Princess Cruises was widely exonerated through the New South Wales Government (NSW) in Australia in a report on the control of Ruthrough Princess landing in Sydney on 19 March.
The report, on August 14 through Commissioner Brett Walker, found that a litany of “serious mistakes” had been made through NSW Health, adding to non-compliance with the agency’s own rules on coronavirus transmission.
The NSW Health report also revealed that the government had not notified the vessel of the replacement in the COVID-19 verification criteria; Do not ensure that control swabs have been collected and processed in a timely manner; communication errors involving allowing foreign passengers to return home; and don’t make sure potentially sick passengers are remote in their cabins when they arrive in Sydney.
Gladys Berejiklian, the prime minister of the New South Wales government, publicly apologized on Monday for the state’s inability to prevent inflamed passengers from traveling there.
“Classes weren’t learned early enough and again, I unreservedly apologize on behalf of all the Americans and agencies who made those mistakes,” Berejiklian told reporters at a news convention in Sydney on Monday.
In the end, the report that neither Princess nor the team aboard the Ruby Princess misleaded local authorities.
“None of our members – the captain, the ship’s doctor or the members of our Coastal Port Agency team – deceived the public government at Ruby Princess by allowing guests to disembark,” Princess Cruises said in a statement.
“Over our more than 20 years in Australia, we have tried to cooperate honestly and professionally with public servants in accordance with the regulatory environment.”
The 2,700 passengers on board the 8 March shipment were allowed to disembark in Sydney without good enough fitness checks, even though more than 100 passengers had flu-like symptoms.
In the end, more than 900 people (including 663 Australian passengers and 191 team members) aboard the Ruby Princess tested positive for COVID-19 and 28 others died. However, only 34 cases of local network transmission in Australia were similar to the ship.
At the time, the scenario was so serious that it led the Australian government to launch an unprecedented criminal investigation. In fact, the New South Wales police investigation into Ruby Princess is still ongoing.
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The report revealed that NSW Health had failed to communicate the adjustments to the COVID-19 verification protocol published on 10 March, nine days before the ship docked in Sydney, with the team aboard the Ruby Princess. These rules provided for the detection of flu-like symptoms. Approximately 120 passengers met those criteria on the morning the ship docked.
“NSW Health has ensured that cruisers were aware of the substitution in the definition of a “suspicious ” CASE of COVID-19 conducted on March 10,” the report states. This would have known such cases aboard the Ruthrough Princess. 101 people were under the definition of suspicious bodies as of 18 March and 120 at the time the ship docked. NSW Health also made sure those other people were remote in cabins. These were serious errors through NSW Health. “
A panel of NSW Health experts also criticized Ruthrough Princess as “low risk,” an action described in the report as “unexplained because it is unjustifiable.” The report also notes that even Carnival workers “were in fact surprised by the decision to authorize the landing without additional delay.”
Communication problems date back to the ship’s arrival on 8 March, when the port authority did not report that NSW Health would conduct an aptitude inspection on board the ship and delay its departure.
The port authority had not been aware of previous data related to the assessment of the “average risk” and the report on the human suitability of the shipment shelved the Maritime Arrivals Notification System (MARS) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Environment,” the report said.
The Port Authority official will check the remainder of the following week to download government fitness data on stage aboard the Ruthrough Princess. All passengers examined through NSW Health on March 8 yielded negative results for the presence of COVID-19.
The report found that the factor was too ambiguous given the wisdom of COVID-19 at the time and did not specify shown cases of COVID-19. The captain, whose first language is Italian, admitted to misunderstand the factor and apologized. The report notes that “the Commissioner does not have the evidence to imply the dishonesty of the Commodore and does not make adverse findings in this regard.”
The full 320-page report also exonerates the doctor aboard the Ruby Princess, noting that his answers were “truthful” and that there is no complaint of “the unavailability of COVID-19 smear testing aboard Ruby Princess’s voyage on March 8.”
However, the report blamed Princess Cruises and Carnival Australia:
“Carnival has ensured that the doctor has been informed of the replacement in the definition of “CdNA (Australia Communicable Disease Network) on March 10, 2020,” the report said, although he previously admitted that NSW Health did not disclose the replacement. . to the boat. “They have also ensured that passengers and equipment aboard the Ruby Princess were informed that there were suspected cases of COVID-19 on board. People who met the definition of suspicious case have been forced to isolate themselves in their cabins.”
ADNC would publish 3 separate versions of its recommendation on the management of COVID-19 outbreaks between the time Ruthrough Princess set sail on March 8 and her arrival in Sydney on March 19. Between February and March, a total of 21 other notifications were issued through ADNC.
When Ruthrough Princess sailed, the countries identified as the main threat through the CDNA were China, Iran, Italy and South Korea (maximum threat) and Cambodia, Hong Kong and Indonesia. On 10 March, two days after the departure of the Sydney ship, this directive was extended to include “all foreign travel”. This data was never transmitted to the vessel.
The report also criticized Carnival Australia for having enough COVID-19 control swabs aboard Ruby Princess’s voyage on March 8.
As to whether passengers and the team subverted the local fitness government with misleading data to be allowed to transit from Australia, the Commission found that there is no evidence of support.
“There was no concept of such feeling in the evidence and other evidence related to the emotions and criticisms of Ruby Princess’s own passengers,” the report said. “On the contrary, many of them expressed a decent remorse for having accidentally contributed to the spread of the infection.”
The report found that the factor was too ambiguous given the wisdom of COVID-19 at the time and did not specify shown cases of COVID-19. The captain, whose first language is Italian, admitted to misunderstand the factor and apologized. The report notes that “the Commissioner does not have the evidence to imply the dishonesty of the Commodore and does not make adverse findings in this regard.”
The report blamed the Australian Border Force for incorrectly informing passengers that the 14-day isolation era would begin from the date Ruby Princess left her last foreign port of call, on March 15 in Napier, New Zealand, and since her arrival. Sydney Harbour.
An email provided to passengers through NSW Health at 10:46 a.m. on March 20 incorrectly indicated that passengers were loose to return home. This policy was not corrected until the night of the next day.
“It was too late at this level to prevent a large number of interstate and foreign passengers from traveling, adding some passengers who showed traffic symptoms.” This left Qantas and Virgin Australia to make an independent decision to ban Ruby Princess passengers from returning home.
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