Diamond Princess passenger "tested positive for Wuhan coronavirus"

[NorthwestCruiser]

Taxi driver who drove Diamond Princess passengers (not sure of the country) is seriously ill with the virus.    So far about %20 of the passengers have been confirmed to be infected, meaning that pretty much everybody onboard has at least been exposed to the virus.   I have no idea why people are being let off the ship or sent back to their home countries, all we are doing is infecting pilots, drivers, and health care workers worldwide.   Despite being well trained and taking extreme precautions, over 1700 health care workers in China are infected.   

 

It is a good thing that most people recover from this virus, if it were any worse our behavior would be curtains for Homo Sapiens.   As it is, there is going to be some rough sledding ahead.   As many people are in serious condition as have recovered, and about %12 of the cases with known outcome are fatalities.    It is most likely not as bad as those numbers make it seem but it is gonna hurt.

[NorthwestCruiser]

7 minutes ago, zonacruiser25 said:

The only thing that seems to be certain is that confusion reigns supreme.  Diamond Princess will be a case study for infectious disease for years to come.  As passengers disburse back to their homes, I hope that authorities track and share REAL data about infections.   Containment has been poor at best and the extent of cross contamination needs to be seriously evaluated to help all cruise lines to help to deal with situations like this in the future.

 

The best comparison to my untrained eye would be how ships currently deal with Noro.  Policies and procedures tend to help control and knock down these outbreaks.  Ships return to port when there is a high percentage of passengers that have been sickened.  Ships are disinfected and successfully continue to operate safely. 

 

Diamond and Westerdam are the most visible case studies to help figure this out.  Passengers are still living through this learning experience.  Families are scared and concerned.  Princess and governments are all trying to deal with this and will get everyone home.  The how and when are frustrating.  We all want answers now but this thread is a prime example of how confusion spreads quickly.  I pray for wisdom to those that are making decisions that are affecting can resolve this as soon as possible.

 

I look forward to reading reviews soon that will once again only deal with bad food and chair hogs!

What a quarantine used to mean is that you flew a yellow flag and stayed at anchor until the ship was allowed to land by the port's medical officer.   (Note that many plagues have been helped along by shipboard rats.)    This was a solution arrived at by experimentation during the plague years.  It is not a bad one, although not particularly nice to the people onboard you gotta figure that if you spread the plague it isn't going to be nice onshore, either.

 

I expected the next plague to be spread by air travel, to  mess this up on a *ship* shows that humanity is not very good at learning lessons from the past.  

Edited February 19, 2020 by NorthwestCruiser

[Hotdog 52]

As long as you have a common HVAC system, unless it's a once through operation, they all breath the same recirculated air.

[ace2542]

I have said all along that once the outbreak was detected onboard the ship the entire ships company should have been disembarked on a nationality by nationality basis and placed into the quarantine period either in Japan or in their home country or in Japan. The response of Japan has been very poor on this.

[bluesea321]

10 minutes ago, Hotdog 52 said:

As long as you have a common HVAC system, unless it's a once through operation, they all breath the same recirculated air.

 

The Captain told the passengers that the air is not recirculated. And then Rai Calouri, Princess' Executive VP of Operations, contradicted him (Calouri is his boss). Below is what Calouri said. Hope the Captain and Calouri get their act together (a bit late now I am afraid).

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by bluesea321

[NorthwestCruiser]

Moving people around is what worries me, we moved passengers from one location to another in California when it turns out that they were infected.   Each move increases the chance of infecting all of the people involved in the move.

 

The right solution in retrospect would been to have treated people aboard, perhaps by bringing in another ship.   You have to keep the medical staff that you bring onboard isolated.   With this stuff, once you are exposed you unfortunately have to assume that you are infected, so getting off the ship to avoid getting infected was never really an option.  This isn't a new property, lots of viruses are like that, and we just don't know enough about the other properties that this virus has to take chances.

 

Too late now!

[Hotdog 52]

They would have to have huge chillers and coils to provide once through air.  Building air is recirculated air with 10 to 20 percent fresh air added in.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Hotdog 52
spelling

[AlyssaJames]

I notice that the COVID19 dashboard now lists 621 "Others" infected. Traditionally this category has been specifically for Diamond Princess passengers. Is it really 621 affected now?

 

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Edited February 19, 2020 by AlyssaJames

[Chyna3032]

18 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

I have said all along that once the outbreak was detected onboard the ship the entire ships company should have been disembarked on a nationality by nationality basis and placed into the quarantine period either in Japan or in their home country or in Japan. The response of Japan has been very poor on this.

Totally agree.  

[AlyssaJames]

27 minutes ago, ace2542 said:

I have said all along that once the outbreak was detected onboard the ship the entire ships company should have been disembarked on a nationality by nationality basis and placed into the quarantine period either in Japan or in their home country or in Japan. The response of Japan has been very poor on this.

 

How the heck were they going to get everyone to their home country without infecting more people along the way?

[bluesea321]

Just now, AlyssaJames said:

How the heck were they going to get everyone to their home country without infecting more people along the way?

