Urgent - Ruby Princess 3 people infected - Urgent Tracking of Passengers

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, possum52 said:

On a visit to Saigon (cruise), we decided to go on a ship's excursion which took us to a number of well known places and included a lunch at a hotel. I made the mistake in thinking we would be having Vietnamese dishes which I love, no it was combination of western style Vietnamese and western including french fries! I was so disappointed!

 

Leigh

 

 

 

 

 

 

Years ago we did a land trip in Japan. We did a few tours including one to Mt Fuji with lunch which turned out to be very disappointing Italian food, and one to Osaka where we had a French meal which was very nice. But both times we would have preferred Japanese food. Ah well, we managed to get to quite a few interesting restaurants thanks to local contacts and the Lonely Planet. We had some interesting food along the way. At one restaurant that we were taken to by friends one of the dishes was whole baby eels in a chilled broth. I still don't know to this day whether those eels were dead or just chilled into somnolence, and I wasn't game to ask. They were surprisingly nice though.

Edited April 8, 2020 by OzKiwiJJ

[ilikeanswers]

1 hour ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

We did a few tours including one to Mt Fuji with lunch which turned out to be very disappointing Italian food

 

Are you sure that Italian wasn't Wafu Pasta? It is a popular style of East meets West food in Asia. Last time I was in Changi Airport they had a really good Wafu Pasta restaurant🤗.

[Peterpatter]

On 4/7/2020 at 2:47 PM, Aus Traveller said:

Very well expressed👍.

I must be missing something here. So well after Diamond Princess and as countries are closing their borders there are people falling ill on  Ruby with multiple nationalities that had recently arrived to join the cruise and the first thing that springs to mind is influenza ?

Would you bet your life on the accuracy of the early test kits ?

i still can’t believe that a compulsory 14 day iso could not have been implemented.

Maybe we could have saved one of those 15 lives or at least a few hundred live ones out in the community commuting home

Was it a case of who would foot the hotel bills ?

Dont know what to think

[LauraS]

In order that this topic shall remain open, please keep your discussion to the specific TOPIC:  which is specific Ruby Passengers from that one sailing.

 

No political discussion going forward, or we will close this topic.

[Pushka]

8 hours ago, Peterpatter said:

I must be missing something here. So well after Diamond Princess and as countries are closing their borders there are people falling ill on  Ruby with multiple nationalities that had recently arrived to join the cruise and the first thing that springs to mind is influenza ?

Would you bet your life on the accuracy of the early test kits ?

i still can’t believe that a compulsory 14 day iso could not have been implemented.

Maybe we could have saved one of those 15 lives or at least a few hundred live ones out in the community commuting home

Was it a case of who would foot the hotel bills ?

Dont know what to think

 

Agree. Beggars belief. Not in the usual course of cruising life would it be assumed to be anything else, but a pandemic had finally been announced by WHO weeks earlier. Insurance companies announced 31 January they would no longer cover for Covid. It wasn't the flu season in Australia. Doesn't mean there won't be the odd case. I don't know yet who was responsible, I'm waiting for the facts and timelines to be interpreted correctly. 
 

My key takeaway is that once it was known that Covid is infectious before symptoms appear, and in many, symptoms never appear, then no amount of restrictions and checks on embarkation would have prevented this. And that was known early on. The end of February should have marked a cessation of all cruises. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

9 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Are you sure that Italian wasn't Wafu Pasta? It is a popular style of East meets West food in Asia. Last time I was in Changi Airport they had a really good Wafu Pasta restaurant🤗.

No, it wasn't pasta. I can't remember exactly what the various choices were now, it was well over ten years ago. I just remember that it was Italian-based cuisine. 

[Aus Traveller]

8 hours ago, Peterpatter said:

I must be missing something here. So well after Diamond Princess and as countries are closing their borders there are people falling ill on  Ruby with multiple nationalities that had recently arrived to join the cruise and the first thing that springs to mind is influenza ?

