Ruby Princess police investigation

[Aus Traveller]

58 minutes ago, Porky55 said:

Yep - we had these as well, 24th Feb departure -  so they would have been in cabins on the cruise departing 8th March.

We also had one about the coronavirus from the Commonwealth Health Department. This was on 23rd Feb Sea Princess cruise to NZ.

[Aus Traveller]

59 minutes ago, BRANDEE said:

Neither my husband nor I..brother or sister in law have been tested.

Regarding health matters on the ship.  First this is our 30+ cruise.  It was one of the cleanest ever.  Constant cleaning.  Constant reminder to cover sneezes, coughs. 

After that we constantly received paper work from Australian Border Force and Australian Department of Health on our travel restrictions and all about covid and how to protect ourselves.  I still have all the flyers ..6 different ones. 

If someone came off the prior cruise with covid than I would like to sue the health department for allowing us to board.  If someone was "just" sick..lets be real..that happens and I'm an adult and everyone knows that when you travel people do get sick sometimes.  

Thanks very much BRANDEE for your detailed post. I quoted some of your post so you would be alerted that I responded.  

 

Sorry - I thought you had been tested for COVID. The fact that none of your party of four was tested even though your doctor believes you are the virus, proves the point I have been saying about the US - that the rate of infection is much, much higher than the authorities realise. I am not implying they are hiding the numbers.

 

I am not surprised at the constant cleaning on the ship or the reminders about coughing and washing hands. It is interesting that you received a health questionnaire before arrival in Wellington. I have never seen that during a cruise and we didn't receive one two weeks earlier before stopping in Wellington.

 

Interesting that you received so many information sheets. I wonder if the passengers who claimed "they weren't told" simply threw the sheets away. Or, maybe they mean they were not told COVID was on board, but of course, no-one knew because no cruise ships at the time had test kits for COVID.

 

I have been following the matter very carefully, as you can probably tell from my many posts. 🙂I have not read from any authoritative source that there were confirmed cases of COVID on the previous cruise. It has not been reported that any passengers on the 24th Feb cruise later tested positive. It has been reported that there were cases of flu. The reason boarding on your cruise was delayed was for NSW Health to complete tests on ill people from that cruise to rule out the possibility of COVID. I have seen video of passengers lined up on the 8th, cheering when it was announced that NSW Health had cleared the ship for them to board. As you mention, while boarding was delayed, the crew were working, deep cleaning the ship.

 

I sincerely hope you, your husband, brother and sister in law, are well on the way to recovery.🙂 Maybe there is one ray of sunshine for you - you are living in a 'hot-spot' for COVID, but you four have had the virus so are protected. That mightn't seem much consolation when you are probably not back to full health, but it is something. 🙂

[Porky55]

3 hours ago, BRANDEE said:

If someone came off the prior cruise with covid than I would like to sue the health department for allowing us to board.  If someone was "just" sick..lets be real..that happens and I'm an adult and everyone knows that when you travel people do get sick sometimes. 

We were on the cruise before you 24/2 - 8/3, agree with you about the ship, very clean, well maintained and strict on hygiene.

We did have a bit of coughing going round though and that was the hold up for you boarding - NSW Health boarded the ship very early on the 8th and tested nearly 600 of us. Took our temps, did a quick physical then talked to us about CV19 and social distancing etc . 14 day isolation hadn’t started then but they did recommend it.

To date -  no passengers from that particular cruise has had Coronavirus

All the best to you and your family, stay safe and take care.

Rose

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Porky55

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, Porky55 said:

We were on the cruise before you 24/2 - 8/3, agree with you about the ship, very clean, well maintained and strict on hygiene.

We did have a bit of coughing going round though and that was the hold up for you boarding - NSW Health boarded the ship very early on the 8th and tested nearly 600 of us. Took our temps, did a quick physical then talked to us about CV19 and social distancing etc . 14 day isolation hadn’t started then but they did recommend it.

