Ruby Princess

[NSWP]

1 hour ago, BRANDEE said:

Yes, we passed Chinatown when on the tour bus.  Guess every town has a Chinatown. 

That part of Sydney has thousands of Asians, many chinese students.

[NSWP]

1 hour ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Exactly, the international borders were still open and Border Force and NSW Health were passing the buck back and forth as to who shold do temp testing for arrivals. "Not our problem"! Grrrrr!

Therein was the problem, nsw health and border force, key players and incompetents.

[NSWP]

1 hour ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Actually Chinatown is only a small part of it now. That really only encompassed a couple of blocks down by Central. 

They have spread.

[NSWP]

31 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

The advice about M&Ms is crazy. You can bring as much chocolate and sweets as you like into the country. Open packets don't make any difference. The main restrictions here relate to meat products and honey. It is surprising how much food and similar items can be brought legally into the country. However, the advice is to declare it. We once had a whole lot of foodstuffs (the reason is irrelevant). I just wrote a list of 12 or more items with, beside each item, where I got it. The Quarantine Officer just looked down the list and said "All OK".

 

I have heard Cruise Directors stating emphatically that pax cannot take wooden items into Australia. Totally wrong. Wooden items will be inspected to see if there are borers in the timber.

Choclates dont have to be declared this days.

 

[Aus Traveller]

49 minutes ago, NSWP said:

Remember a lot of Americans were on Ruby. It is written.

The COVID infection onto the Ruby could have come from the UK or Europe. COVID was running around Europe fairly early. My DIL's sister arrived back into Aust on 7th March from France and was diagnosed with COVID. Luckily she did not infect anyone else. She was unwell for months and this is a very fit 46 year old.

[NSWP]

11 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

The COVID infection onto the Ruby could have come from the UK or Europe. COVID was running around Europe fairly early. My DIL's sister arrived back into Aust on 7th March from France and was diagnosed with COVID. Luckily she did not infect anyone else. She was unwell for months and this is a very fit 46 year old.

There were Americans on a wine tour in South Australia who had covid and boarded Ruby with it. A group of about 20. They gave it to some winery staff.

 

It is written.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2021 by NSWP

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, NSWP said:

They have spread.

Which is great as far as I'm concerned - more really good Asian restaurants to try, everything from traditional (but you might have to convince them you want to order from the "real" menu) to modern fusion. We found a wonderful restaurant opposite St Andrews Cathedral, fantastic modern Asian fusion (peking duck roti rolls are to die for). Then we discovered there was an outlet near us at Macquarie Center. 

[NSWP]

6 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Which is great as far as I'm concerned - more really good Asian restaurants to try, everything from traditional (but you might have to convince them you want to order from the "real" menu) to modern fusion. We found a wonderful restaurant opposite St Andrews Cathedral, fantastic modern Asian fusion (peking duck roti rolls are to die for). Then we discovered there was an outlet near us at Macquarie Center. 

Not forgetting..i have to get there yet.

Edited February 13, 2021 by NSWP

[OzKiwiJJ]

45 minutes ago, NSWP said:

Not forgetting..i have to get there yet.

Absolutely!

[BRANDEE]

7 hours ago, NSWP said:

But Valentines day here is for lovers, not for  kids! What is going on Brandee!

My grandchildren are the Loves of my Life!  Okay their grandpa too! Even their parents, but nothing like the smiles from those kids 🥰

[MMDown Under]

16 hours ago, BRANDEE said:

Speaking of chocolate..I made home made chocolate hearts for my grandchildren for Valentine's Day.  I have to get to bed so I can get up bright and early to deliver them before the next snow storm arrives. Happy Valentine's Day and stay safe my friends!

Aren't you a loving grandmother!  Hope you got the hearts delivered before the next snow storm.  NY has been copping heavy snowstorms lately.  

[robncruise]

On 2/13/2021 at 6:35 PM, Aus Traveller said:

Your husband contracted COVID on the Ruby, but the question is where did it originate. We did not have the virus in the community here at that time.

 

I doubt that it originated among the crew members. They had been on the ship for some time and if one of them had COVID, it would have been cases on the previous cruise and it would have been widespread through the crew, rather than just a handful having it at the end of your cruise when 700+ pax had it.

Just want to say that there was virus in the  NSW community at the time of the 8th March departure of Ruby Princess. NSW Health puts out a daily media briefing  health.nsw.gov.au/news.

On 8 March there were 38 confirmed cases and 488 cases under investigation. On 10 March there were 61 cases and 1008 under investigation. There were confirmed cases associated with  Ryde Hospital , Dorothy Henderson Lodge and also another retirement home and sadly fatalities at at least one of these rest homes.   So it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the virus was transmitted  onto the Ruby Princess by  a local.  There was a large number of very elderly passengers on that cruise.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, robncruise said:

Just want to say that there was virus in the  NSW community at the time of the 8th March departure of Ruby Princess. NSW Health puts out a daily media briefing  health.nsw.gov.au/news.

