THE RUBY PRINCESS MYSTERY
The words Ruby Princess will forever be associated with the single largest source of Covid-19 in Australia, including at least 11 deaths, and as the genesis of a cluster of cases in New Zealand.
How the virus got on board will undoubtedly be the subject of studies and reviews in future years, and the incident may well lead to calls for changes in the way New Zealand screens and monitors cruise ship passengers and crew.
The Ruby Princess is a huge ship. It’s 290 metres long and capable of carrying 3080 passengers and 1100 crew. Built in 2008 for Princess Cruises at a cost of US$400 million, it spent the first 11 years of its life based in Los Angeles, making cruises to Hawaii, Mexico and along the California coast.
From late last year, the ship was based in Australia and began cruises around the Pacific and New Zealand.
On the morning of March 8, it arrived in Sydney after a 12-day cruise around New Zealand. Recent reports suggest there were passengers on that trip displaying flu-like symptoms.
Despite that, 2700 passengers boarded the ship and late that day began what was to have been another 12-day cruise around New Zealand.
The ship’s first stop was Fiordland on March 11. Before entering New Zealand waters, any ship must declare there is no-one on board with a quarantinable disease or other public health threat.
This was done to the satisfaction of the Southern District Health Board, and the ship entered our waters.
From Fiordland it travelled to Dunedin (on March 12), where local public health staff were told there were three ill people on board; one with gastroenteritis, one with influenza A, and one with an upper respiratory illness and in isolation.
While in Dunedin, the ship picked up a crew member who had flown from northern Italy. It was agreed this person would be isolated for 14 days.
The ship visited Akaroa on March 13, with no reported illness, then berthed at Wellington on March 14 – the same day the Government declared that, from midnight, no more cruise ships would be allowed to enter NZ waters (though those already here could complete their journeys).
While docked in Wellington, the ship’s doctor sought clearance for its next stop, Napier. The doctor told the Hawke’s Bay medical officer of health there were several people on board with flu-like symptoms. All but one had tested positive for influenza A. The medical officer of health told the doctor that, unless the person who tested negative for flu also tested negative for Covid-19, the ship would not be granted clearance to disembark in Napier. In light of that, the ship’s doctor sought urgent testing of five people.
Wellington Regional Public Health and the ESR laboratory in Wellington undertook the tests. These were negative, and the ship was allowed to proceed to Napier.
A Hawke’s Bay DHB spokeswoman last week told Stuff that there was no reason to believe the ship’s staff ‘‘withheld or misconstrued any information’’.
What we know now is that, despite the negative tests and despite the declarations made by the ship’s staff, there was definitely Covid-19 on the Ruby Princess when it berthed at Napier on March 15.
We knew that first when we heard that several ill passengers who disembarked in Sydney on March 19 tested positive for the virus.
Then we learned that a Napierbased tour guide who had accompanied passengers around Hawke’s Bay had tested positive. Since then seven other local people have tested positive, six of whom are in a rest home, and the ‘‘cluster’’ linked to the ship’s visit stands at 16. That is made up of six Kiwis who were passengers, four who were local guides or drivers, and the six in the rest home.
The situation in Australia is far worse. On completing its shortened cruise (having canned visits to Tauranga and the Bay of Islands), passengers were allowed to disembark and return home, or to wherever they pleased. Many were carrying the virus, and the ship is now regarded as the single largest cause of Covid-19 in Australia.
At least 662 people linked to the cruise have been diagnosed with Covid-19, and at least 11 have died.
The case has prompted a scrap between the ship’s owner, Carnival Cruises, and Australian federal and state authorities about what was and wasn’t declared, whether the ship should have been allowed to dock in Sydney, and whether passengers should have been quarantined.
On Sunday, New South Wales Commissioner of Police Mike Fuller announced an investigation was under way. It was the only way he could get to the bottom of whether biosecurity laws were broken, he said. ‘‘There seems to be absolute discrepancies between the information provided by Carnival and what I would see is the benchmark for the laws that the federal government and the state government put in place in terms of protecting Australians from cruise ships when coronavirus had started.’’
Which brings us to the question of whether New Zealand should undertake a similar investigation. The process we use at present to determine whether to grant clearance to a cruise ship depends largely on a level of trust. We trust that passengers who feel ill will inform the ship doctor, and that the doctor will inform the local medical officer of health.
We also know now that a carrier of a potentially devastating virus such as Covid-19 may not appear sufficiently ill to raise any concerns.
In light of this, it was put to the
Ministry of Health late last month that a review of that process might be in order. A spokesman replied: ‘‘No.’’
In the Ruby Princess case, the passengers with flu-like illnesses were tested and found to be negative, and ‘‘there is no feasible system that will pick up pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic travellers’’, he said.
But when experts such as Professor Michael Baker say cruise ships are ‘‘notorious for outbreaks of viral infection’’, and that the industry may come under closer scrutiny in future, it is hard to believe stricter measures won’t be put in place, either on the monitoring carried out by ship doctors, or the level of declaration required by local public health authorities.
‘‘[Cruise ships] are famous for this vulnerability, and it goes without saying that the passengers are often older, more vulnerable people, so I think this will be a major question post-pandemic,’’ Baker said.
A police spokeswoman said yesterday there were no plans to investigate the Ruby Princess matter.
We may never know how the virus got on board the cruise ship, although at his daily briefing yesterday director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said the virus was believed to have been on the vessel when it left Sydney on March 8.
The Ministry of Health and Health Minister David Clark have been approached for comment.
it is hard to believe stricter measures won’t be put in place, either on the monitoring carried out by ship doctors, or the level of declaration required by local public health authorities.