To date -  no passengers from that particular cruise has had Coronavirus

All the best to you and your family, stay safe and take care.

Rose

 

Rose, if you and BRANDEE answer the questionnaire from NSW Police, it will help them get to the truth of events on the Ruby Princess, rather than the sensationalist rubbish in the media.

[BRANDEE]

7 hours ago, Pushka said:

Interesting article  I don't know the accuracy. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-carnival-cruise-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR1d4n7ryPsKY7Lav_lAkjP7r4BkNFCS8anFCMOPRj2fapkYJSgaAML3V3g

Thanks for the article..Love the last line describing cruise customers being given free fcc for cancelled cruises as rats and cocaine. I wonder what percentage of the cruise ships sail under CCL? Of course, knowingly allowing passengers to board a ship with covid is criminal. Expecting a business for profit to protect the consumer is a bit naive, but I really find it hard to believe that Carnival willingly put passengers in a dire situation.  However, I have been wrong about many things in my life.

When I left NY for my dream vacation at the end of February there was under 5 cases of covid in NYC. Never in my wildest dream did I see 700 New Yorkers dying per day. I actually took n95 masks to Australia with me for protection against the smoke due to bushfires..once home I gave most of them to the nurse in our family, she had no supplies and is in the NYC hospital with the highest covid cases..She is overwhelmed and burnt out..as are all the health care workers here..so very sad.

[BRANDEE]

7 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

Thanks very much BRANDEE for your detailed post. I quoted some of your post so you would be alerted that I responded.  

 

Sorry - I thought you had been tested for COVID. The fact that none of your party of four was tested even though your doctor believes you are the virus, proves the point I have been saying about the US - that the rate of infection is much, much higher than the authorities realise. I am not implying they are hiding the numbers.

 

I am not surprised at the constant cleaning on the ship or the reminders about coughing and washing hands. It is interesting that you received a health questionnaire before arrival in Wellington. I have never seen that during a cruise and we didn't receive one two weeks earlier before stopping in Wellington.

 

Interesting that you received so many information sheets. I wonder if the passengers who claimed "they weren't told" simply threw the sheets away. Or, maybe they mean they were not told COVID was on board, but of course, no-one knew because no cruise ships at the time had test kits for COVID.

 

I have been following the matter very carefully, as you can probably tell from my many posts. 🙂I have not read from any authoritative source that there were confirmed cases of COVID on the previous cruise. It has not been reported that any passengers on the 24th Feb cruise later tested positive. It has been reported that there were cases of flu. The reason boarding on your cruise was delayed was for NSW Health to complete tests on ill people from that cruise to rule out the possibility of COVID. I have seen video of passengers lined up on the 8th, cheering when it was announced that NSW Health had cleared the ship for them to board. As you mention, while boarding was delayed, the crew were working, deep cleaning the ship.

 

I sincerely hope you, your husband, brother and sister in law, are well on the way to recovery.🙂 Maybe there is one ray of sunshine for you - you are living in a 'hot-spot' for COVID, but you four have had the virus so are protected. That mightn't seem much consolation when you are probably not back to full health, but it is something. 🙂

I don't understand how any passenger can say we were not given any information regarding covid. We were NOT told it was on or suspected to be on the ship, but on the bed at night it was right there..next to the chocolate heart..a flyer about covid. It was giving us information on what to do once off the ship and how to protect ourselves once home. Three flyers regarding covid from the health department and three flyers about entry to Australia from the Border Force. Those are ones I still have.

[ilikeanswers]

1 hour ago, BRANDEE said:

Expecting a business for profit to protect the consumer is a bit naive, but I really find it hard to believe that Carnival willingly put passengers in a dire situation. 

 

Reading the article I didn't get that impression it was a deliberate misconduct more that CCL made a lot of mistakes, was too slow and didn't seem to have a clear direction of how to handle the growing situation. To me the journalistic impression was more incompetence then anything malicious.

