Almost 500 of Australia’s coronavirus cases – or one in seven – have come from cruise ships, the nation’s deputy chief medical officer said on Saturday.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told a national press conference almost 200 cases had come from one ship alone – the Ruby Princess.
The Ruby Princess docked in Sydney on March 19 after a tour of New Zealand and let 2,700 passengers, some showing symptoms, leave for their homes around Australia and across the world, including the UK.
One couple, who returned home to the UK after leaving the Ruby Princess, is now showing symptoms of Covid-19 and says that there was a distinct lack of information from the cruise ship company.
Elisa McCafferty and her partner have reported that they are both ‘listless’, finding it hard to focus and have no smell or taste.
Ms McCafferty says she also now has a chesty cough and is throwing up clear liquid.
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The Ruby Princess (pictured) docked in Sydney on March 19 after a tour of New Zealand and let 2700 passengers leave for their homes around Australia
Passengers disembark from the Ruby Princess at Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal on February 8 before the ban on cruise ships was put in place
A woman aged her 70s who was taken from the Ruby Princess to hospital after the ship docked in Sydney died on March 24
Daily Mail Australia found the cruise ship is responsible for at least 227 cases across the country, with 121 in NSW, 52 in Queensland, 44 in South Australia, at least eight in WA, and two in the Northern Territory.
Elisa McCafferty (pictured) and her partner have reported that they are both ‘listless’, finding it hard to focus and have no smell or taste since leaving the cruise ship
The difference may be due to new cases being discovered since the figures were collated for the national medical briefing.
Mr Kelly said other cases had come from other cruise ships including the Diamond Princess that became stranded in Japan.
Other than cruise ships, Mr Kelly said the majority of cases have come from the US and Europe, in particular the UK and Italy.
Those who walked off the Ruby Princess were not tested for the coronavirus, despite some displaying flu-like symptoms and complaining of feeling sick.
They simply gathered their baggage, stepped ashore wheezing and spluttering and disappeared into Australia’s biggest city.
More than 130 of those aboard the Ruby Princess have now tested positive to COVID-19, making it the single greatest source of infections in Australia since the outbreak began.
A woman aged her 70s who was taken from the cruise ship to hospital after docking died on Tuesday morning.
Other passengers have since spread across the nation on planes, trains and buses, or flown back to their home countries, potentially taking the virus with them.
Elisa McCafferty flew home to London after disembarking from the Ruby Princess with her husband.
‘Nothing was said at anytime about anyone being sick onboard. It was a distinct lack of information coming through from Princess the entire time,’ she told the BBC.
She said she only learned that passengers with coronavirus had been on the ship when she arrived at Heathrow Airport.
‘I turned on my phone and I started getting all these notifications from people back in Australia saying ‘there’s been confirmed cases on the Ruby,” she said.
‘And I was just absolutely petrified. We had just been on two full flights – what if we had infected someone?’
She said she was suffering from coronavirus symptoms and was self-isolating at home.
Border controls are now in place for South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, with only freight and essential travel exempted. Queensland will close its borders on Wednesday.
The federal government suspended all cruise ships – however some, such as the Ruby Princess (pictured), have only just completed their trips
But the most important border – the one that makes Australia an island continent – is still being breached and the most alarming new infections have come by water.
How cruise ships could continue to bring infected patients into the country has led to blame-shifting, anger and bewilderment.
Cruise ships have been an obvious potential source of infected coronavirus arrivals since the Diamond Princess was quarantined off the coast of Japan in February.
More than 700 passengers of the 3,700 people on board that ship quickly developed coronavirus.
Diamond Princess was forced to stay at sea for almost three weeks before the decision was made to quarantine people onshore.
As coronavirus swept the world, cruise ships were barred from docking in Australian ports for 30 days from March 15.
The federal government granted exemptions to four vessels which were already on their way back to Australia.
Those ships – Ruby Princess, Ovation of the Seas, Celebrity Solstice and Voyager of the Seas – arrived in Sydney between March 18 and March 20. All have had cases of coronavirus since docking.
The NSW government gave the all-clear for the Ruby Princess to berth in Sydney Harbour on March 19, considering its arrival ‘low risk’.
Passengers who arrived on the ship have claimed they were ‘waved through’ the port without facing any health screenings.
Some then spent as long as four days onshore potentially spreading COVID-19 before they were ordered to self-isolate for 14 days via emails and phone calls.
As of Saturday afternoon, Australia had 3,603 coronavirus cases, of which 67 per cent were travel-related, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told a national press conference.
‘That is the main reason why there will be enhanced measures at the airport that were announced by the Prime Minister yesterday,’ he said.
Professor Kelly said most of the locally acquired cases that had been found had a clear contact with a known coronavirus case, meaning they were successfully tracing contacts and finding the cases to decrease transmission.
Until Wednesday, only those who had returned from overseas and had symptoms or who had contacts with a confirmed case were recommended to be tested.
The recommendations were expanded on Wednesday to include those with severe community-acquired pneumonia without a clear cause, and health care or aged care workers.
Those who spent time in a high-risk location with two or more linked cases are now recomended to be tested in the expanded provisions.
With these restrictions it is unlikely testing could find many community-based transmissions of people with mild or no symptoms who have not travelled.
NSW Health’s website on Saturday said it has the capacity was still only recommending is recommending people with acute, cold, flu-like symptoms who are returned travellers, or a contact of a confirmed case, be tested for COVID-19.
Professor Kelly said the authorities would concentrate on forcing people coming into Australia to quarantine for 14 days, and on testing people.