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

[OzKiwiJJ]

46 minutes ago, Pushka said:

It is the ships decision as to how much information they gathered initially to ascertain any situation on board. 

I would expect they did their very best otherwise why would they have taken samples from some passengers ready for testing?

 

It is possible that some of the passengers that tested positive for influenza also had Covid-19. The influenza positive may have led the ship's medical team astray. 

 

And, of course, it is highly likely that there were a number of people floating around the ship that were asymptomatic or who only had very mild symptoms and thought they just had a slight cold. We'll never know. 

[DiamondFour]

43 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I would expect they did their very best otherwise why would they have taken samples from some passengers ready for testing?

 

It is possible that some of the passengers that tested positive for influenza also had Covid-19. The influenza positive may have led the ship's medical team astray. 

 

And, of course, it is highly likely that there were a number of people floating around the ship that were asymptomatic or who only had very mild symptoms and thought they just had a slight cold. We'll never know. 

Channel Nine News leaked some more declaration forms tonight that the Ruby Princess presented on arrival. They declared the number of sick passengers as over 100 and the number of passengers with high temperature over 38 degrees as 11. The ship did everything in its power.

 

The police are sniffing up the wrong rear end in regards to this. Princess has done everything by the book. I am sure that company has the money to afford a legal team that would put the amateurs on the NSW police force to shame. I would not be surprised if this costs the commissioner his job at the end of all this. If this makes it to the courts then the commissioner is toast. I wonder if he can be done for all his damaging defamatory, slanderous and malicious comments against Princess. Even if he did dare lay charges by the end of it the state could lose big time with a malicious prosecution case. The number of passengers from that cruise lining up to support Princess is amazing even after the deaths.

[OzKiwiJJ]

Princess is used to dealing with the litigious US market so I imagine they are used to keeping very good records, dotting every i, and crossing every t.

[The_Big_M]

7 hours ago, NSWP said:

Capt and dr allowed that to happen

 

Port authorities allowed that to happen.

 

What right would the ship doctor have to prevent a person from leaving the ship?

[The_Big_M]

6 hours ago, Pushka said:

It is the ships decision as to how much information they gathered initially to ascertain any situation on board. 

 

It's not. They are legally required to provide the correct information by the port authorities, it's not up to them to decide what they give.

 

And the evidence so far shows that health details were given by them as required.

[The_Big_M]

3 hours ago, DiamondFour said:

Of course they are. I could only imagine how the crew would feel through all of this.

 

Someone had a contact onboard one of the ships. They shared that many in the crew felt pretty badly about Australia, given the way they have been treated.

 

It's no surprise. It's an inhumane disgrace the way some politicians and administrators e.g. WA premier and NSW commissioner have acted towards law abiding businesses and people.

[Aus Traveller]

I wonder whether the investigation into the Ruby has been initiated by the NSW government mainly as a diversion. I am not making this suggestion as a political attack. 

 

The public already knew the basic facts: after passengers who disembarked from a cruise ship spread out to their homes, many were found to have COVID. Tragically 15 people have died. All of Australia is saddened and also somewhat angry at the beast that was let loose in our country, putting others at risk.

 

This tragedy happened because passengers disembarked before the tests on ill people on board were completed. People want to know why that happened. A week ago, after the NSW Premier received copies of emails between the ship and government authorities, she said that there was no need to blame anyone. Matters could have been left at that, a slight back-down by the government from its previous stance of blaming the ship. But no, now a full and expensive investigation has been launched. Why?

 

From following these events carefully, I believe responsibility lies with NSW Health and/or Border Force. I have found that government departments and politicians don't like to admit fault publicly. Public servants try to 'cover their butts' to keep their jobs and politicians always have their eye on the next election, even if it is a few years away.

 

People look for someone to blame and it is easier to blame 'the foreigner', in this case a foreign cruise ship. This is particularly easy for people who have never cruised or who don't like it (Surprisingly there are some of those!). This makes it easier for government officials to try to swing the blame back onto the ship's officers.

 

After details of communications between the ship and government officials have been revealed in the media, it would be difficult for an investigation to hide these. The NSW Premier might end up wishing she hadn't initiated a full-scale investigation.

