Diamond Princess passenger "tested positive for Wuhan coronavirus"

[AlyssaJames]

2 minutes ago, hal2008 said:

 

Offer was to pay base salary for two months (not full pay)

For those on the contact, they wud have to pay that any way when ship is non operable.

 

I, personally, wud not change my opinion on Princess one way or other based on this "offer".

After all, Princess itself did not try to make a big deal out of it.

 

 

https://crew-center.com/diamond-princess-crew-get-two-months-paid-time

 

The letter signed by Jan Swartz, Group President of Princess Cruises and Carnival Australia, reads:

“We are deeply grateful and incredibly proud of all of you. We understand that each of you are under great stress in this extraordinary situation, and we hope you are taking some time to speak with your family and friends - as well as reaching out to our Crew Assistance resources.

 

We have been working to determine how we can best support you once we are past this difficult time. You deserve, and will need, a break. So, we offer you two months of paid time off. This will include your salary and any average gratuities you may normally receive.

 

We strongly encourage you to use the paid time off for much needed rest. If you decide to leave when the quarantine and later choose to rejoin a ship before the two months pass, you will still receive this extra pay.

[hal2008]

7 minutes ago, bluesea321 said:

Why did US break Diamond Princess coronavirus quarantine? "Something went awry" according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/02/17/coronavirus-official-explains-diamond-princess-cruise-quarantine-fail/4785290002/

 

So hopefully people will stop saying that each and every infection case is from the original person who disembarked in Hong Kong?

 

 

[ed01106]

1 minute ago, AlyssaJames said:

 

I'm also not sure what else Princess can do for the crew right now.

 

 

Quit preparing meals onboard!!!!  Having meals prepared by people who are potentially infected is the absolute worst way to handle a disease.  Also switching to this would greatly free up crew time allowing them time to rest instead of work 18 hours+ per day.

[oskidunker]

They need to get everyone off the ship as soon as possible. 

[milolii]

2 hours ago, Coral said:

 

I live near here. We have an amazing facility at University of Nebraska Medical Center that has dealt with Ebola victims in the past. It has a Biocontainment and Isolation Unit here and staff are trained to deal with this (they volunteer for this unit).

 

https://www.omaha.com/news/local/americans-possibly-exposed-to-coronavirus-on-cruise-ship-taken-to/article_0c9c09f9-a6ff-5b83-8a59-6cf3a0b2041e.html 

 

We currently have 54 people from Wuhan about 30 minutes from here (Camp Ashland). So far, no one has tested positive for Coronovirus at Camp Ashland. They go off quarantine Thursday or Friday.

Excellent, good to know.  Thanks for posting this. You should be proud.   I am sure they will get excellent care. I am in the San Francisco Bay Area (Travis Air Force Base). I was on a work call about 2 weeks ago and we have two, maybe three, Bay Area Hositals designated. UCSF is one and I am fairly sure Stanford is the other.
  I do not work for either of them, but for a large HMO/Hospital system in the area. 

[Coral]

13 minutes ago, milolii said:

Excellent, good to know.  Thanks for posting this. You should be proud.   I am sure they will get excellent care. I am in the San Francisco Bay Area (Travis Air Force Base). I was on a work call about 2 weeks ago and we have two, maybe three, Bay Area Hositals designated. UCSF is one and I am fairly sure Stanford is the other.
  I do not work for either of them, but for a large HMO/Hospital system in the area. 

This probably makes more sense to you - it is the nation's only federal quarantine unit. This part just opened: 

 

https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/education/capabilities/index.html  

 

Our news confirmed we have 13 individuals from the Diamond Princess.

[DownByTheSea]

2 minutes ago, Grburkart said:

I'm tired of listening to the propaganda about the destruction of society as we know it. So some “expert” publicly says bad things and people gobble that up like it’s gospel. That’s laughable to me. Fear mongering is NOT helpful to anyone.

 

I didn't take the 60% number as an end of the world situation, nor does it seem like it would be. It would of course be bad; but not apocalyptic. If 60% of the world caught it (at some time over the upcoming years), and if it remains at a ~2% mortality rate, that's around 1.2% of the world population, or in the vicinity of 80m deaths worldwide. That's a lot, no doubt about it; but not the end of civilization or society as we know it. If it turns out to be correct, that's probably a lot more package deliveries to homes and less travel. Not fun, and we can take precautions, hope for a cure/treatment, but I don't think there's any eschatological scenarios here.