[MFR]

Hello Aus Traveller.   I was the person (from the March 8 Ruby cruise )  who reported that I was Covid positive and my husband could not be tested because he had no symptoms.   Luckily I only had a mild case and he never got sick at all.  Given that we are both 71 we consider ourselves very lucky to have gotten out of this so easily.  As I said before,  we had expected screening on disembarkation and at the airports.   There was none, in Sydney,  on arrival in San Francisco and in Boston.  I felt that the Australian health authorities wanted to send us all on our way ASAP rather than be stuck with another quarantine situation on land or on the ship like with the Diamond.  There is so much news about covid everywhere here that the Ruby story has never hit the major media,  although that may change after the Bloomberg article.

[The_Big_M]

11 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I just saw an interview with the man in charge of the investigation and he made it very clear the investigation will be four months if not shorter. He doesn't believe a longer investigation would be of any use and has no intention of prolonging the investigation. 

 

Isn't four months already very substantial? 

 

Given it's already a month passed already, so really 5 months?

 

And given they were able to wrap up the issue in the aged care centre basically in a day and say "No we don't need to dwell on this further as it appears to be an honest mistake..."

 

[christodan]

Interesting read. The title of the article is completely wrong of course. Other inaccuracies such as the ship was deemed medium risk is there. It was deemed  low risk as I saw the Dr Chant from NSW health  on TV say that herself.

But I am glad they are pointing out that people from the gov here are putting lives at risk by sending the ship out of Australian waters. 

Also at the end of the article  they would like to hear from anyone who knows more about this. It would be good if anyone who was on it gave their side of the story which could give more balance.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/company-knew-virus-was-running-rampant-on-ruby-princess-court-told-20200417-p54kx0.html

[Pushka]

16 minutes ago, christodan said:

Interesting read. The title of the article is completely wrong of course. Other inaccuracies such as the ship was deemed medium risk is there. It was deemed  low risk as I saw the Dr Chant from NSW health  on TV say that herself.

But I am glad they are pointing out that people from the gov here are putting lives at risk by sending the ship out of Australian waters. 

Also at the end of the article  they would like to hear from anyone who knows more about this. It would be good if anyone who was on it gave their side of the story which could give more balance.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/company-knew-virus-was-running-rampant-on-ruby-princess-court-told-20200417-p54kx0.html

In reality though, the pattern of health with Covid is that if you pass the 8 - 10 day point after infection and have shown consistent improvement then you are past the risk period for Covid complications. At this time unless there are continued new infections then all crew members are past that time and therefore fit for sale. There will be a late medical check prior to the cruise departing to ensure there are no more new infections. 
 

As more international passengers are being shown to have been impacted by this cruise then the risk increases for Carnival to be sued. 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Pushka

[Aus Traveller]

8 hours ago, BRANDEE said:

Thanks for the article..Love the last line describing cruise customers being given free fcc for cancelled cruises as rats and cocaine. I wonder what percentage of the cruise ships sail under CCL? Of course, knowingly allowing passengers to board a ship with covid is criminal. Expecting a business for profit to protect the consumer is a bit naive, but I really find it hard to believe that Carnival willingly put passengers in a dire situation.  However, I have been wrong about many things in my life.

When I left NY for my dream vacation at the end of February there was under 5 cases of covid in NYC. Never in my wildest dream did I see 700 New Yorkers dying per day. I actually took n95 masks to Australia with me for protection against the smoke due to bushfires..once home I gave most of them to the nurse in our family, she had no supplies and is in the NYC hospital with the highest covid cases..She is overwhelmed and burnt out..as are all the health care workers here..so very sad.

The number of cruise ships at the end of 2018 was 314. Breaking this down into ownership: CCL 103; Royal Caribbean 42; Norwegian 26; other (including small expedition ships) 143.

 

I haven't seen any cases at all, in any cruise line, where passengers have boarded a ship that had previously had a case of COVID. I agree that the company would be liable if they knowingly allowed that to happen.