 

The same way the US repatriated its citizens.

[AlyssaJames]

Just now, bluesea321 said:

 

The same way the US repatriated its citizens.

 

And we know how well that went. 

[fragilek]

There are now photos of the first lot of people to leave the ship walking about in the city.  I beleive this person is from HK not sure why not going straight back.  But have said Princess has put them in hotels unyil they can go home.  They will face 14 quarantine once in HK

https://twitter.com/yardley_wong/status/1230137710628626432/photo/1

[bluesea321]

9 minutes ago, AlyssaJames said:

And we know how well that went. 

 

Reasonably well regardless of the 14 who were infected (but not disclosed by Japan prior to boarding).

 

To each their own but if it was me on that ship I would have gotten off even with those infected. Why stay on the disaster ship with far more infections, at least 200 in the last 2 days.

[bluesea321]

Diamond Princess reports 79 more coronavirus cases

 

https://nypost.com/2020/02/19/diamond-princess-reports-79-more-coronavirus-cases-as-expert-slams-ships-completely-inadequate-quarantine/

 

 

[LizNeedsAVacation]

14 minutes ago, fragilek said:

There are now photos of the first lot of people to leave the ship walking about in the city.  I beleive this person is from HK not sure why not going straight back.  But have said Princess has put them in hotels unyil they can go home.  They will face 14 quarantine once in HK

https://twitter.com/yardley_wong/status/1230137710628626432/photo/1

They were released before the charter flight. Not sure why at that point Japan didn’t say you have to wait for the flight if you are taking it, but I think once they were told to disembark they had to disembark.

[bluesea321]

34 minutes ago, bluesea321 said:

Diamond Princess reports 79 more coronavirus cases

https://nypost.com/2020/02/19/diamond-princess-reports-79-more-coronavirus-cases-as-expert-slams-ships-completely-inadequate-quarantine/

 

And an additional report from the New York Times:

"At least 621 passengers aboard the ship, the Diamond Princess, have been infected. On Wednesday, the authorities reported an additional 79 cases on the ship, which originally carried about 3,700 passengers and crew members."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html#link-4d20df2b

[bluesea321]

Incredible but true:

 

"Passengers began disembarking on Wednesday from a cruise ship docked off Yokohama, Japan, as a two-week quarantine of the vessel was coming to an end even as a major coronavirus outbreak on board continued unabated."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html#link-4d20df2b

[K.T.B.]

1 hour ago, fragilek said:

Oh dear, I think this virus is now apraoching the pandemic crudentials

 

https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-19-20-intl-hnk/index.html

 

If this new patient has been treated in an open ward as described then that puts many at risk- all staff from cleaning to doctors and all other patients and their visitors - then extended to all they have been in contact with. 

So if you think that case for one person through then multiply for all getting off the ship that may be false negatives - then Japan may find itself in trouble ahead of the Olympics.  

 

However, as I posted earlier someone on the ship from Japan (in fact the ship is not far from her home) she is now mentioning quarantine of 14 days. )

 

It's pandemic in terms of its spread across China.  Thankfully it hasn't reached worldwide proportions, regardless of the few cases outside of China.  When it starts to spread over other countries the way it has in China, then we should be concerned.  IMO, it's probably the lack of any decent healthcare in the rural areas that has caused it to really "explode".

[NorthwestCruiser]

1 hour ago, bluesea321 said:

 

Reasonably well regardless of the 14 who were infected (but not disclosed by Japan prior to boarding).

 

To each their own but if it was me on that ship I would have gotten off even with those infected. Why stay on the disaster ship with far more infections, at least 200 in the last 2 days.

Let's see about that in three weeks.   We know that some of the people we transported were infected, at least one was symptomatic, and none of the people in the photographs that I saw had appropriate gear to prevent getting infected.

[bluesea321]

14 minutes ago, NorthwestCruiser said:

Let's see about that in three weeks.   We know that some of the people we transported were infected, at least one was symptomatic, and none of the people in the photographs that I saw had appropriate gear to prevent getting infected.

 

Some will indeed show up positive but nonetheless I would still prefer to be in the US under a proper quarantine and medical care than staying on the doomed ship with 600+ and counting infections.

[bluesea321]

For the Brits on board and others that care this is a good summary of the situation:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51555299

[ed01106]

4 hours ago, kathy49 said:

One after another decision seems bad...what are they thinking after all of this?

Many people not just the Japanese are really bad at admitting mistakes.  And Japanese culture might be worse at this than some other cultures, but most certainly not unique to them.

 

Japanese board of health said as long as passengers followed this set of procedures they would be cleared in 14 days. To change that now requires admitting that was a mistake.  

[mking8288]

Latest on the 45 out of 52 HK residents that are due to fly home shortly on HK government chartered converted cargo flight, modified for use - 

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3051340/hong-kong-security-chief-says-japan-should-make-releasing

[bluesea321]

Passengers have begun leaving the ship amid heavy criticism over the country's handling of the outbreak.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51555420