Would you bet your life on the accuracy of the early test kits ?

i still can’t believe that a compulsory 14 day iso could not have been implemented.

Maybe we could have saved one of those 15 lives or at least a few hundred live ones out in the community commuting home

Was it a case of who would foot the hotel bills ?

Dont know what to think

It looks like the medical team on the Ruby were worried that the passengers who had flu-like symptoms actually had COVID because they sent swabs out for testing when the ship was in Wellington. They did not have COVID test kits on board, but they did have flu test kits. The majority of the ill people had the flu.

 

Ill passengers on board were asked to isolate in their cabins.

 

I agree with your suggestion that when the shop docked in Sydney, all passengers should have been quarantined, but this view is in hindsight. I don't think it was a matter of who would foot the hotel bills. The Ruby arrived in Sydney on 19th March, but quarantining of international arrivals only started on 30th March. One statement from the government was that there wasn't the capacity to quarantine all international arrivals even one week earlier (Ruby arrived 11 days earlier) because of the large numbers coming into the country.

 

BTW the government is paying the hotel bills. There has been no question about this. Some of the hotels used are 5-star, but even so, a few of the people staying there are whinging and complaining, "It's worse than prison", "We aren't allowed out of our rooms," "I can't get any fresh air".

[MicCanberra]

8 hours ago, Peterpatter said:

I must be missing something here. So well after Diamond Princess and as countries are closing their borders there are people falling ill on  Ruby with multiple nationalities that had recently arrived to join the cruise and the first thing that springs to mind is influenza ?

Would you bet your life on the accuracy of the early test kits ?

i still can’t believe that a compulsory 14 day iso could not have been implemented.

Maybe we could have saved one of those 15 lives or at least a few hundred live ones out in the community commuting home

Was it a case of who would foot the hotel bills ?

Dont know what to think

At the time, I really could not understand why we were quarantining Australians from the Diamond and from China, stopping people from certain Countries but not isolating or quarantining anyone else. They did implement it around two weeks later but those people whop were infected were already on the Ruby. It then took another two weeks to start quarantining anyone coming in, but with hindsight, it was too late.

[OzKiwiJJ]

49 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

At the time, I really could not understand why we were quarantining Australians from the Diamond and from China, stopping people from certain Countries but not isolating or quarantining anyone else. They did implement it around two weeks later but those people whop were infected were already on the Ruby. It then took another two weeks to start quarantining anyone coming in, but with hindsight, it was too late.

Agreed, it was very strange. At that time the government was releasing the source of each infection and there was a string of "recently arrived from Italy", "recently arrived from the US" cases yet nothing was done to quarantine travellers. They only announced the 14 day self-isolation rule for incoming travellers on the 14th or 15th March (after NZ announced they were implementing that) so several days after the Ruby cruise commenced.

[Aus Traveller]

13 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Agreed, it was very strange. At that time the government was releasing the source of each infection and there was a string of "recently arrived from Italy", "recently arrived from the US" cases yet nothing was done to quarantine travellers. They only announced the 14 day self-isolation rule for incoming travellers on the 14th or 15th March (after NZ announced they were implementing that) so several days after the Ruby cruise commenced.

The government said that they did not have the capacity to quarantine the number of people who arrived even one week earlier,k but now that there were a lot fewer people, they could put them into hotels.. 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Aus Traveller

[MicCanberra]

7 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

The government said that they did not have the capacity to quarantine the number of people who arrived even one week earlier,k but now that there were a lot fewer people, they could put them into hotels.. 

Resistant to spending the "surplus"

[DiamondFour]

1 hour ago, Pushka said:

 

Agree. Beggars belief. Not in the usual course of cruising life would it be assumed to be anything else, but a pandemic had finally been announced by WHO weeks earlier. Insurance companies announced 31 January they would no longer cover for Covid. It wasn't the flu season in Australia. Doesn't mean there won't be the odd case. I don't know yet who was responsible, I'm waiting for the facts and timelines to be interpreted correctly. 
 

