Ruby Princess arrival yesterday IMPORTANT

[Te Aroha]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

The emails between the ship and NSW Health prove that the ship reported their correct status of illness aboard the ship - as far as they knew. Without testing kits and a lab that could process them, the medical centre on the ship did not know they had COVID on board. After the negative tests were returned four days earlier in Wellington, I think it was reasonable for the officers on the ship to believe they were free of COVID-19. We now know they weren't.

 

I wish, I wish, I wish, that NSW Health had delayed the disembarkation until they had conducted the tests on swabs supplied by the medical centre of the ship. From memory, there were four or five positive cases out of 15 swabs. Once COVID was detected on board, the ship and its passengers would have been treated differently. All passengers who were not ill would have been placed in quarantine.

PM Arden here stated this afternoon that New Zealand is taking legal advice regarding the Ruby Princess visit to Napier where we have a cluster of cases of Covid 19 directly linked to interaction with passengers from the Ruby Princess. The legal advice being sort is with regard to total disclosure by the cruise ship operator of any illness on board at the time of docking. Whether they knew they had Covid 19 or not is not in dispute but they did not report illness on board which is clearly not the case. This stop was after Wellington and Ruby Princess left NZ waters immediately after this visit.

[Pushka]

2 minutes ago, Te Aroha said:

PM Arden here stated this afternoon that New Zealand is taking legal advice regarding the Ruby Princess visit to Napier where we have a cluster of cases of Covid 19 directly linked to interaction with passengers from the Ruby Princess. The legal advice being sort is with regard to total disclosure by the cruise ship operator of any illness on board at the time of docking. Whether they knew they had Covid 19 or not is not in dispute but they did not report illness on board which is clearly not the case. This stop was after Wellington and Ruby Princess left NZ waters immediately after this visit.

 

Exactly. If they had reported respiratory illness of X passengers onboard, in the current pandemic, then Public Health policy would be that Covid is a possibility until proven otherwise.

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, Pushka said:

Isn’t it prudent, in the middle of a pandemic, and a virus that is prevalent on many cruise ships, to assume that a respiratory infection IS Covid until proven otherwise?

 

If every ship had to declare every case of illness on board before a port visit, there would be a list of illnesses to report. After the negative tests for COVID that were done in Wellington, the Ruby Princess officers could reasonably assume that the infections weren't the dreaded COVID. Should they have cancelled all of the port stops once someone presented to the medical centre with a respiratory illness? That is a difficult question. On previous cruises, I suggest that would mean that the ship would never stop at any port because there is virtually always some illness on board. In this case, should they have taken the cautious approach and assumed they had COVID on board, even though the tests were negative.

 

Taking your comment further, it would have been prudent for NSW Health to assume that COVID-19 could be present on the ship and not allow disembarkation until the tests were completed.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Aus Traveller

[Aus Traveller]

47 minutes ago, HappyInVan said:

NSW Police queried the 'operations managers' at Princess. They received assurances  that there were no COVID19 on board. So, let's wait for the outcome of the homicide investigation

 

There were no assurances that there was no COVID-19 on board. When Sydney Ports enquired from the Ruby Princess if they had clearance to dock, the ship replied that "they did not believe they had any cases of COVID-19 on board". They had been cleared to dock by NSW Health. Keep in mind that the tests done in Wellington four days earlier, all showed negative.

Edited April 7, 2020 by Aus Traveller

[HappyInVan]

21 minutes ago, Te Aroha said:

The legal advice being sort is with regard to total disclosure by the cruise ship operator of any illness on board at the time of docking. Whether they knew they had Covid 19 or not is not in dispute but they did not report illness on board which is clearly not the case. This stop was after Wellington and Ruby Princess left NZ waters immediately after this visit.

 

 

Exactly, this ties in with the NSW investigation. Cruise companies have to be brought to account if they acted in negligent way.

[Aus Traveller]

2 minutes ago, HappyInVan said:

 

 

Exactly, this ties in with the NSW investigation. Cruise companies have to be brought to account if they acted in negligent way.