[bluesea321]

The "quarantine" has been terrible for the crew. As others have said Princess should have hired an outside company to prepare meals. They should be ashamed of the way they have treated these people.

https://time.com/5784190/diamond-princess-cruise-crew-coronavirus/

 

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced that 16 more Filipinos onboard Japanese cruise ship Diamond Princess have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Sunday, February 16. This brings the total number of infected Filipinos onboard to 27, all of whom are crew members.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/251980-more-filipinos-infected-japan-cruise-ship

Edited February 17, 2020 by bluesea321

[AlyssaJames]

14 minutes ago, bluesea321 said:

The "quarantine" has been terrible for the crew. As others have said Princess should have hired an outside company to prepare meals. They should be ashamed of the way they have treated these people.

https://time.com/5784190/diamond-princess-cruise-crew-coronavirus/

 

Did you actually read this article? Just curious. 

[JennAngel9]

10 minutes ago, bluesea321 said:

 

See the two articles/links I posted above.

The Time article (in which someone with a fever is kept in a room with other crew-members and not immediately removed & tested for Coronavirus) does not give any confidence that adequate guidance was given about "quarantine" (I blame government health authorities more than CCL, who never claim to be infectious disease specialists) and it would be completely shocking (in light of reports like this) if Japan (or whomever ends up taking Diamond Passengers who are not Japanese) does not make everyone start quarantine all over again on disembarkation.  

[em-sk]

14 minutes ago, bluesea321 said:

The "quarantine" has been terrible for the crew. As others have said Princess should have hired an outside company to prepare meals. They should be ashamed of the way they have treated these people.

https://time.com/5784190/diamond-princess-cruise-crew-coronavirus/

 

 

 

 

If the Time article is correct that is concerning.  Not only for the crew but also for the passengers.

 

If a crew member becomes sick having the crew member continue to share a cabin with a workmate who is preparing or handling food is a problem.   

 

I though the process they were following was anyone who is sick is removed from the ship and sent to hospital.  If they were only doing that for passenger then that is a major issue and likely a contributor to the spread of this.

[milolii]

29 minutes ago, Coral said:

This probably makes more sense to you - it is the nation's only federal quarantine unit. This part just opened: 

 

https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/education/capabilities/index.html  

 

Our news confirmed we have 13 individuals from the Diamond Princess.

Outstanding.  This is fascinating.  Please share more as your local news reports.  Do you mind if I share this link with my colleagues on our weekly call/TEAMs meeting tomorrow?  Many may be aware.  My area of expertise is a little different. But we are under one large umbrella of patient safety. 

[brisalta]

32 minutes ago, Coral said:

This probably makes more sense to you - it is the nation's only federal quarantine unit. This part just opened: 

 

https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/education/capabilities/index.html  

 

Our news confirmed we have 13 individuals from the Diamond Princess.

 

According to that link the quarantine unit has only 20 quarantine beds.

There used to be US Public Health Hospitals in all major sea ports that served as quarantine sites among other duties. They were shut down nearly 40 years ago.

[Coochuck]

1 hour ago, em-sk said:

 

The problem is the scale of the issue.   

 

I don't think it matters if it is the CDC or the Japanese equivalent of the CDC.  These organisations are not setup to handle several thousand potentially infected people just magically appearing.   It takes time to put the response in motion.

 

The proper tests for this illness takes 2-3 days to perform.  A number of the patients in hospital in Japan are saying they fell fine.  There are lots of theories floating around about the ventilation system and pluming.  Could some of the crew preparing meals have been infected? In the coming weeks and months the root cause analysis will figure this all out.  That will help inform the decision making on the next cruise ship that encounters in the problem.

 

The Japanese learned their lesson on this one.  When the second ship showed up on its shores that was potentially infected, it turned it away.  The US also turned it away from docking in one of its ports in Guam.  

 

Agreed....however, putting the passengers in quarantine and not putting the ships crew in quarantine, just made no sense at all.....it kept spreading.....it amounted to a partial quarantine which did not work, and just exasperated the problem on board.   Again....very poor response from either Princess, or the Japan Government.  I believe it was Princess that made the decision not to put their staff in quarantine, and use them to serve, and prepare meals.

[brisalta]

1 minute ago, Coochuck said:

Agreed....however, putting the passengers in quarantine and not putting the ships crew in quarantine, just made no sense at all.....it kept spreading.....it amounted to a partial quarantine which did not work, and just exasperated the problem on board.   Again....very poor response from either Princess, or the Japan Government.  I believe it was Princess that made the decision not to put their staff in quarantine, and use them to serve, and prepare meals.

 

Actually it did work. It stopped infected people getting off the ship and spreading it to the general population.

Contrast this with the Westerdam which did not do any testing at sea or in port and when finally docked let all the passengers off. They are now trying to trace passengers from that ship and their contacts because it now apparently turns out the virus was on the Westerdam.

[Kmkub]

4 minutes ago, brisalta said:

 

Actually it did work. It stopped infected people getting off the ship and spreading it to the general population.