 

[Aus Traveller]

16 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

What I want to know is why the media was there in the first place. Surely the handover of the black box could have been done discreetly. I imagine the wharf where the ship is docked is out of bounds so the media must have had special permission to be there. Grandstanding, what?

This is a good question: why was the media conveniently on hand, on a working dock, to take photos of the police 'raiding' the Ruby Princess?

 

Maybe they were tipped off by someone who wants to influence public thinking, to make the Ruby Princess appear more 'guilty'. It could be a senior official in NSW Health, Border Force, the Premier's office or the Commissioner's office.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

The public already knew the basic facts: after passengers who disembarked from a cruise ship spread out to their homes, many were found to have COVID. Tragically 15 people have died. All of Australia is saddened and also somewhat angry at the beast that was let loose in our country, putting others at risk.

 

The point that is being (deliberately?) overlooked is that the beast was already in our country, let loose by some of the thousands of people who flew in to Australia from Europe and the US.

[OzKiwiJJ]

To put it another way:

Australia has now identified over 6100 cases of the virus. Around 600 or so came from Ruby ie about 10%. Yet the media are treating it as if all the cases came from the ship and completely ignoring the other 90%.

[Aus Traveller]

44 minutes ago, By The Bay said:

No one is to blame.

 

According to Robert Redfield, the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 percent of people infected with the new coronavirus don't present any symptoms or fall ill but can still transmit the illness to others.

I agree with you that no-one is to blame for COVID getting onto the Ruby Princess. The person who had the virus, most likely wasn't aware of it. If the person had been diagnosed, they would have been in quarantine at home, with their name known to authorities. These authorities also had access to the passenger list from the Ruby. The person could have been asymptomatic or become sick after the ship left Sydney.

[Aus Traveller]

18 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

To put it another way:

Australia has now identified over 6100 cases of the virus. Around 600 or so came from Ruby ie about 10%. Yet the media are treating it as if all the cases came from the ship and completely ignoring the other 90%.

An example of what you are saying is that someone on this board said they heard a radio report regarding the American group i quarantine in the Barossa Valley. The report incorrectly linked  that infection to the Ruby Princess.

[OzKiwiJJ]

30 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

An example of what you are saying is that someone on this board said they heard a radio report regarding the American group i quarantine in the Barossa Valley. The report incorrectly linked  that infection to the Ruby Princess.

Yes, I saw that series of posts.

 

 

[Ondine]

Whenever I've come into port I usually hear an announcement that we are awaiting Clearance and then later that Clearance has been granted and we are free to disembark.  You cannot disembark until Clearance from the relevant authorities has been given.  This even applies when just visiting a port.  Paperwork has to be approved.

 

I would feel a lot better if it were not one NSW authority investigating another NSW authority.  Should be done by a Federal authority after all it involves passengers from all around Australia and various other countries.

 

And yes what do you do with "sick" passengers.  Make them stay on ships forever until they get better?  Ill doesn't necessarily mean they had COVID19.  Very small report in this mornings paper re the "raid" states that 9 Ruby crew members have tested positive, yet for days we have been told that 200 crew were ill.

[OzKiwiJJ]

5 minutes ago, Ondine said:

Very small report in this mornings paper re the "raid" states that 9 Ruby crew members have tested positive, yet for days we have been told that 200 crew were ill.

If influenza was also going around on the ship it is possible that 200 crew members were ill, just not of Covid-19 as the media would like us to think.

 

Like the number of passengers who visited the medical centre on the previous Ruby itinerary that the media tried to imply all had Covid-19 but, of course, there were no cases from that cruise. 

[ilikeanswers]

3 hours ago, By The Bay said:

According to Robert Redfield, the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 percent of people infected with the new coronavirus don't present any symptoms or fall ill but can still transmit the illness to others.

 

According to data coming out of Iceland which is one of a handful of countries testing anyone even if you have no symptoms they are reporting 50% are asymptomatic😱. 