 

You mention that when you left home at the end of February, there were under five known cases of COVID in NYC. I suspect there were more. For the virus to explode through the community the way it has, I suspect there were more cases, earlier than was known.

 

In Australia, for quite a while from the first cases (Chinese tourists from Wuhan) anyone who tested positive was hospitalized, even if they were not very sick. We have roughly one-tenth the population of the US. Up to now Australia has had 6,522 cases with 65 deaths. With every single case, a team of investigators works to find out where they contracted it, and to trace all of their contacts who are then put into quarantine. The infection rate is dropping considerably, but our lock-down measures are still expected to continue for months - up to six months, but easing during that time. There is a chance the virus can be eliminated within Australia, but new arrivals will have to be quarantined.

 

Early on, our medical system started preparing for a rush of COVID cases, but this hasn't happened. There is now talk that elective surgery that had been cancelled, will be able to go ahead because the hospitals aren't full. Nurses have been stood down because there isn't enough work!!

 

When I see the number of infections and deaths in NYC my heart goes out to you all. I cannot imagine the stress that the medical people including your relative are living under. I hope that she keeps well.🙂

[By The Bay]

12 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

Rose, if you and BRANDEE answer the questionnaire from NSW Police, it will help them get to the truth of events on the Ruby Princess, rather than the sensationalist rubbish in the media.

An article about the Police questionnaire from WA today website.

 

Survey sent to passengers on past two Ruby Princess cruises

By Lucy Cormack

A survey sent to more than 5000 passengers who travelled on the past two voyages taken by the Ruby Princess cruise ship includes questions about cleaning on board the ship and whether there were "announcements" about COVID-19.

The passenger questionnaire asks questions such as, "Did you see or were you aware of any extra cleaning taking place?"

 

More than 5000 passengers who travelled on the past two Ruby Princess cruise ship voyages were provided with this questionnaire. Credit:NSW Police

Other questions ask about medical treatment on board, dining times and whether there were "any announcements made about ways to avoid contracting any illness such as COVID-19."

Passengers are also asked to confirm if they took any offshore tours in ports along the route and whether they saw any passengers or crew members "being separated or quarantined".

The goal of the survey is to "triage" people, State Crime Commander Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said on Friday morning.

"This will allow us to zero in on elements of the cruise that we are interested in... [to go] hand in hand with the examination of the [black box] and ship-to-shore communications, which are critical in terms of the second cruise," Assistant Commissioner Smith said.

Edited April 17, 2020 by By The Bay

[Aus Traveller]

7 hours ago, MFR said:

Hello Aus Traveller.   I was the person (from the March 8 Ruby cruise )  who reported that I was Covid positive and my husband could not be tested because he had no symptoms.   Luckily I only had a mild case and he never got sick at all.  Given that we are both 71 we consider ourselves very lucky to have gotten out of this so easily.  As I said before,  we had expected screening on disembarkation and at the airports.   There was none, in Sydney,  on arrival in San Francisco and in Boston.  I felt that the Australian health authorities wanted to send us all on our way ASAP rather than be stuck with another quarantine situation on land or on the ship like with the Diamond.  There is so much news about covid everywhere here that the Ruby story has never hit the major media,  although that may change after the Bloomberg article.

Thanks for your post. I recalled that someone from the US had said they were tested positive after arriving home but that their husband couldn't get the test. I mistakenly thought it was BRANDEE. Up to now in Australia, not everyone can get the test either, but if they have returned from overseas, or had close contact with a positive case, they qualify. Australia's testing capacity has increased, and tests are now more widely available.

 

I hear what you are saying about the Australian authorities wanting to send you on your way, but I don't agree. I don't believe they  had any idea COVID was on board the Ruby Princess, and that was their mistake - a serious one. Maybe they relied on the tests done in Wellington.

