Cruise ship Ruby Princess anchors in Manila

The Ruby Princess has dropped anchor in Manila Bay, where quarantine officials will swab 214 Filipino crew before ­allowing them to disembark.

The Ruby Princess cruise ship lies at anchor in Manila Bay in The Philippines, where quarantine officials will swab 214 Filipino crew before ­allowing them to disembark.

The Ruby Princess, the cruise ship that caused the single largest cluster­ of COVID-19 infections and associated deaths in Australia, has dropped anchor in Manila Bay, where quarantine officials will swab 214 Filipino crew before ­allowing them to disembark.

Philippines coastguard commander Armando Balilo told The Australian the ship arrived about 7.30am on Thursday and would now undertake a 14-day quarantine offshore while two teams of 14 medical staff swabbed the Filipino crew members on board.

“We are just waiting for the ­Bureau of Quarantine and then the coastguard and quarantine medical teams can conduct the testing. But there are seven other cruise ships ahead of them, so they will have to wait in a queue,” he said.

The ship joins 15 other cruise vessels in Manila Bay carrying between­ them 5311 Filipino crew waiting to disembark and return to their families.

About 2500 crew had already been swabbed and those who tested negative would be allowed to go home three days after their test result­s, Commander Balilo said. “If they test positive, we bring them to a hospital, but if they’re OK we release them, (although) they should still go into some days of isolation.”

Several cruise ships had already left Manila Bay after their crews had been cleared to disembark, but 40,000 more Filipino seafarers were expected to return to home harbour in coming weeks, Commander Balilo said.

The Ruby Princess has been linked to about 700 infections in Australia — about one in 10 of the country’s total 6896 COVID-19 caseload — and 19 deaths, as well as two more fatalities in the US.

A special commission of inquiry­ into why 2700 passengers and crew were allowed to disembark in Sydney on March 19, despite­ the ship declaring more than 100 passengers on board were sick, will wrap up on Friday.

The inquiry has heard that NSW Health officials had assessed the Ruby Princess as low risk based on outdated reports from the ship’s crew and allowed mass disembarkation with no controls or screening.

This week, however, a lawyer for the Carnival Australia-owned vessel told the inquiry that staff on board had filed multiple human health report updates through the federal government’s online biosecurity portal before that time, which detailed a spike in passengers with flu-like symptoms.

More than 40 cruise ships have now had confirmed COVID-19 cases on board, and tens of thousands of crew members remain stranded on cruise ships around the world. Many are unable to be repatriated because cruise lines refuse­ to cover the cost.