800 Covid-positive cruise goers disembark at Sydney
Approximately 800 people who have tested positive to COVID-19 disembarked from the cruise ship Majestic Princess in Sydney over the weekend.
The 4,400 passengers and crew disembarked at the end of a 12-night round-trip to New Zealand, with passengers who tested positive instructed not to take public transport after departing Sydney’s Circular Quay.
In a statement, operator Carnival Cruise Line said that the positive cases - around 20 percent of the ship’s population - were kept separate from those who tested negative while disembarking.
"All guests disembarking have undertaken a rapid antigen test in the past 24 hours, which will determine how they will disembark the ship,” the statement said.
Carnival Australia president Marguerite Fitzgerald said at a press conference on Saturday that cases of Covid began to rise about halfway through the trip and that everyone who tested positive were asymptomatic or experiencing mild symptoms.
In a statement shared with 9News, Princess Cruises Senior Vice President Stuart Allison said staff were also assisting those who tested positive to find accommodations to help them continue to isolate.
Fitzgerald told CNN that the cruise line has been using “the most rigorous and strict measures which go well above current guidelines”, with staff and passengers being tested for Covid before boarding and a requirement for 95 percent of guests over the age of 12 to be vaccinated.
She said that the more than 50 voyages made by Carnival Australia and over 100,000 guests onboard have been “unimpacted by Covid”.
“However, the emergence of COVID in the community has meant we have seen a rise in positive cases on the last three voyages,” she added.
The Majestic Princess has since travelled to Melbourne with 220 people from the original cruise, per SBS News.
In response to the news, many have taken to social media to share their thoughts, with some questioning why it was happening again after the Ruby Princess allowed Covid-positive passengers to disembark in Sydney in March 2020.
“Didn’t… didn’t we already do this?” one person tweeted.
“Back to square one. That’s how it started,” another wrote.
“Why would you still go on a crowded cruise ship with Covid still spreading through the population?”
“As the Majestic Princess saga unfolds, it seems not just Covid is in the Circular Quay air, but also a real sense of déjà poo - the feeling that sh*t has happened before,” a third wrote.
The news comes as Australia begins to experience a fourth wave of Covid, with The Guardian reporting that 58,000 cases have been recorded across the country in the past week.
The Queensland government has moved the state to an “amber alert” in response to the uptick in cases, while NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said the wave is expected to peak before Christmas.
“The wave is taking off with some trajectory, it will be quite a steep wave and hopefully the decline will be equally as steep,” she said on Friday.
“There is a sense that the wave may well peak before Christmas and we may be on the decline [by then].
“But the message is clear … this is an increased risk period for Covid, so please, now is the time to take those protective behaviours.”
Meanwhile, New Zealand has reported 21,595 community cases of the virus in the past week, with computational biologist Dr David Welch telling the NZ Herald that the country may be “at or near a peak” in cases.
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