 

If NSW Health had thought there could be COVID on board, I am sure they would have held the passengers on board as they did on the 8th March and as Victoria did the previous day with the Golden. After tests came back positive, all the passengers would have been tested, with the positive cases taken to hospitals. Other Australian passengers would have been quarantined in hotels, not kept on the ship. I don't know what they would have done with the 900 odd overseas passengers. The NSW Health Dept would not have wanted people spreading the virus throughout the country - what eventually happened.

[Aus Traveller]

8 hours ago, BRANDEE said:

I don't understand how any passenger can say we were not given any information regarding covid. We were NOT told it was on or suspected to be on the ship, but on the bed at night it was right there..next to the chocolate heart..a flyer about covid. It was giving us information on what to do once off the ship and how to protect ourselves once home. Three flyers regarding covid from the health department and three flyers about entry to Australia from the Border Force. Those are ones I still have.

To have tests done in Wellington, the Medical team on the board must have been concerned there could be COVID on board. As we know, the tests came back negative. I can't see that there would have been any benefit prior to Wellington for you to be advised that there was concern that there could be COVID on board, just as there was no need to tell you later that the tests were negative. Clearly from information from you and from others, authorities on the ship kept advising passengers to focus on health measures.

[BRANDEE]

31 minutes ago, By The Bay said:

An article about the Police questionnaire from WA today website.

 

Survey sent to passengers on past two Ruby Princess cruises

By Lucy Cormack

A survey sent to more than 5000 passengers who travelled on the past two voyages taken by the Ruby Princess cruise ship includes questions about cleaning on board the ship and whether there were "announcements" about COVID-19.

The passenger questionnaire asks questions such as, "Did you see or were you aware of any extra cleaning taking place?"

 

More than 5000 passengers who travelled on the past two Ruby Princess cruise ship voyages were provided with this questionnaire. Credit:NSW Police

Other questions ask about medical treatment on board, dining times and whether there were "any announcements made about ways to avoid contracting any illness such as COVID-19."

Passengers are also asked to confirm if they took any offshore tours in ports along the route and whether they saw any passengers or crew members "being separated or quarantined".

The goal of the survey is to "triage" people, State Crime Commander Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said on Friday morning.

"This will allow us to zero in on elements of the cruise that we are interested in... [to go] hand in hand with the examination of the [black box] and ship-to-shore communications, which are critical in terms of the second cruise," Assistant Commissioner Smith said.

 

So far I do not know anyone from the Mar 8th sailing who got this survey..I am on a site for passengers only from the Mar 8th cruise and no one has answered that they got it.

[christodan]

1 hour ago, Pushka said:

As more international passengers are being shown to have been impacted by this cruise then the risk increases for Carnival to be sued.

 

I really can't see how they can sue if the ship followed official advice from NSW Health. If anything, they could try to sue NSW Health, but  the defense will be that the virus is new and nobody knew at that time how best to deal with it. And that is a fair point. I think the people who are trying to sue are really clutching at straws as it wasn't negligence on anyone's behalf at the point, except perhaps NSW health should have waited for the test results to come back before they let the passengers off. But as Dr Chant pointed out the ship was considered low risk at the time. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

38 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

To have tests done in Wellington, the Medical team on the board must have been concerned there could be COVID on board. As we know, the tests came back negative. I can't see that there would have been any benefit prior to Wellington for you to be advised that there was concern that there could be COVID on board, just as there was no need to tell you later that the tests were negative. Clearly from information from you and from others, authorities on the ship kept advising passengers to focus on health measures.

Also they would have had to be very careful about mentioning things like Covid-19 in case a panic starts. They would have had to walk a fine line encouraging passengers to look out for flu-type illnesses and to practise good hygiene habits, especially as they only had suspicions that the virus may have been brought on board and had no way of confirming it. 

 

I think they did the best they could under the circumstances, and even if they could have done something differently there would always be people who would not have listened, who would have complained bitterly, and demanded compensation. 

[DiamondFour]

Even though I think it is a police stitch up job like no other the survey presents problems.