On 8 March there were 38 confirmed cases and 488 cases under investigation. On 10 March there were 61 cases and 1008 under investigation. There were confirmed cases associated with  Ryde Hospital , Dorothy Henderson Lodge and also another retirement home and sadly fatalities at at least one of these rest homes.   So it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the virus was transmitted  onto the Ruby Princess by  a local.  There was a large number of very elderly passengers on that cruise.

Please cite your source. Those statistics do not match up with what I've seen, and the Ryde Hospital, Dorothy Henderson etc cases were definitely after Ruby arrived after her last voyage.

 

 

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, robncruise said:

Just want to say that there was virus in the  NSW community at the time of the 8th March departure of Ruby Princess. NSW Health puts out a daily media briefing  health.nsw.gov.au/news.

On 8 March there were 38 confirmed cases and 488 cases under investigation. On 10 March there were 61 cases and 1008 under investigation. There were confirmed cases associated with  Ryde Hospital , Dorothy Henderson Lodge and also another retirement home and sadly fatalities at at least one of these rest homes.   So it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the virus was transmitted  onto the Ruby Princess by  a local.  There was a large number of very elderly passengers on that cruise.

The Dorothy Henderson Lodge is a nursing home. Is the other facility you mention also a nursing home? Although there is the possibility of transmission, I don't think residents of a nursing home would be going on a cruise. Residents of retirement homes or villages are well and fit enough to care for themselves, but to qualify to go into a nursing home, a person has to be quite frail.

[robncruise]

22 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Please cite your source. Those statistics do not match up with what I've seen, and the Ryde Hospital, Dorothy Henderson etc cases were definitely after Ruby arrived after her last voyage.

 

 

I did quote the source but sorry do not know how to create a link

google      health.nsw.gov.au/news   there is a media release for every day since covid struck  and media releases going back many years.   The site refers to cases at these institutions   prior to Ruby departing on March 8. Click on each day from 3/ 4 march and you can see the daily case growth.  Ryde Hospital is a general hospital.  Some / a staff was infected from there and staff from there attended a medical conference with staff from another hospital. All the details are given on this site.   Can't possibly say where the infection on the ship was acquired but I can say there were many frail and infirm passengers on board .   Many family multi generational groups..

[OzKiwiJJ]

Thanks. For some reason I though all that happened during the lockdown period, which was after Ruby returned. Maybe I'm getting mixed up with some other rest home outbreaks. The stats I've seen show very few daily cases up until after Ruby left on that cruise, a total of 40 cases all up by that date. The numbers started ramping up while she was in NZ, then really jumped a few days after her return. Given the numbers I think there is a higher chance that the virus was brought on to Ruby by an overseas visitor.

 

I use the covidlive.com.au website which gets verified data from all the states and presents it in various tables. Each table has a little arrow to the right of the name which expands that box to show the full history. Unfortunately the table that shows the split between locally acquired and overseas acquires cases only goes back as far as 23rd March ie after Ruby returned and the numbers were ramping up.

 

[robncruise]

10 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Thanks. For some reason I though all that happened during the lockdown period, which was after Ruby returned. Maybe I'm getting mixed up with some other rest home outbreaks. The stats I've seen show very few daily cases up until after Ruby left on that cruise, a total of 40 cases all up by that date. The numbers started ramping up while she was in NZ, then really jumped a few days after her return. Given the numbers I think there is a higher chance that the virus was brought on to Ruby by an overseas visitor.

 

I use the covidlive.com.au website which gets verified data from all the states and presents it in various tables. Each table has a little arrow to the right of the name which expands that box to show the full history. Unfortunately the table that shows the split between locally acquired and overseas acquires cases only goes back as far as 23rd March ie after Ruby returned and the numbers were ramping up.

 

I think you would find the NSW health site interesting reading .  Only reports NSW cases which  shows the virus was already in the community before the Ruby left Sydney.  Read the entries from 4 March on when the early cases were being reported. Although the no. of confirmed cases were not very large there were a high no of cases being investigated and on 6 march two workers at the Dorothy Henderson Lodge tested positive.

[BRANDEE]

5 hours ago, robncruise said:

I think you would find the NSW health site interesting reading .  Only reports NSW cases which  shows the virus was already in the community before the Ruby left Sydney.  Read the entries from 4 March on when the early cases were being reported. Although the no. of confirmed cases were not very large there were a high no of cases being investigated and on 6 march two workers at the Dorothy Henderson Lodge tested positive.

All that was needed was one asymtomatic person to infect the Ruby.  I still wonder how the only NZ stop where they claim Ruby passengers spread it was the very last at Napier.  No one at the other four stops got covid with all the passengers off the ship touring.  I was not aware that covid cases were in NSW prior Mar 8th.  So now it is logical that anyone, local or foreign, could have brought it aboard.  Again, in the end, it does not matter.  It happened.

