Who Said What ?

The health spotlight is focused on one cruise ship as the culprit that released  Covid-19 into the Sydney community. Carnival's Ruby Princess was allowed to dock and disembark  2700 passengers on March 19 when health officials were assured that Covid-19 was not an issue on board.

Since then, more than six hundred have been tested and found to be positive to the contagion - and eleven have died. A police enquiry is underway to sort out the flurry of email messages and phone calls that resulted in a docking prohibition being lifted and passengers allowed ashore without entering into an isolation period.  These holidaymakers scattered back to their homes in other Australian states.

It is obvious that cruise ships are an incubator for diseases like Covid-19 when several thousand passengers and crew are closely contained together in the limited space of a big ship for a number of days. In the past, gastro infections have run their course in such situations and quickly found their way from one person to another.

The Ruby Princess remains at sea off the New South Wales coast and last week four sick crew were taken off and transferred to hospital, including one in a critical condition.  As many as two hundred other have suspected respiratory illnesses and plans are being made to dock the ship in Port Kembla.  It is unsure if the crew will be flown to their home countries or forced to remain on board until the disease runs its course.

Covid-19 has been a disaster for the cruise ship industry.  This fast growing trade profits from cramming several thousand passengers on a luxury liner, attended by a crew of over a thousand for a voyage that visits a number of romantic ports. When a disease outbreak  creates a break in that routine the costs quickly multiply.  This New South Wales police enquiry will determine if the shipping company or its officers aboard deliberately hid the truth about the Covid-19 outbreak to limit the financial loss.

The law of the sea still requires ships to fly a warning flag if plague is aboard.  This Covid-19 is a world event and in particular cruise ships are being refused permission to dock in many countries. Many Australians are stranded overseas and air services are rapidly decreasing to bring them home. Many may find themselves without financial support and indefinitely  forced to remain in a country with a language they do not understand.

If the Ruby Princess management people deliberately hid the fact that Covic-19 was on board to facilitate disembarking of passengers then they have committed a serious crime.  The passage of people in and out of this country has facilitated the outbreak here.  The police will carefully evaluate what was said - and by whom.  It is possible that charges may follow.

This Ruby Princess incident did not start the Covic-19 outbreak, but merely enhanced it.  This is a disease advancing on a world front and when it is over we will have both a ruined economy and a serious death toll.  With hindsight there will be many matters that could have been handled better. That ship disembarking incident would be one of them !