[Aus Traveller]

A NSW Health Department report that states COVID-19 had not been identified on board before docking. The report 'justifies' allowing disembarkation of the passengers. Here is a relevant part:

 

(Quote) Transmission of COVID-19 amongst these passengers could not have been prevented by NSW Health staff. No cases of COVID-19 were identified on board the ship before it docked. The vast majority of these passengers reported they did not develop symptoms until after leaving the Ruby Princess. All passengers were advised to self-isolate for 14 days following disembarkation, which NSW Health has confirmed was provided by the Federal Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment. Probable secondary transmission has been limited to 11 confirmed cases as of 3 April.

 

International experience shows COVID-19 can rapidly spread among passengers if left on board, so self-isolation at home is a much safer option than leaving passengers on board. NSW Health had prepared plans in the event COVID-19 being identified on a cruise ship.  On this particular voyage, it was known that influenza activity had been identified on the ship.

 

Here is the link to the NSW Health Department report for anyone who wants to read it all

https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/20200403_01.aspx

[The_Big_M]

6 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

I don't agree that the investigation is a matter of police corruption. The politicians would have directed the police to investigate the Ruby Princess. Once the media started to question the handling of the matter by NSW Health and Border Force and they were blaming each other, maybe the Premier felt she had to prove these authorities weren't to blame. Politically, the matter would be toxic if they were.

 

 

I don't think the Minister should be directing the police what to investigate.. that's the whole point of separating the two and why earlier comments were made about why the Commissioner has been apparently toeing the political line.

 

Don't you remember the scandal last year around false political emails leaked last year by a Federal Minister against a councillor? 

 

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6517408/nsw-police-comm-referred-to-watchdog/?cs=14231

[The_Big_M]

4 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

I agree with you that no-one is to blame for COVID getting onto the Ruby Princess. The person who had the virus, most likely wasn't aware of it. If the person had been diagnosed, they would have been in quarantine at home, with their name known to authorities. These authorities also had access to the passenger list from the Ruby. The person could have been asymptomatic or become sick after the ship left Sydney.

 

Not necessarily. 

 

People entering at the airport who had symptoms were only told to 'stay at home' and not monitored. And that is if they even reported they had symptoms.

 

As has been seen, there are many who have symptoms but don't declare, or don't follow orders, both in the case of this coronavirus and generally with cruiseships. I daresay many a traveller from the US who has spent $10,000k would be unlikely to declare having reached Sydney even if they had something, not wanting all that to be lost/disrupted.

[The_Big_M]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

A NSW Health Department report that states COVID-19 had not been identified on board before docking. The report 'justifies' allowing disembarkation of the passengers. Here is a relevant part:

 

(Quote) Transmission of COVID-19 amongst these passengers could not have been prevented by NSW Health staff. No cases of COVID-19 were identified on board the ship before it docked. 

 

That's the cop out from them. They couldn't be identified beforehand as the ship legitimately could not test.

 

However, It would have been a simple matter for Health to hold the disembarkation using the samples the ship provided, while waiting for the test results to come through. Their duty of care was to do that.

 

So while the above is "true" it doesn't justify the outcome, and is misleading in what it ignores.

[Aus Traveller]

31 minutes ago, The_Big_M said:

 

I don't think the Minister should be directing the police what to investigate.. that's the whole point of separating the two and why earlier comments were made about why the Commissioner has been apparently toeing the political line.

For many years in Australia, senior public servants and the Police Commissioner have been employed under contracts and the appointees need to be acceptable to the government of the day. I don't believe that senior public servants and the Police Commissioner are totally independent from the government.😁

[Aus Traveller]

16 minutes ago, The_Big_M said:

That's the cop out from them. They couldn't be identified beforehand as the ship legitimately could not test.

However, It would have been a simple matter for Health to hold the disembarkation using the samples the ship provided, while waiting for the test results to come through. Their duty of care was to do that.

So while the above is "true" it doesn't justify the outcome, and is misleading in what it ignores.

Agreed. NSW Health is using the argument that 'COVID-19 couldn't be identified on board before it docked' to excuse why they let the Ruby Princess dock. However, this is a double-edged sword. They are admitting that the ship's medical team/captain had no way of knowing the virus was present on the ship. This is admitting that the staff of the Ruby Princess is off the hook.

 

Of course NSW Health's reason for allowing docking does not explain why they let passengers disembark before the tests were completed.