Luxury cruise ships the Ruby Princess, the Diamond Princess, the Grand Princess and the Costa Luminosa have a few things in common: for one, they are all owned by US giant Carnival Cruises; and they have all carried COVID-19 infected passengers.
In February, in one of the world’s first large outbreaks of coronavirus, the Diamond Princess remained moored in waters off Japan with hundreds of infected passengers on board.
In March, nearly 2000 passengers had to be quarantined on US military bases after infected passengers were found on the Grand Princess.
Next came the Costa Luminosa. Cruising off the coast of France, by March 15 the crew began wearing gloves and masks to halt the spread of coronavirus, which had already infected three people on board. The ship docked at Marseille after being turned away by other ports, according to an investigation by The New York Times.
At the same time, the Ruby Princess was heading to Sydney from New Zealand, also carrying infected passengers. It was allowed to dock and within 24 hours it was confirmed that four people on the ship had tested positive to COVID-19.
One, a resident of Tasmania, is still in NSW being assessed at a Sydney hospital. One was taken unwell directly from the ship to hospital. It is not unusual for cruise ship passengers, many of whom are elderly, to be disembarked directly from cruise ships to hospital.
One presented to a Sydney hospital after disembarkation for testing.
The fourth confirmed case is a crew member who is in isolation on board the ship. Quarantine of other crew on board is underway in consultation with the on-board medical team.
The impact has this morning blown out to 48 confirmed cases of COVID-19 from the Ruby Princess — 27 in NSW and 21 interstate.
What is Carnival?
Carnival is the world’s largest cruise operator, controlling several major cruise lines including P&O, Princess, Seabourn, Holland America and Cunard.
The company is headquartered in Miami but incorporated in Panama — a tax haven. It is also dual-listed on the New York and London stock exchanges, and in 2019 recorded a full-year revenue of US$20.8 billion.
Carnival has a history of run-ins with the law. In 2016 it agreed to pay a US$40 million penalty for illegally dumping oil-contaminated waste into the sea, and trying to cover it up.
According to The New York Times, it was the largest criminal penalty ever imposed for intentional vessel pollution, and the US Department of Justice put the company on notice.
In 2019 it was caught in the act again, with federal prosecutors accusing it of more shocking violations, including discharging plastic waste into the water, falsifying records and, remarkably, interfering with court supervision of ships by sending in teams ahead of inspections to preempt environmental violations.
It pleaded guilty to these new violations and agreed to pay another US$20 million penalty in June.
Carnival is well connected politically and has long-standing ties with US President Donald Trump. Carnival Corp chairman Micky Arison is a friend of Trump’s, according to the Washington Post. Arison’s company reportedly helped sponsor the president’s reality show franchise The Apprentice over the years.
Trump has said he wants to look after the cruise industry, as well as the airline and hotel industry.
“You don’t want to lose industries like this,” he said. “These are incredible industries. You can’t lose them.”
Carnival Corporation lists serving Los Angeles-based executive Jan Swartz as head of Princess Cruises and Carnival Australia.
Locally, the executive chairman of Carnival Australia is Ann Sherry, a 13-year veteran of the company who is known for her early high profile roles at Westpac Bank.
Crikey contacted Carnival’s public relations company for comment on Carnival’s role in managing the coronavirus on the Ruby Princess. We asked if it was aware there were passengers on board infected with the coronavirus, and if so why it allowed those passengers to leave the ship.
Carnival Australia spokesperson David Jones told Crikey its onboard medical team was “rigorous” in treating guests with flu-like symptoms.
“In line with existing protocols, the ship reported these cases to NSW Health, which in turn requested swabs to be provided following the ship’s arrival in Sydney, some of which subsequently tested positive for COVID-19,” he said. “It is practice the world over that tests for COVID-19 are not conducted on board cruise ships. The protocol is for swabs to be tested by the relevant public health authority, and this was done in relation to Ruby Princess.”
Morrison and Dutton have crowed for years about “stopping the boats” so we could keep out vulnerable people who were just looking for a better life, and we brutalised them on the pretext they could be terrorists, pedos and rapists.
The boats they should have stopped were the floating disease factories that are cruise liners. Great work guys on keeping our borders safe. Complete fucking muppets.
We had a lucky escape from Carnival/Costa’s incompetence- we were on the Costa Victoria on a 28-day cruise from Mumbai to Florence, which started on 29 February. After it was denied port access in the Maldives (without explanation) and headed to Dubai (which was not a scheduled stop) my partner and I decided to get off as soon as possible.
The 800-odd passengers, including several hundred Australians, were given no explanations or updates from Costa or our trip organiser TripADeal. There was one English language tv channel-France 24, which was giving some information, including that Northern Italy was in lock-down.
On the 3-day trip from India to Dubai, we quizzed other Australian passengers about their intentions- they all implied that they trusted “the system” and would “go with the flow”. Many did not even know of the information on France 24 and did not have internet (we did- at $200 for 3GB!) and many had no real appreciation of the seriousness of the situation. We made repeated attempts to contact TripADeal- to no avail.
As retired professional “decision-makers”, we saw that we were heading for a perfect storm of ignorance, incompetence and corporate self-interest. As there were too many “unknown unknowns” to manage, we decided to bail at Dubai, where we were confident that we could get a flight back to Australia -at our own expense. We did.
We received several emails from people whom we befriended on the Costa Victoria- then nothing! From ship-tracking apps, it seems that they are still heading for Venice.
While there were no reported cases of CV19 on the Costa Victoria, the company’s management of this ship seems to be consistent with their overall manage to capabilities.
We were lucky – but several hundred Australians are still on board, “going with the flow”.
A wise decision Jedi master. The force is with you.
Thinking of doing the same with regards to my workplace. Ridiculously, I can work from home but they are reluctant to call it. The lack of inertia is ridiculous, paralysed by the need to make a decision, a bit like ScoMo.
“The company is headquartered in Miami but incorporated in Panama — a tax haven.”
I do hope Panama and the Cayman Islands are ready with their stimulus packages. If one dollar of our government money goes to any business registered anywhere but Australia, upset I will be.
I agree with that comment. Too much Govt help goes to the top earners and shareholders, and frequently offshore eventually, if you can follow the paper trail after the accountants and auditors have taken their fees and worked their magic.
Ann Sherry ex-Westpac eh ? Probably an old mate of Gladys.
“Hi Glad, Ann here, listen hun, got a few crook oldies on one of my tinnies, just the sniffles though,nothing serious…be a sweetie and tell Hazzo to wave ’em through will ya ???”
“Sweet as Shez,will do. Must catch up for a feed soon, your shout of course !”
Why have two cruise ships been docked at White Bay for weeks?
When the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney Harbour on March 19th all of the passengers were herded off it so quickly they bypassed Customs and Australian Border Force (ABF) officials who were supposed to electronically scan each and every passport.
This was an inexcusable contravention of Customs, Biosecurity, Immigration and Border Control laws.
When Department of Human Services (DHS) staff check the ABF’s International Movements Database to verify the outbound and inbound dates provided by their clients, they will find that there is Nil Record of them disembarking from the Ruby Princess on March 19th, which means they are technically and legally recorded as still being overseas.
Therefore, on April 19th (ie. 42 days after the cruise departed from Sydney on March 8th) those receiving a pension supplement will find that it has been automatically reduced to a basic rate, and their energy supplement stopped. (Ref. https://www.wyza.com.au/articles/travel/travelling-and-your-pension-know-the-risks.aspx). What a fiasco!
I believe now is an appropriate time for DHS Manager, Mr Hank Jongen, to comment on this important issue.