My key takeaway is that once it was known that Covid is infectious before symptoms appear, and in many, symptoms never appear, then no amount of restrictions and checks on embarkation would have prevented this. And that was known early on. The end of February should have marked a cessation of all cruises. 

The Ruby Princess cruise started on March 8th. The WHO declared a worldwide pandemic on the 11th March. Princess announced on the 12th March a voluntary pause on all operations. The Ruby was to resupply and return to Sydney to disembark passengers.

 

In all my years of cruising Sydney has always been strict with security. The cruise ship is never in charge and the rules are strictly enforced. Something strange is happening here that is not the fault of Princess or Ruby Princess crew. The ships Captain does not have the authority to disembark the ship in Sydney. The local authorities must do it. From all the evidence I have seen is that Ruby Princess went above and beyond to identify this mystery infection that was on their ship and they even had an ambulance waiting for them when they docked.

 

It is very clear our authorities stuffed up big time on this.

[OzKiwiJJ]

19 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

The government said that they did not have the capacity to quarantine the number of people who arrived even one week earlier,k but now that there were a lot fewer people, they could put them into hotels.. 

Even just self-isolation would probably have helped as overseas passengers would not have been able to board the cruise if that was in place. But 20-20 hindsight gets us nowhere. It's a very sad set of circumstances that can only be learned from not changed.

[Pushka]

7 minutes ago, DiamondFour said:

The Ruby Princess cruise started on March 8th. The WHO declared a worldwide pandemic on the 11th March. Princess announced on the 12th March a voluntary pause on all operations. The Ruby was to resupply and return to Sydney to disembark passengers.

 

In all my years of cruising Sydney has always been strict with security. The cruise ship is never in charge and the rules are strictly enforced. Something strange is happening here that is not the fault of Princess or Ruby Princess crew. The ships Captain does not have the authority to disembark the ship in Sydney. The local authorities must do it. From all the evidence I have seen is that Ruby Princess went above and beyond to identify this mystery infection that was on their ship and they even had an ambulance waiting for them when they docked.

 

It is very clear our authorities stuffed up big time on this.

Thanks for the correction about the WHO declaration. Seems like a lifetime ago now. I guess the investigation will answer a lot of questions. 

[Pushka]

12 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Resistant to spending the "surplus"

I think the Treasurer responded to Leigh Sales on that very question weeks ago. Pretty much Save Australia or Save the Surplus. They have chosen to Save Australia and forget the politics of the surplus. 

[Aus Traveller]

21 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Resistant to spending the "surplus"

I think it was more  likely the availability, or lack of availability of enough hotel rooms to quarantine everyone earlier.

 

Consider also, how people would have reacted weeks earlier if a quarantine was put in place. Now we can see the need and when we hear the people in quarantine whinging about the size of their rooms, the food, or the fact that they can't go out we have no sympathy with them.

[Aus Traveller]

20 minutes ago, DiamondFour said:

The Ruby Princess cruise started on March 8th. The WHO declared a worldwide pandemic on the 11th March. Princess announced on the 12th March a voluntary pause on all operations. The Ruby was to resupply and return to Sydney to disembark passengers.

 

In all my years of cruising Sydney has always been strict with security. The cruise ship is never in charge and the rules are strictly enforced. Something strange is happening here that is not the fault of Princess or Ruby Princess crew. The ships Captain does not have the authority to disembark the ship in Sydney. The local authorities must do it. From all the evidence I have seen is that Ruby Princess went above and beyond to identify this mystery infection that was on their ship and they even had an ambulance waiting for them when they docked.

 

It is very clear our authorities stuffed up big time on this.

The ambulances were called for two passengers, one of whom had heart issues and the other had severe back pain.

[Pushka]

4 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

I think it was more  likely the availability, or lack of availability of enough hotel rooms to quarantine everyone earlier.