Te Aroha is referring to the ship's port stop in Napier, not its entry into Sydney four days later.

[teamflames]

45 minutes ago, DiamondFour said:

You cannot assume anything. What would happen if you said you had it on board and then it turned out you did not have it. They declared they had sick people and were honest from the start. If all of a sudden you woke up and night with a cold sweat would you immediately assume you had aids despite not doing anything that could have caused it? You have to go of fact not assumptions. These are legal documents they sent between the ship and government. To assume you have a deadly virus, declare it and not have it is probably illegal.

Do you work for Princess? 
We are/were in the middle of a worldwide Pandemic, at this point in time Princess had already been through this situation multiple times. Every country around the world was already worried about Covid19 cases and most had already closed their ports. If you had more than a 100 cases of ACUTE respiratory illness onboard you alert authorities that you MAY have a problem. You don’t assume you don’t.

I am not absolving NSW Health and Australia border security forces here as they have been appalling but you cannot absolve Princess until the investigation is completed. 

[HappyInVan]

1 minute ago, Aus Traveller said:

Te Aroha is referring to the ship's port stop in Napier, not its entry into Sydney four days later.

 

 

Of course, same ship and company. Different countries, but same problem.

[Aus Traveller]

26 minutes ago, Te Aroha said:

PM Arden here stated this afternoon that New Zealand is taking legal advice regarding the Ruby Princess visit to Napier where we have a cluster of cases of Covid 19 directly linked to interaction with passengers from the Ruby Princess. The legal advice being sort is with regard to total disclosure by the cruise ship operator of any illness on board at the time of docking. Whether they knew they had Covid 19 or not is not in dispute but they did not report illness on board which is clearly not the case. This stop was after Wellington and Ruby Princess left NZ waters immediately after this visit.

The day before the Ruby Princess docked in Napier, they were in Wellington (14th March). The medical centre had COVID-19 tests done ashore on swabs they took on the ship from passengers with respiratory symptoms. These people were obviously ill and I don't think they became totally well overnight. 🙂 Therefore, NZ medical authorities knew there were people on board with these symptoms.🙂 After the negative tests done in Wellington, everyone believed they weren't COVID-19.

[HappyInVan]

2 minutes ago, teamflames said:

 

I am not absolving NSW Health and Australia border security forces here as they have been appalling but you cannot absolve Princess until the investigation is completed. 

 

Absolutely agree. 

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, HappyInVan said:

 

Of course, same ship and company. Different countries, but same problem.

Have you seen the NSW Health Dept report I quoted above? That report, and the emails exchanged between the ship and NSW Health, prove that the ship didn't hide the illness on board.

[teamflames]

Am I missing something, 104 cases of ACUTE respiratory illness is more than 1% of people onboard isn’t it? Is my mathematics wrong? Shouldn’t an outbreak have been declared (whether influenza or Covid19?)

[Aus Traveller]

31 minutes ago, Pushka said:

 

Exactly. If they had reported respiratory illness of X passengers onboard, in the current pandemic, then Public Health policy would be that Covid is a possibility until proven otherwise.

But NSW Health didn't assume it was COVID until proven otherwise and they were given the swabs to test. They assumed the illnesses were just the flu. (Please see their report on the previous page).

[Pushka]

2 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

But NSW Health didn't assume it was COVID until proven otherwise and they were given the swabs to test. They assumed the illnesses were just the flu. (Please see their report on the previous page).

 

I'm still waiting for the exact information that was sent to them from Princess to make that call.  As in actual ship logs and any recorded conversations. 

[Te Aroha]

2 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

The day before the Ruby Princess docked in Napier, they were in Wellington (14th March). The medical centre had COVID-19 tests done ashore on swabs they took on the ship from passengers with respiratory symptoms. These people were obviously ill and I don't think they became totally well overnight. 🙂 Therefore, NZ medical authorities knew there were people on board with these symptoms.🙂 After the negative tests done in Wellington, everyone believed they weren't COVID-19.