1. No one will be honest to start with. We know from history people will lie about being sick just to get on holiday.

2. Rumours, rumours and more rumours. We all hear them on the ship and most of the time they are just baseless.

3. Alcohol. Some people wont remember a thing.

 

Going on at the time of the cruise Australia was considered low risk and the ship would have known this. Despite the chinese communist party lying and being described as lying about it by multiple world governments combined with the World Health Organisation playing it down, there was no reason to even suspect that virus was on the ship. The odds were low but does that mean Princess should have been doing more than what the WHO and NSW Health and other government departments were doing in their response?

 

I am sticking by Princess in this and they have my 100% support and loyalty and always will. Even if charges are laid against officers, crew or the cruise line I would still support it and always believe it to be a stitch up job.

[Porky55]

1 hour ago, By The Bay said:

More than 5000 passengers who travelled on the past two Ruby Princess cruise ship voyages were provided with this questionnaire. Credit:NSW Police

We were on the cruise prior to the one being investigated, so we are two of the 5,500. To date we have NOT received anything from ANY authority to complete / fill out / answer / give our opinion on!!!  I don’t think BRANDEE has either.

You actually have more information than we do, and to my knowledge you weren’t on either cruise?
So, until we have our questionnaire  this will continue to be a farce.

If  BRANDEE and all other passengers on the “cruise under investigation” arent spoken to it will most definitely be a crime.
 

Edited April 18, 2020 by Porky55

[OzKiwiJJ]

Just now, Porky55 said:

We were on the cruise prior to the one being investigated, so we are two of the 5,500. To date we have NOT received anything from ANY authority to complete / fill out / answer / give our opinion on!!!  I don’t think BRANDEE has either.

You actually have more information than we do, and to my knowledge you weren’t on either cruise.
So, until we have our questionnaire  this will continue to be a farce.

If  BRANDEE and all other passengers on the “cruise under investigation” arent spoken to it will most definitely be a crime.
 

If you and BRANDEE don't receive questionaires you should contact the Australian media to tell them that the investigation is suspect. I'm sure they'd love another scandal to hang off that cruise, although they could be in the pockets of the pollies and suppress info like that.

[Porky55]

53 minutes ago, BRANDEE said:

 

So far I do not know anyone from the Mar 8th sailing who got this survey..I am on a site for passengers only from the Mar 8th cruise and no one has answered that they got it.

Just answered the same thing BRANDEE - same for prior cruise, nothing yet either.
But thanks to By The Bay and the Media we know what it looks like now!!

Edited April 18, 2020 by Porky55

[OzKiwiJJ]

One of the questions that should be / have been on that questionnaire is "Did you have any type of respiratory illness on the cruise that you did not report to the medical centre. If so, did you confine yourself to your cabin whilst feeling ill or did you continue to enjoy the ship's activities as normal?."

[Blackduck59]

2 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

If you and BRANDEE don't receive questionaires you should contact the Australian media to tell them that the investigation is suspect. I'm sure they'd love another scandal to hang off that cruise, although they could be in the pockets of the pollies and suppress info like that.

Wouldn't it be better to contact NSW Police? Give them the opportunity to do a proper investigation. I'm not sure there is any media outlet that feels a duty to report the truth anymore. They pick a position then report out of context to support their narrative, it's so sad.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 minute ago, Blackduck59 said:

Wouldn't it be better to contact NSW Police? Give them the opportunity to do a proper investigation. I'm not sure there is any media outlet that feels a duty to report the truth anymore. They pick a position then report out of context to support their narrative, it's so sad.

Yes, but if the NSW Police is cherry-picking who it sends the questionaires to then it would be pointless to contact them. I agree that the media don't report the truth but they do like reporting anything that is sensationalism, and hints of irregularities in the send out of the questionaires would probably be sensationalist enough. 🙄

 

Argh! I'm becoming too cynical. I'm heading back onboard the virtual cruise. It's much more fun.