What do the Ruby Princess and Chris Pappas have in common? That’s not a trick question, and it’s not some gay slur. Both have been at the epicenter of a Norovirus outbreak.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that dozens of people on board a cruise ship now docked in California were sickened by a norovirus outbreak.
The agency’s Vessel Sanitation Program said on Wednesday that 102 passengers, out of 3,032 total, and 23 crew members, out of 1,144 total, on board the Princess Cruises’ Ruby Princess vessel reported being ill. The ship’s voyage dates were from June 12 to July 2.
Congressman Chris Pappas’ restaurant, The Puritan Backroom, was the “the Unidentified Source of a Norovirus Outbreak,” in 2019.
Congressman Chris Pappas owns the Puritan Backroom Restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. In late November, 18 people contracted intestinal issues later identified as Norovirus. Not one local news outlet identified Congressman Pappas’ restaurant as the source in their reporting.
Everyone who got sick was part of the same gathering at the Puritan Backroom. No one was confused about the source, and the state “authorities” did not have to guess, but days passed before the location was “identified” publicly outside alternative media.
Princess Cruise Lines have plenty of good reasons to want to suppress the details but no political motivation or, more importantly, political leverage. The Pappas family and a member of Congress could certainly have leveraged access or other soft power to keep the details out of the news for days, despite there being zero doubt about the cause.
Alternative media had no such qualms, and the source story was eventually forced into the light, but the “pros” in the regular media didn’t want to touch it, which is fine by us. It is but one of many examples of why outlets like this matter. We aren’t beholden to their access, advertising, or influence. Very few “publications” can make the same claim.
It took the expert journalists a month to mention the outbreak and Pappas’ restaurant in the same piece of reporting.
One of the other reasons this story matters is that, unlike the Ruby Princess, Pappas’ restaurant killed a guy. The Ruby Princess reported 125 sick. The Puritan Backroom poisoning resulted in 18 people, who we know of.
No one has died as a result of the Ruby Princess outbreak. One confirmed dead as a result of the Pappas’ outbreak.
If bartenders or servers are complicit in deaths related to drunk driving, and military members are complicit if they follow orders. And Republicans who support Trump are on the dock already for simply voting for the guy and backing his administration (in the event democrat regain power and the ability to punish us for that), then why isn’t Chris Pappas guilty of manslaughter?
The obvious answer is that he’s a Democrat, and the press is afraid to tell the truth about them on just about everything.