I understand your total belief in Princess as a cruise line but in reality we have to accept that some under reporting has been done. New Zealand only knew about what they were told was happening on board the Ruby Princess. What was reported in Wellington was investigated. Do you seriously believe that PM Arden would be looking at this from a legal point of view if she thought there was not a possible case to answer? 

 

You are well aware of our bio security rules and reporting of health issues here. Maybe they thought they were clear but was it their call to make? Shouldn't we have been told of other issues of respiratory illness? 

[Aus Traveller]

4 minutes ago, teamflames said:

Am I missing something, 104 cases of ACUTE respiratory illness is more than 1% of people onboard isn’t it? Is my mathematics wrong? Shouldn’t an outbreak have been declared (whether influenza or Covid19?)

We have to try to work out why NSW Health made the decision they did. The report says there were 36 cases with influenza-like symptoms. If that is the figure they were working on, it is slightly less than 1% of the number on board (3,795).

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, Pushka said:

 

I'm still waiting for the exact information that was sent to them from Princess to make that call.  As in actual ship logs and any recorded conversations. 

On the weekend, I posted copies of some emails between the ship and the Health Dept. The full enquiry will have access to emails between the medical centre on board and the ship's captain, as well as emails to Princess head office.

[HappyInVan]

1 minute ago, teamflames said:

Am I missing something, 104 cases of ACUTE respiratory illness is more than 1% of people onboard isn’t it? Is my mathematics wrong? Shouldn’t an outbreak have been declared (whether influenza or Covid19?)

 

The way I read the NSW Health statement is this... That there were 104 respiratory cases but only 36 presented themselves to the medical center. So, the 36 were just less than 1% of the pax and crew on board.

 

Anyway, a public inquiry is needed in order to clarify various issues. To learn lessons. Hard to believe that a third of the Aussie pax could be infected and the ship's officers didn't know about it. A couple of passengers headed straight to ER upon embarkation.

 

Anyway, a quarter of the crew could be infected. Clearly something was wrong in terms of protocol and leadership. Many lives will be lost.

 

 

[Pushka]

28 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

 

Taking your comment further, it would have been prudent for NSW Health to assume that COVID-19 could be present on the ship and not allow disembarkation until the tests were completed.

 

Absolutely, unless there was a downplay of actual illnesses as reported by the ship. They can test for Influenza onboard I believe; if that is the case, and Princess said (by example) 100 of 200 passengers tested positive for Influenza and 100 didnt test positive for Influenza but showed influenza symptoms, then they needed to wait for COvid. If Health allowed them to disembark anyway, then trouble for Health.

 

If however, Princess said all respiratory cases tested positive for Influenza (and that wasnt the case at all) then well, trouble for Princess and not for Health.

[rickays]

I still think that there is no BLAME for Princess Cruises, ships doctor, NSW Health, Border Control or anyone else that has been included in this witch hunt.  As I see it the facts are - there were people on board who had flu like symptoms.  Swabs were taken in Wellington NZ that showed of those tested, they had negative test for covid19 but had tested positive for flu, so at that time the thought was no covid19 onboard but flu was circulating.  They then continued their voyage until their return to Sydney where Ruby Princess advised they had positive test for flu, but 2 test were negative for flu in people displaying flu like symptoms.  NSW Health decided the risk that the ship had covid19 onboard was small due to the fact that the ship had travelled to NZ (who had very few cases) and that there had been 2 separate tests (one NZ and one lot onboard) that showed flu except for 2 results that were negative using a testing method that was not 100% accurate on positive flu results.  Therefore most likely passengers were suffering flu not covid19.  Also all passengers by law had to go home and self isolate.  On that same day at Sydney airport many more people were arriving from countries known to have a lot more cases than Aus or NZ and they also were allowed to leave and go home and self isolate, some of which later tested positive.  Where is the difference?  Is Qantas or any other airline or Border security and anyone else blamed for letting them disembark a plane.