 

Consider also, how people would have reacted weeks earlier if a quarantine was put in place. Now we can see the need and when we hear the people in quarantine whinging about the size of their rooms, the food, or the fact that they can't go out we have no sympathy with them.

Agree. I had no concept of just how many travellers arrived each day. They had to stop incoming tourists so that ban had to be put in place. Hotels were still being occupied by tourists. Their plan to negotiate payments and staffing was implemented very quickly but must have been weeks in the planning. I think they needed to get it down to 1000 a day? So over a 2 week period that's still up 14000 rooms taken. 

[Aus Traveller]

Just now, Pushka said:

Agree. I had no concept of just how many travellers arrived each day. They had to stop incoming tourists so that ban had to be put in place. Hotels were still being occupied by tourists. Their plan to negotiate payments and staffing was implemented very quickly but must have been weeks in the planning. I think they needed to get it down to 1000 a day? So over a 2 week period that's still up 14000 rooms taken. 

I am trying to recall the number of arrivals that was quoted for the week prior to the quarantine being implemented. I think it was 4,700 a day (let's say 2,300 rooms) with more arriving the next day, and the next day and each group kept for 14 days.

 

As you say, planning this and putting agreements in place with the hotels would have taken a lot of work.

[MicCanberra]

11 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

I think it was more  likely the availability, or lack of availability of enough hotel rooms to quarantine everyone earlier.

 

Consider also, how people would have reacted weeks earlier if a quarantine was put in place. Now we can see the need and when we hear the people in quarantine whinging about the size of their rooms, the food, or the fact that they can't go out we have no sympathy with them.

But they had already done it earlier with a few select groups, I don't see how they thought it prudent for that but not for the next month or arrivals, makes no sense..

 

[Aus Traveller]

12 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

But they had already done it earlier with a few select groups, I don't see how they thought it prudent for that but not for the next month or arrivals, makes no sense..

 

Before the general quarantine announcement, I thought the only people quarantined were people brought back from Wuhan and those evacuated from the Diamond Princess. It was known that there was COVID in both those places. Where there others put in quarantine?

 

The earlier groups were taken to Christmas Island and the second group to a former mining camp at Howard in the NT.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Aus Traveller

[MicCanberra]

3 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

I am trying to recall the number of arrivals that was quoted for the week prior to the quarantine being implemented. I think it was 4,700 a day (let's say 2,300 rooms) with more arriving the next day, and the next day and each group kept for 14 days.

 

As you say, planning this and putting agreements in place with the hotels would have taken a lot of work.

That was one of my points as well, they closed the borders for select groups as well, they need to close them earlier for all tourists

[Pushka]

Just now, Aus Traveller said:

Before the general quarantine announcement, I thought the only people quarantined were people brought back from Wuhan and those evacuated from the Diamond Princess. It was known that there was COVID in both those places. Where there others put in quarantine?

Yes, that's my recollection too. People were supposed to self isolate. I guess there may have been some who had no "safe" place to isolate to - eg aged relatives or families with kids. I did read about that in SA where a caravan park was used for temporary housing. 

[MicCanberra]

4 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

Before the general quarantine announcement, I thought the only people quarantined were people brought back from Wuhan and those evacuated from the Diamond Princess. It was known that there was COVID in both those places. Where there others put in quarantine?

Correct, that was it, why they stopped at that who knows. It then took another few weeks before the closed borders to tourists and the self isolating happened. And then another few weeks before quarantining everyone

[The_Big_M]

3 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

The government said that they did not have the capacity to quarantine the number of people who arrived even one week earlier,k but now that there were a lot fewer people, they could put them into hotels.. 

 

They could have isolated people and enforced them though. That was the issue, and it could have been cheaper.

 

This was just the subsequent opportunity when travel was stopped so hotels were vacant, they just utilised that at the time. Managing the isolation earlier would have been better. I'd say the real issue is they didn't want to close borders, and provoke the Orange Man which would have been necessary.