Coronavirus Cruise Crew Pleads for Help: 'Soon We Will All Be Infected'

[babylonsister]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-cruise-crew-pleads-for-help-soon-we-will-all-be-infected?ref=home

Coronavirus Cruise Crew Pleads for Help: ‘Soon We Will All Be Infected’
MATTER OF TIME
Jamie Ross
Updated Feb. 10, 2020 7:01AM ET /
Published Feb. 10, 2020 6:46AM ET
REUTERS

Several members of the crew trapped aboard a coronavirus-hit cruise ship off the coast of Japan have issued a desperate plea to be released. Indian crew members posted a video to Facebook on Monday in which they begged the Indian government to come and rescue them. The Washington Post named one of the crew members as Binay Kumar Sarkar, 31, who said he was one of about 160 Indian crew members on the ship. Sarkar said his team was still serving meals to passengers in their rooms three times a day but they’re all “scared who will be next.” He told the newspaper that all healthy people on board should be allowed to leave and said he fears that keeping everyone trapped on the boat means “very soon we will all be infected.” The Diamond Princess, which is docked off Yokohama, has been placed under a 14-day quarantine that will last until next week. There are over 3,700 passengers and crew onboard, and only the 136 who have tested positive for the virus have been allowed to leave for treatment.

[Blue_Tires]

1. Why would the crew get to leave and not everyone else?

Don't they have a legal obligation to stay?

[babylonsister]

2. Conversely, why are they making the

healthy people stay but evacuating the sick? I don't know, seems like a terrible position to be in either way.

[NewJeffCT]

4. agreed

they should remove the healthy people and quarantine them in a safe location nearby.

[Generic Brad]

7. Perhaps somewhere like on a ship?

Just spit balling here.

[NewJeffCT]

8. on a cruise ship

aren't the essentially confined there with already sick people?

[MineralMan]

3. A legal obligation? They're employees of the cruise line, not slaves.

Everyone on the ship is quarantined. It has nothing to do with their status as employees. It has to do with a virus.

No doubt many people on those cruise ships are frightened of contracting the disease. Some will, no doubt, but most will not. If they were off the ship, they'd be quarantined somewhere else. At least they have decent quarters where they are.

[Blue_Tires]

5. I'm just trying to understand

why things wouldn't get much worse if say, two-thirds of the crew got evacuated but the passengers still had to stay.

[MineralMan]

6. As uncomfortable as it might seem, keeping people who have

been potentially exposed to this virus on the ship is better for them and for everyone else at this time. The more people who might have the illness go around in public, the more people who are exposed.

So, the decision was made to quarantine them in place. They have their cabins to stay in, there are ample food preparation facilities, and other amenities on the ship. I mean, people pay plenty of money to stay on cruise ships.

If they were required to leave the ship, they'd still get quarantined. Look at those airline passengers for an example. They're being quarantined on military bases, and probably living in barracks right now and eating mess hall food.

The quarantine is necessary because this virus can spread before people have any symptoms of illness. The incubation period for those exposed it up to 14 days.

The quarantine is for everyone on the ship, passengers and crew alike. It could not be any other way, actually, and still be a quarantine.

The ship quarantine could go on for quite some time, actually. Until there have been 14 days without a new case showing up, the quarantine is likely to continue.

[MoonlitKnight]

14. But the same crew that has been infected

Is the crew that is preparing and delivering food and water. Granted they have been removing those who show as infected but the way this works there is a very high probability that those still being forced to work have it and could be asymptomatic and spreading it around.

[MineralMan]

15. Yes, that's certainly possible.

However, if you bring new people on, they could get infected, as well. There is no simple answer, is there?

[cwydro]

9. Legal obligation?

Last I checked, slavery was illegal.

No one should be MADE to stay at a job.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. Exactly my question

Are we trying to create floating "plague barges" or something? Take whatever precautions you need to, but keeping huge numbers of people on board a confined where people are at risk of being exposed to a dangerous illness seems cruel and inhumane to me.

[Blue_Tires]

12. 1. I thought the top priority of a crew was passenger safety FIRST?

2. Maybe I'm just reading something in this story that isn't there, but it reads to me like the crew is only interested in saving their own asses?

[moriah]

11. Well, I can understand crew fear, since the Sunday evacuations were of crew.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/world/asia/japan-ship-coronavirus.html

That afternoon, the captain announced over the intercom that six more people — five of them crew members — had tested positive for the virus. Eight others would be taken off the ship to be treated for unrelated medical conditions, the captain said.

And passenger fear, since now more testing on Japan's Monday (so last night for us Americans?) has brought the total (had been 64 before, then with those 6 it went up to 70) from 70 to 135 after those six crew members were identified. I'm assuming they were testing the people those 6 crew members interacted with, because they *still* haven't tested everyone.

-----

This is also bad news because novel viruses that are forced to spread in an unusual environment -- such as a cruise ship, military barracks, anything that puts the people too close together for too long -- can undergo the "serial passage" phenomenon. The strain of bug on that ship could be progressively getting more virulent, since something obviously is causing person-to-person transmission even with attempts at quarantine.

I know it's a bad bug already, but we don't want strains of it that are far worse because we were too afraid of it as it stands. And doing quarantine wrong has a high, high chance of creating conditions perfect for serial passage.

[leftyladyfrommo]

13. Can you imagine bing stuck on a ship for who knows how long?

With a virus spreading from person to person? That would be my idea of hell.

The idea of quarantining all those people in a closed environment was a huge mistake. They should have gotten them some place safer where they could be quarantined but away from the danger of the virus spreading.

I have always hated the very idea of a cruise ship. But this is way worse than being stuck on a ship with 4,000 drunks.