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, Te Aroha said:

I understand your total belief in Princess as a cruise line but in reality we have to accept that some under reporting has been done. New Zealand only knew about what they were told was happening on board the Ruby Princess. What was reported in Wellington was investigated. Do you seriously believe that PM Arden would be looking at this from a legal point of view if she thought there was not a possible case to answer? 

 

You are well aware of our bio security rules and reporting of health issues here. Maybe they thought they were clear but was it their call to make? Shouldn't we have been told of other issues of respiratory illness? 

Last week the NSW Premier was saying that the ship had not reported the facts and the Minister for Health said that the captain had lied. After the Premier's department received copies of the emails between the parties, she changed her mind - "no point in finding out who is to blame".

 

Politicians are at the mercy of their staff who will often not give them the whole story, sometimes trying to save their own backsides. (In a long ago other life, I worked in a Ministerial Office and saw the 'spin' that was put on information going to the Minister and comments "Oh, we can't tell the Minister that!.) In Aust I felt sorry for the NSW Premier who was left looking a bit foolish after more details came out. I don't know what your Prime Minister was told.

[Pushka]

4 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

We have to try to work out why NSW Health made the decision they did. 

 

Yes  Totally Agree. And we need the exact information provided to them from Princess and how accurate and reliable that was.

 

Diamond happened with likely just one infected passenger. 

[Aus Traveller]

3 minutes ago, HappyInVan said:

The way I read the NSW Health statement is this... That there were 104 respiratory cases but only 36 presented themselves to the medical center. So, the 36 were just less than 1% of the pax and crew on board.

 

Anyway, a public inquiry is needed in order to clarify various issues. To learn lessons. Hard to believe that a third of the Aussie pax could be infected and the ship's officers didn't know about it. A couple of passengers headed straight to ER upon embarkation.

 

Anyway, a quarter of the crew could be infected. Clearly something was wrong in terms of protocol and leadership. Many lives will be lost.

 

 

Firstly, 104 people is not one-third of the Aussie pax. Out of the 2647 passengers probably half would have been Australian, 20% or so from USA and 20% or so from UK, and some from other countries. That was the break-up on our cruise two weeks earlier. The ill people would have been from any of those countries. So we had a total of 104 out of 4,795. I have been on cruises where I reckon there has been a higher percentage than that of people with coughs, colds etc.

 

You would have read that the pax who were taken to hospital were because of a heart condition and the second one because of lower back pain, both believed to be related to the flu.

 

The Health Dept report said:

The Ruby Princess had 2647 passengers and 1148 crew. The ship reported to NSW Health there were 104 acute respiratory infections of which 36 people had presented to the ship’s clinic with influenza like illness during the cruise and its numbers fell short of the definition of an ‘outbreak’.

 

You commented that only 36 people presented themselves to the medical centre with the implication that maybe the other 68 didn't. I don't agree. If they didn't go to the medical centre, how did the medical centre know they had "acute respiratory infections"? I feel that the quoted paragraph could mean that 36 people had influenza like illness and the other 68 had acute respiratory infections that did not resemble the flu. (BTW, I have had bronchitis several times and pneumonia twice: none have been flu-like symptoms.)

[Aus Traveller]

12 minutes ago, Pushka said:

 

Yes  Totally Agree. And we need the exact information provided to them from Princess and how accurate and reliable that was.  Diamond happened with likely just one infected passenger. 

With the Ruby, it is likely it started with one, or maybe two infected passengers who boarded in Sydney on the 8th March. ☹️ It is likely they didn't know they had any infection. We don't know if they brought it from overseas or whether they contracted it in Sydney shortly before the cruise.

[Te Aroha]

8 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

Politicians are at the mercy of their staff who will often not give them the whole story, sometimes trying to save their own backsides. (In a long ago other life, I worked in a Ministerial Office and saw the 'spin' that was put on information going to the Minister and comments "Oh, we can't tell the Minister that!.) In Aust I felt sorry for the NSW Premier who was left looking a bit foolish after more details came out. I don't know what your Prime Minister was told.

Think what you will about politicians that is not what the problem is here. Under reporting of health issues on board the ship is the issue not politics.