Coronavirus: Ruby Princess uproar: ‘they should have never let us off’
Briton Elle Kelly was looking forward to a trip of a lifetime with her son when she boarded the Ruby Princess at Sydney Harbour two weeks ago.
British woman Elle Kelly was looking forward to a trip of a lifetime with her son when she boarded the Ruby Princess at Sydney Harbour two weeks ago.
“I sold my home, my car and quit my job to live the dream,” Ms Kelly, 47, told The Australian from London. Little did she know her dream to “world school” her two-year-old son Vinnie would come to a screeching halt after an 11-night voyage to New Zealand aboard the Ruby Princess was cut short last week.
Ms Kelly says she is an unwilling victim of a catastrophic decision by Carnival Cruises and Australian border officials to release nearly 2700 cruise ship passengers into the community without screening or detailed questioning.
More than 130 people from the Ruby Princess, including Ms Kelly, her 39-year-old wife, and their son, have now tested positive for the coronavirus, while the ship has become the biggest single source of infections in Australia.
“We got off in ports, did tours on buses (and) my baby went to the children’s club were there were about 10 other children,” Ms Kelly said. “The chest pains are unimaginable but thank god I am young. Those old people on the boat don’t stand a chance — and what about the people in New Zealand?”
The late-night arrival of the Ruby Princess into Sydney has encapsulated the extraordinary missteps by a cruise company that seemed to be improvising its coronavirus response, even after the high-profile disaster that left hundreds ill on two other ships, the Diamond Princess and the Grand Princess, owned by its parent company, Carnival Cruises.
“They should not have let us on, and they should not have let us off, and they should not have let us out of the country,” said Elisa McCafferty, 48, who was on the ship with her husband and elderly parents. “They dropped the duty-of-care ball big time.”
Multiple passengers told The Australian they witnessed medical officers remove a person from the ship “under the cover of darkness” and into a waiting ambulance just after the ship docked in Sydney last Thursday.
The master of the Ruby Princess, however, allegedly told Australian Border Force officials there were no sick people on board the ship as it pulled into Sydney, raising questions as to why an ambulance was on standby to transport a passenger — the woman who died — when the vessel docked at 2.29am. “I could see the ambulance but I just assumed it was an older person who had tripped or had a fall — I had no idea it was related to coronavirus,” Ms McCafferty said.
Like Ms Kelly and her son Vinnie, Ms McCafferty, an Australian citizen, has since developed a dry cough, body aches, fever and fatigue — and is now quarantined at her home in London after departing Sydney last Friday aboard a Qantas flight. “The coughing is constant and it just wracks your whole body,” she said. “I feel as if I’m about to cough up a lung or the lining of my throat.”
The freelance writer and her husband only discovered there had been an outbreak of the coronavirus aboard the Ruby Princess while standing at the baggage carousel at Heathrow Airport on Sunday. “I turned on my phone and started reading all these frantic messages from people in Australia explaining there was a bunch of confirmed cases on the Ruby.
“We went to Sydney Airport because Border Force said we could. I asked if we could continue on without health checks, and they said it was fine. We travelled across the world — who else had we infected?”
Passengers from the ship dispersed across the country and overseas after passing through the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Sydney’s Circular Quay without being screened for the virus or having their passports checked.
“They didn’t say a word,” said Ms Kelly. “They couldn’t get us off the ship quick enough. The guilt is horrific — we sat at tables with women in their 90s.
“I am devastated we were not told that we had a suspected case of coronavirus on board.”
Phil Jaensch, 48, said two separate Border Force officials waved him through the terminal in “record time.”
“There were more alarm bells going off in my head than in the blitz,” he told The Australian. “There were no questions asked about our health and our passports weren’t checked — they had us out of there quick smart.”
Bernie, who declined to give his last name, said he had “never got off a cruise faster”.
“Our departure was delayed by about eight hours, yet they managed to get us all off within 15 minutes,” he said.
“I just can’t believe paramedics in full protective gowns removed a woman from the ship in the middle of the night and we were never informed.
“If there ever was a smoking gun moment, that would be it.”
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