American Ruby Princess cruisers had no warning of coronavirus as they tried to get home
American passengers have told of their shock after they were sent on a farcical 56-hour journey home from the Ruby Princess without being warned they had been exposed to coronavirus.
Coronavirus
Don't miss out on the headlines from Coronavirus. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Exclusive: At least six Americans from the infected Ruby Princess cruise were sent on a farcical 56-hour journey through Australian airports and hotels without being warned they had been exposed to coronavirus.
It was only after they arrived in San Francisco, after lengthy waits including meals in foodhalls at Sydney and Brisbane Airports, and a stay at a Brisbane hotel, that they learned of the outbreak.
By that time, two of the women were coughing and both later developed pneumonia due to coronavirus. Their husbands had milder symptoms but also tested positive.
They are now horrified to think they may have been unwittingly shedding the deadly virus during their lengthy odyssey home.
And at no stage have they been counted in the official tally of Ruby Princess victims released by NSW Health, meaning it is inaccurate and understated.
“They haven’t counted us into anything,” said retired mechanical contractor Richard Harris from his home in Upland, California.
Former lawyer Jerry Newell said despite his wife Gloria suffering pneumonia: “We have not heard a thing from the company or from anyone in Australia”.
“It was an absolute mess, the whole thing,” said Mr Newell from his home in California.
NSW Health has said it had been in email contact with former passengers to find out if they became ill.
Mr Harris said he had received an email asking if they had the virus, but when the email link to a form didn’t work for him to respond they were positive, he didn’t hear back from any authorities.
The Newells say they have not had follow up contact, from either NSW Health or Princess Cruises.
A spokesperson for California’s Health Department confirmed to News Corp Australia in a statement it was “not aware of specific data tracked by the state for repatriation of individuals from this cruise”.
The Newells and Harrises didn’t know each other until their journey home, and recall meeting at least one other couple and seeing about “six others” from California as they travelled.
They were among 2700 passengers who flooded through Australia after the cruise ended early on March 19.
From Circular Quay they were bussed to Sydney Airport, where they ate lunch and waited more than five hours for a Virgin flight to Brisbane.
Each had been told by Princess Cruises their original direct flights home to the US had been cancelled and that they would have to travel through Queensland.
On arrival in Brisbane they picked up their bags and headed to a nearby Ibis hotel ahead of a flight the next morning.
But when they turned up on March 20 to take the Virgin Australia flight they had flown up for, they were told it had been cancelled two days earlier.
“We tried to check-in and we were told at the desk that the flight was cancelled, and they said that when Princess Cruises booked us on it, it had already been cancelled,” said Mr Newell.
The travellers spent several more hours at Brisbane, eating at the airport, before they could re-book another flight, this time on a Qantas flight through Sydney and San Francisco.
Mrs Newell said: “I feel terrible now knowing that we were eating and walking around these places and some of those people around us may have gotten it”.
It was on QF521 from Brisbane, through Sydney and on to San Francisco, that Mrs Newell, and retired physical therapist Laura Harris both started coughing.
They said the plane was “completely full”, and Mr Harris believed at least six other Ruby Princess passengers were aboard.
“When we were going down the customs line we recognised them from Brisbane and from Sydney,” said Mr Harris.
“We were separated from Jerry and Gloria, and when I got to the border patrol agent, he was reading down my (customs entry) card and he goes: ‘Wait a minute. You guys were on the Ruby Princess?’
MORE NEWS
COVID-19 financial help: Support payments you can access
COVID-19 war room ensuring Aussies get best care
Cute ways Aussies are staying in touch while staying apart
Crack squads of nursing home workers on standby
“I said yes. And he goes: ‘Oh my God!’, and I’m like: “What do you mean?
“He said: ‘It’s all over the news, the Ruby Princess, it had all the coronavirus’.
“He said he couldn’t let us into the country, and Laura and I were pulled aside and put us through a CDC (Centers for Disease Control) check. Well then Laura didn’t have a temperature so they let us through.”
They met with the Newells for a meal while they waited for their American Airlines flight to Los Angeles.
“Well, when the Harrises came, they told us what the Customs man had said, and that was the first we knew about it,” Mrs Newell said.
Mr Harris said: “In hindsight it all seems clear now, we shouldn’t have gotten on the cruise in the first place, and we should have known that when our wives started coughing on the plane, that they were sick. But at the time we didn’t know what was going on.”
Both couples said they were now considering legal action and they hoped to recoup thousands of dollars they had spent getting home.
But the main concern for Mrs Newell, who was hospitalised for double pneumonia and is still recovering, was that anyone else could have caught COVID-19 from them.
“I am still kind of aghast that the cruise line didn’t tell us about the virus,” she said.
“They knew and didn’t tell us! They just expected us to be oblivious to all of it.”