[LittleFish1976]

On 2/13/2021 at 6:09 PM, Aus Traveller said:

Some information on the history of the spread of COVID.

 

On 30 January 2020, with 7,818 confirmed cases across 19 countries, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC),and then a pandemic on 11 March 2020 as Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan reported increasing numbers of cases.

On 31 January 2020, Italy had its first confirmed cases, two tourists from China. As of 13 March 2020, the WHO considered Europe the active centre of the pandemic. On 19 March 2020, Italy overtook China as the country with the most reported deaths. By 26 March, the United States had overtaken China and Italy with the highest number of confirmed cases in the world.Research on coronavirus genomes indicates the majority of COVID-19 cases in New York came from European travellers, rather than directly from China or any other Asian country.Retesting of prior samples found a person in France who had the virus on 27 December 2019 and a person in the United States who died from the disease on 6 February 2020.

 

Many people believe that the previous administration in USA mis-managed the COVID pandemic. It seems that there were more cases earlier than Mr T wanted to admit.

 

I stand to be corrected but there is a lot of information out there saying that the US did not have a working testing system in place for up to 6 weeks at the start of the pandemic due to faulty test kits and I believe, the desire to use a locally-produced one. As I say, it's just what I've read in a number of locations but the information I've read is that there were an increasing number of cases in the US early in the year that were left unidentified and untally-ed due to lack of testing.

 

 

[Aus Traveller]

5 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

I stand to be corrected but there is a lot of information out there saying that the US did not have a working testing system in place for up to 6 weeks at the start of the pandemic due to faulty test kits and I believe, the desire to use a locally-produced one. As I say, it's just what I've read in a number of locations but the information I've read is that there were an increasing number of cases in the US early in the year that were left unidentified and untally-ed due to lack of testing.

That has been reported several times. Part of the problem was that Mr T down-played the pandemic and he insisted that the US produce their own test kits. They turned out to be faulty.

[By The Bay]

5 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

I stand to be corrected but there is a lot of information out there saying that the US did not have a working testing system in place for up to 6 weeks at the start of the pandemic due to faulty test kits and I believe, the desire to use a locally-produced one. As I say, it's just what I've read in a number of locations but the information I've read is that there were an increasing number of cases in the US early in the year that were left unidentified and untally-ed due to lack of testing.

 

 

Or as the recent ex-President was reported saying:

 

"When you do testing to that extent you're going to find more people. You're going to find more cases, so I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down please."

 

No testing = no cases.😲

[Aus Traveller]

5 minutes ago, By The Bay said:

Or as the recent ex-President was reported saying:

 

"When you do testing to that extent you're going to find more people. You're going to find more cases, so I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down please."

 

No testing = no cases.😲

That was an incredible way to react to a pandemic. Unfortunately, now the people have to live with it.

[By The Bay]

1 minute ago, Aus Traveller said:

That was an incredible way to react to a pandemic. Unfortunately, now the people have to live with it.

Thank God, and the American voters, that the adults are back in control.😉

[woodscruise]

Just saw on Today a new book by Duncan McNab on the Ruby Princess fiasco. From the interview, it seems he is blaming all parties involved, including why the ship sailed in the first place. After the interview, Peter Overton advertisement for the 6pm news article on cruise ships coming back with massive changes. Will be interesting to see how it is presented tonight.

[Cruisegroover]

Coming to a bookstore near you for the the cost $34.99 - I think I will pass on that.

In the early hours of Thursday 19 March 2020, the luxury cruise liner Ruby Princess docked at Sydney's Circular Quay, the gateway to Australia.

Hours later, 2700 passengers disembarked. Yet in the middle of a pandemic sweeping the planet, there were no health checks. Over the next few days, the passengers got some bad news. The COVID-19 virus had infected some on the ship, and it spread rapidly. Eventually over 900 passengers and crew would be diagnosed, and 28 would die from the disease.

Months of investigation and a Special Commission uncovered a series of catastrophic mistakes, from negligence to the corporate greed of an industry with a history of only caring for its bottom line. This 'super-spreader incident' was a viral bomb that exploded in the heart of Australia's biggest city - and a disaster that could and should have been prevented.

In his page-turning book, investigative journalist Duncan McNab explores the causes of the spectacular quarantine failure, the cruise industry, the lives of the victims and their families, and the turbulent politics of blame.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Duncan McNab is an award-winning and bestselling investigative journalist, television producer and author of 11 books sold in Australia, UK and North America, including the bestselling Dead Man Running, Roger Rogerson and the 2017 Ned Kelly Award winner Getting Away With Murder. He specialises in long-form true crime and current affairs.

He was the supervising producer of the 7 Network's blockbuster true crime series Murder Uncovered (winner of the 2017 Kennedy Award and Clarion Award for best long-form documentary) and the 9 Network's Murder Lies and Alibis. Duncan is also the Crime Editor for 7News.com.au. He lives in Sydney.