7NEWS Australia stories right now that 200 passengers contaminated with COVID-19 disembarked from the Grand Princess in Melbourne, Australia after the Princess cruise ship accomplished a thirteen-day around-trip to New Zealand. There are not any public accounts of the variety of contaminated crew members.
Princess Cruises once more? 200 #COVID19 optimistic on @PrincessCruises Grand Princess #cruise ship allowed to return ashore in Melbourne Australia after 13 day round-trip to New Zealand. “Some caught in tiny cabins for as much as 8 days earlier than allowed to disembark,” https://t.co/vDpz3VSlUJ
— James (Jim) Walker (@CruiseLegislation) November 17, 2022
7News Australia stories on its Facebook web page that “200 COVID positive patients have been allowed to come ashore in Melbourne after they were caught up in a cruise ship nightmare. Some had been stuck in tiny cabins with limited supplies for up to eight days before they were allowed to disembark.”
In an article titled “COVID-Infested Cruise Ship Docks in Melbourne,” 3AW 693 News Talk interviewed a passenger on the Grand Princess. The visitor, who was not optimistic with COVID-19, commented that she didn’t discover different individuals on the ship coughing or exhibiting indicators of the virus. But she mentioned that there was no basic testing of friends in anyway throughout the almost two-week cruise. The majority of the passengers left the ship with out being examined, thus clearly resulting in extra potential transmission and unfold of the virus.
With Australia lately opening up for cruises, there was a spate of COVID19 outbreaks on cruises calling on Australian ports:
Majestic Princess – 800 contaminated friends (Sydney);
Quantum of the Seas – 400 contaminated friends (heading towards Queensland)
Coral Princess – 290 contaminated friends and crew (Fremantle);
Ovation of the Seas – 129 contaminated friends and a pair of crew member (New Zealand)
Majestic Princess – 116 contaminated friends (Tahiti).
On simply three Princess cruise ships (Grand Princess, Majestic Princess and Coral Princess), there have been a complete of over 1,400 passengers contaminated with COVID-19. Although a Princess Cruise spokesperson mentioned that the COVID-positive instances onboard are both “asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic,” the reality of the matter is that “in a well-rehearsed routine, ambulances ferried the sickest to hospitals and the others were told to go home and isolate.” (see Newshub “COVID-19: Ambulances meet cruise ship in Sydney after hundreds of passengers get infected.”
In the start of the coronavirus outbreak on the Diamond Princess again in 2020, I requested Princess Cruises whether or not the virus might be unfold by means of airborne particles. In response to my inquiry in mid-February 2020 which I posted on Twitter (together with a photograph of Princess crew members huddled collectively in a hallway within the crew space), Princess Cruises wrongfully denied that the virus could be transmitted by means of the air. It cited to the World Health Organization that the virus is allegedly “mainly” transmitted by way of droplets from shut individual to individual contact.
The World Health Organization believes the virus is principally unfold by droplets from shut person-to-person contact, comparable to by coughing and sneezing. Close contact means being inside six ft or two meters of an ailing particular person for a chronic interval, with out carrying a face masks.
— Princess Cruises (@PrincessCruises) February 13, 2020
It stays surreal to see hundreds of cruise friends packed collectively within the small confines of a Princess cruise ship, respiratory the identical air and risking publicity to an airborne virus.
The Grand Princess is now scheduled to cruise to Sydney and different ports in Australia.
Unfortunately, the Australian NSW authorities’s journey web site listing, beneath the title “Update on cruise vessel COVID-19 status” (final up to date November sixteenth), doesn’t point out a share of passengers and crew who’ve examined optimistic to COVID-19 within the final seven days for this specific cruise ship.” (Tier 1 is “0.0% to <3%.” Tier 2 is “3% to <10%.” Tier 3 is “=10%.) There isn’t any official indication nor warning that the Grand Princess is crusing with round 10% of the approximate 2,000 passengers contaminated with COVID-19.
In an opinion piece within the Sydney Morning Herald, Margot Saville made the purpose that Australia has realized exactly nothing from the Ruby Princess COVID-19 debacle in 2020, which led to the deaths of 28 individuals and unleashed a wave of the virus that would have overwhelmed the Australian well being system. She requested rhetorically “should a behemoth like the Majestic Princess be free to flush out more than 660 sick passengers into the community” with nothing greater than a warning to remain off public transport?
The similar query must be requested of Princess Cruises after the Grand Princess, Majestic Princess and Coral Princess have dumped over 1,400 contaminated friends ashore in Australian ports and smaller communities ashore?