…Hall will be one of the first of some 4,000 Trident shoreside processing workers and at-sea crew to undergo this two-week quarantine in Seattle-area and Alaska hotel rooms. Their confinement will be monitored by security guards and nurses who will do daily temperature checks. Two days before they exit, if Trident can secure enough supplies, they will be tested for COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Such measures might seem extraordinary, but these are extraordinary times for Alaska’s seafood industry, which each year delivers more than half of the U.S. harvest from coastal and offshore waters.
Trident and other seafood-company officials hope to ensure that factory trawlers making their way through remote swaths of the Bering Sea do not replay any of the harrowing scenarios that unfolded on cruise ships this year, when waves of the virus sickened passengers.
“The chance of having one hiccup — it’s going to ruin the season for everyone,” Hall said. “The boat has to be virus free.”
Processors face another daunting challenge in launching salmon operations in remote Alaska communities, many of which suffered losses in the flu pandemic of more than a century ago and are fearful of thousands of seasonal workers spreading COVID-19. In the Bristol Bay region, which hosts the largest sockeye salmon runs on the planet, some have called for the summer season to be canceled to stave off the coronavirus pandemic that so far has yet to make its way to this Southwest Alaska region.
“We don’t want this fishery to happen,” said First Chief Tom Tilden of the Curyung Tribe, who co-signed along with Dillingham Mayor Alice Ruby an April 6 letter to Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy requesting he consider a Bristol Bay salmon closure. “The potential for devastating communities is there. And to us, it’s not worth the risk.”
Dunleavy has designated fishermen part of Alaska’s essential workforce and, so far, has supported continuing salmon harvests in Bristol Bay and other parts of the state.
“The state is actively working with the fishing industry and local government on protecting fishery workers and surrounding communities,” Jeff Turner, a Dunleavy spokesperson, said in a statement to The Seattle Times…
From personal experience (still experiencing) and while being maddeningly ambiguous with a lack of info because I’m a little worried about who reads these posts and oil is at like, $18/barrel and we’ve all received letters, the prescreening and quarantine processes and policies for certain drilling contractors has been ridiculously… fluid and obscure.
I’m amazed by that. There’s plenty of information out there on useful screening programs. I’m amazed that anyone in charge of staffing vessels doesn’t have a sensible program in place and insists that it be followed.
Of course, on the other side, the workforce has to be predisposed to taking things like this seriously, or the plan won’t work.
It’s great to see how proactive Trident is but the small single boat operators could be a wild card.
And I think it will continue to be for a while. The reactions and plans put in place have been 100% reactive to situations as they arise, and fully client driven. The whole questionnaire thing and temp taking is, at best, a farce, and has been the only pre-emptive plan that had been in place.
Why do you say that?
It’s also a bit “Russian Roulette-ish” to expect every single crew member, employee, client, and third party alike, to tell the truth after letters have been sent.
I see.
I can only speak about my workplace, which has shoreside and vessel components. We haul cargo out of a facility in Seattle, to ports in Alaska. To screen our mariners we use a questionnaire, administered multiple times before a person sails, and we do take temps.
Taking temps by itself is not very helpful. But it is one more thing that may help indentify a problem. It makes the mesh of the net meant to catch cases of the virus that much smaller.
The questionnaire works for mariners to the degree they are truthful. As I’ve noted in posts above, it has been effective. The evidence? We’ve eliminated the normal background “colds” we would be seeing this time of year also. Anything you do to screen out colds will screen out COVID19. Given enough time, we will have a case of COVID19, because of the law of averages, but we have prepared the workplace for that too.
Protecting the shoreside component of the workforce is tougher. Where I work the facility is divided into several zones. Workers stay in their zones. They don’t mingle. Paper isn’t transferred. People dealing with truckers wear gloves and masks. Even the mailman is barred entry, and vendors have to don PPE to board the vessels.
If a person in one zone comes down with COVID19 the other zones are unaffected. Everything is planned so that when someone does comes down with COVID19 the operation can go on.
But the system won’t work unless people follow the rules. So far over here, and with other shipping companies I check with, they have been.
To me, what you and Trident are doing is exactly on point. If it works to prevent colds and more importantly the flu that’s a bonus and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be a permanent policy.
I know a couple of guys running commercial fishing boats on the East coast; captains with a half a dozen crews. The crews come from different parts of the NE and meet for 3 week trips. There is no way to control people on that level but we have to trust that people will behave like adults.
Trident is a big target for workplace injury lawyers. Hopefully we’ll see some tort reform come out of this as a benefit. Some of these guidelines are based on information for different epidemics and it would be nice if the medical advisers could be more flexible.
They were then able to infer that infectiousness started 2.3 days and peaked 0.7 days before symptoms appeared. Infectiousness was estimated to decline quickly within a week.
The policy only works if everyone follows it. One very educated idiot who knew better and went aboard a foriegn containership amongst the crew with no PPE. Potentially exposing himself, the crew, and the shoreside people he works with. That shit moves fast. Management was not happy. His co-workers, including my son read him the riot act. Nor was I, as the boomerang effect put many families, including my bride and I at risk. I do worry for our mariners and shoreside workers, and hope this shit goes away soon.
In risk management terms; risk can’t be eliminated, only reduced or mitigated
A two week lockdown is effective but costly. A temperature check is far less effective but very low cost. A statement signed by crew member, don’t know have effective but again very low cost. A signed statement may work if crew is wary of legal problems. Also signed statements may be of use in the case of problems for legal reasons.
Very costly. When you have OSV crews working 28/14, while oil is $18 a barrel… you’re going to be bleeding money so fast that you might as well close up business. Between crews quitting because that’s the only way to go home, those hotel costs for those who don’t, and then having a two week lag period on new hires to replace those that quit; your business is sunk.
Testing seems like low cost and effective but not yet available, ramping up testing for situations like yours should be a priority
Then you have businesses like HOS, Bouchard & others who couldn’t make a profit in normal times. Several companies won’t be able to manage through this crisis.
Compared to workplaces in most other industries, ships crew are subject to increased risks from COVID-19 due to being confined in small spaces for extended periods of time in close proximity to other people. Because ships are at high risk of COVID-19 infection in port during crew changes, the EU & IMO recently issued urgent new guidelines requiring ships to implement pre-boarding screening of seafarers to help combat the escalating problem. The effect of an outbreak on a ship would be catastrophic in business and human terms. No-one wants a medevac, major diversion or let alone a preventable death to deal with, on top of everything else they’ve got on at the moment. More details here: https://www.martek-marine.com/blog/why-its-critical-for-ships-to-screen-crew-for-covid-19/
