‘Inexplicable, unjustifiable’: Ruby Princess inquiry report says expert panel errors led to COVID-19 spread
The report into how an ill-fated cruise ship spawned hundreds of COVID-19 cases and 28 deaths has finally been made public.
The “low risk” rating of the ill-fated Ruby Princess sent a signal to “do nothing” as the virus-ridden cruise ship docked in Sydney and was an inexplicable and unjustifiable mistake, an inquiry has found.
A missed spike of suspect cases and an “inexcusable” delay in getting test results were among the catalogue of human errors by NSW Health described by Bret Walker SC in his report on the cruise ship fiasco, made public on Friday.
In the 320-page report, Mr Walker wrote that he found no “systemic failures”, and he wouldn’t make recommendations to experts that amounted to “do your job”.
“Put simply, despite the best efforts of all, some serious mistakes were made,” he wrote.
The notorious Ruby Princess cruise ship docked at Circular Quay in the early hours of March 19. About 2700 passengers were allowed to disembark, before three positive test results were discovered the next day.
Hundreds of COVID-19 cases and 28 deaths followed, at one time Australia’s largest coronavirus outbreak, as did a brawl between the federal and state governments about whether the buck stopped with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton or with NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard.
The inquiry, led by the eminent barrister, was established on April 15 and held hearings across 21 days. His report was handed to the NSW Government on Friday and released by Premier Gladys Berejiklian at 4pm.
It identifies a number of serious errors made by the NSW Health expert panel that classified the Ruby Princess as “low risk” on entry to Sydney and says the Australian Border Force played no part in the mishap.
“In light of all the information the expert panel had, the decision to assess the risk as ‘low risk’ – meaning, in effect, ‘do nothing’ – is as inexplicable as it is unjustifiable,” Mr Walker wrote. “It was a serious mistake.”
A change to the definition of suspect cases implemented by the Communicable Diseases Network Australia was not part of the risk assessment, Mr Walker found.
He wrote that the percentage of how many passengers were experiencing a flu-like illness had “limited utility” for whether COVID-19 was circulating on the ship.
“The more important question was: are there suspect cases of COVID-19 on board the ship?” he wrote. Had the new definition been taken into account, 120 passengers would have been isolated by the time the ship docked, Mr Walker said.
He also found the panel should have noticed the “significant spike” in rates of people with respiratory or flu-like illnesses on March 17 and requested an updated log about the time of the ship’s docking.
Mr Walker also found the small number of swabs taken on the Ruby Princess for testing on March 19 was a “woeful shortcoming”, and there had been an “inexcusable delay” in getting results.
“In a sense, it was lucky that the too-small sample available on 19 March did produce positive results that could produce a belated public health response,” he wrote.
The inquiry confirmed 663, or 39.4 per cent, of the Australian passengers on the ship contracted COVID-19 and of 1148 crew, 191 (16.6 per cent) tested positive to the virus.
There were 62 secondary or tertiary cases in Australia that stemmed from the Ruby Princess, and the ship was the likely origin of an outbreak in Tasmania that infected 114 people, the report said.
There were 28 deaths associated with the ship, 20 of them reported in Australia and another eight in the United States.
Ms Berejiklian said she would read the report over the weekend and respond early next week.
Mr Walker was asked to investigate the cruise ship’s departure on March 8, voyage and docking on March 19, as well as the efforts to contain the community spread of COVID-19 by its passengers.
On Friday morning, Mr Dutton said the inquiry would likely change the future of how Australia policed its borders, adding health risks to the list of threats to manage.
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