 

I'm stunned that after all this time, some people still don't understand what a quarantine is supposed to do.  What you wrote here is the sole purpose of a quarantine. Passengers weren't quarantined at all; they were asked to stay in their cabins in hopes to mitigate spread.

 

My family was quarantined for one day when I was in HS, due to my having pink eye. Even my dad stayed home, IIRC. The schools asked that my siblings not go to school either. We were all stuck in the house, but there was no delusion that my siblings were safe because we were quarantined.  It was only to protect the other students at school. (Not sure they do this anymore for pink eye, but it was a thing when I was in school.)

 

[fragilek]

Remember that even experts in their fields have differing opinions on this virus, so its not surprising that you will find a vast array of opposing opinions on here.  Just like in research they are all valid-there is no need to get  either aggressive or over defensive on here.  So lets all voice our opinions with respect to those who see things from a different view point.

[Coral]

36 minutes ago, brisalta said:

 

According to that link the quarantine unit has only 20 quarantine beds.

There used to be US Public Health Hospitals in all major sea ports that served as quarantine sites among other duties. They were shut down nearly 40 years ago.

There is a separate Biocontainment unit also at this Medical Center. That is where the Ebola patients were when they came here. That has 10 beds.

 

https://www.nebraskamed.com/biocontainment

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Coral

[em-sk]

3 minutes ago, bluesea321 said:

 

 

"The quarantine process failed," Fauci said. "I'd like to sugarcoat it and try to be diplomatic about it, but it failed. People were getting infected on that ship. Something went awry in the process of the quarantining on that ship. I don't know what it was, but a lot of people got infected on that ship."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/02/17/coronavirus-official-explains-diamond-princess-cruise-quarantine-fail/4785290002/

 

Let's see, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health or Dr. Brisalta, cruise critic member.   Hmm...  I'll take Fauci's word.

 

There is two aspects to the quarantine......

 

The quarantine of the ship protected the general population of Japan (and a host of other countries where these passenger would eventually end up going back home to.  If that was to sole goal, then the passenger would be permitted to walk around the ship and interact.

  

Having each passenger stay in their own cabin was an attempt to quarantine them from each other.  Something went wrong there, and that was clearly a failure. 

 

In contract Holland America Westerdam just let everyone go.  Now Canadian Boarder Protection is checking all in coming flights for these passenger and managing this risk as they walk off the aircraft.  I suspect other countries would be doing the same...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/westerdam-cruise-canadians-return-home-1.5466131  Clearly an even worse way of handling this.

 

 

 

[crayola1932]

I want to thank Cheryl Molesky for her video of the careful disembarkation (Post #1973 on this thread).  Hard to tell but it seemed as if the disembarkation was very quiet, carefully organized, and of course it was dark out. 

I was rendered speechless, when a short time later I was reading the Westerdam Corona virus thread on the HAL forum and saw a photograph of Westerdam passengers gaily touring Phnom Penh after their disembarkation (Post #1114)  What a contrast.  

Edited February 17, 2020 by crayola1932

[bluesea321]

7 minutes ago, em-sk said:

There is two aspects to the quarantine......

 

The quarantine of the ship protected the general population of Japan (and a host of other countries where these passenger would eventually end up going back home to.  If that was the sole goal, then the passengers would be permitted to walk around the ship and interact.

  

Having each passenger stay in their own cabin was an attempt to quarantine them from each other.  Something went wrong there, and that was clearly a failure. 

 

I agree.

Edited February 17, 2020 by bluesea321

[Pushka]

The process was to protect Japan from the virus and hope to mitigate the spread amongst the passengers. In some ways that was achieved. 

[cherylandtk]

Clearly the preventive measures onboard and the semi-isolation techniques were inadequate to stop the spread of this disease on the Diamond.  But at the time, those methods were what was known and recommended and that was what the cruise line did. Hindsight is 20/20.

 

In the intervening time, health workers were also infected in both China and Japan (leading to more rigorous hazmat type protective gear), asymptomatic people were finally included in the test groups and discovered to be infected (which was not expected and lead to a significant change in both who gets tested and what defines this illness) and health officials realized just getting through 14 days without a cough or fever was  no longer definitive.  
 

I would not be surprised in the least if what is considered appropriate today for isolation, quarantine and restrictions on movement/shared spaces continues to evolve.

[getting older slowly]

One thing I was wondering do the Japanese passengers off the diamond now go into quarantine in Japan ??? 

 

This has been an incredible ordeal for all those on board. and one can wish them all good luck.

 

Cheers Don

[voljeep]

Passengers and especially crew on the Diamond Princess were considered 'collateral damage' to protect the citizens of Japan on land … it is what it is ...