COVID-19: The Inside Story Of The Diamond Princess Coronavirus Infection | Outbreak Onboard

it was meant to be the trip of a lifetime Pepe lujah it quickly became a living nightmare people and they stayed positive for it for other buyers [Music] yeah we've got to get any even if you attend back to Vancouver or Canada for quarantine is better often stuck in fear the Diamond Princess cruise ship is carrying over 2,000 passengers [Music] as the corona virus outbreak sweeps through the ship it turns the luxury cruise liner into a floating prison I cannot believe person can guess the level of worries and the mental stress has reached to the maximum now as the world wheels from covet 19 we speak to those who were on board the diamond princess and I was racing I was going what's going to happen I'm in a little cabin with no windows I was so scared of getting Kaabah clanking learning what happened from the people who were there news crews are back there setting up the tents again as the drama unfolded and lives were lost [Music] which is a gorilla a two-week luxury cruise the diamond princess has set sail from the Japanese port of Yokohama [Music] carrying more than 2,000 passengers from over 50 different countries the ship has traveled over 5000 miles of ocean and has explored six destinations around Southeast Asia including Vietnam and Taiwan many on board are celebrating the Chinese New Year or simply enjoying the holiday of a lifetime I see we marry - and her husband a Jew are on board celebrating his 65th birthday we were on the Chris because we want to celebrate my husband's 65th birthday it's a milestone birthday so that's what we thought up we've been cruising for more than 15 years and so far so good do you know what it's a very efficient and convenient way to to go on vacation you don't have to book a hotel you don't have to rent a car who wouldn't want that February the first the passengers are making the most of their last few days at sea in just three days they'll be back in Yokohama [Music] hello little boy that night Hong Kong officials sent an email to the diamond princess it warns that an 80 year old man who left the ship six days ago in Hong Kong has tested positive for the infectious virus Ovid 19 a corona virus outbreak was first flagged as a course of concern in Wuhan China on the 31st of December 2019 the city was quickly shut down in the hope of keeping the virus at bay top story tonight now to major cities in China are in lockdown tonight to try to control the spread of a deadly coronavirus few are aware of the dangers of this deadly virus including owner tan and her family who had traveled from Australia before we started our trip it was something that had come up in conversations so we were aware that that was brewing in China I really didn't think it was anything more than say a flu or cold a bad sort of a seasonal kind of thing so we hadn't had a sense that it was getting serious when the diamond princess set off from Yokohama on the 20th of January there were less than 300 reported cases of kovat 19 in the world and only six people were known to have died from the virus some countries along the ship's root were concerned and began taking temperatures of passengers arriving at their ports on the 30th of January the World Health Organization declares a public health emergency this still doesn't raise alarms for American passenger mark your Genson who's traveling with his wife Jerry and Friends the goldmans mark had a kidney transplant in 2015 which puts him at high risk of developing complications if he is infected with kovat 19 we were wondering what it was about still not overly concerned but we understood they're being cautious at the previous port in Okinawa they did some extra screening for us too so you were kind of used to that and we just we just assumed it would be a delay in getting off we had no idea we were in for the eventually we ended up having the cruise liner and it's operator Princess Cruises a warned that a passenger who recently disembarked in Hong Kong has been diagnosed with kovat 19 the virus could be on board the ship unaware the passengers carry on as normal it's the last night on board the diamond princess we were a bit sad that our holiday was obviously coming to an end and in effect today before we arrived back to Yokohama I had commented to my husband that I wish I holiday could go on for much longer and you know I wasn't ready to leave to know it's funny the night before we got the word we were extending we were the four of us were talking to dinner and we asked that very question we said hey are you guys ready to go home or do you want would you like to keep going and we all said we're not ready to quit we were out and we were having a good time and we weren't ready to go home there were some kind of gossip I don't know if there's any truth to that at that time that there could be a possibility that there was a problem on this I would be hearing about this copied virus we were not really thinking about seriously about it despite rumors circulating that a former passenger was infected with kovat 19 the captain keeps the ship open and passengers continue with an evening of festivities [Music] two days after the diamond princess was warned at a kovat 19 outbreak could be aboard the ship the bridge finally makes an announcement following orders from both the Japanese government and Princess Cruises captain Armour a princess employee for over 20 years doubles his speed to return to Yokohama a day earlier than planned dressed in hazmat suits Japanese medical officials board the ship all passengers will now be tested for a fever all right and asked about symptoms but notably only some passengers will be tested for the corona virus the testing takes 18 hours the ship is still open for business I'm okay trudi Clement a Canadian passenger was on board with her husband Steve and he still felt removed from it and things went on as normal dining rooms were open like there was no fear on the ship still hoping to get off the ship on the scheduled date public health expert Maggie Morris has been studying infections such as swine flu and Ebola for over 25 years we had a cruise ship but in all intense purposes was a floating town the sole purpose really is for people to have a holiday and to socialize and to relax and this is a semi enclosed space essentially that they're living in and therefore the environment is very conducive to spread of any communicable disease such as coded 19 but what we now know about cabin 19 is that it can be spread a symptomatically if your testing isn't perhaps as rigorous as it might be actually quite a significant procedure then it's very possible that in actual fact those that seem to be well were in actual fact going to become unwell soon February the 5th the results are in and I remember being in the dining room that night and you know the dining room is usually a hectic crazy noisy place and it just went dead silent everyone was just looking at each other there are a few people gasping and and we were kind of stunned and it was it was quite an experience ten people have tested positive for kovat 19 thousands of passengers are now trapped onboard with a virus no one is able to contain the diamond princess has spent the last two weeks traveling around Asia but a day before the end of the cruise captain Armour announces that a corona virus outbreak has taken place on the ship they take known people have tested positive for a corona virus the diamond princess is now in lockdown docked in the Japanese port of Yokohama passengers peer over the side of the ship attempting to see the 10 infected passengers removed the rest of the holiday makers have been ordered to their cabins for 14 days passenger on our tan and her family are in one of the ships smallest cabins so this is our room when you're coming from the door there is the walk-in wardrobe and this is our area when the captain finally announced the next morning that we would go into quarantine I was initially shocked and stunned my mind was racing I was going what's going to happen we're all stuck in here I'm in a little cabin with no windows and the four of us it was going what are we doing it's gonna be stuck here for 14 days potentially I had no idea this was coming Mary to a chemical analyst and her husband did you a cruise regulars but this was their first time without windows but it will just be a and extended complimentary cruise and we were just saying oh it will still be the same we'll be going out for dinner we can still good we can still watch the shows but then when they said we have to sustain our cabins it's just feeling like we are in a prison cell the diamond princess is now holding over 2,000 passengers 80% of whom are over the age of 60 the age group most vulnerable took Ovid 19 the ship does have a medical team on board but coping with a highly infectious virus like Ovid 19 makes their task unduly challenging outbreak of infectious disease or not but ships are not new they've happened before in the past you know including diseases like influenza diarrheal diseases caused ignore outbreak norovirus as well as you know even chickenpox one reasons why in fact infectious disease outbreaks are coming on board ships it's because of high population density so a ship is a semi closed space it's also designed so that people can get from one place to another quite quickly or a series of corridors and lifts and staircases which are constantly being used by hundreds of people this is a very serious infection that requires a clinical response and really the the ship has not really been able to respond appropriately in that way by now Kovac 19 has spread to over 20 countries and the death toll is reported to be over 500 but on the ship it seems the outbreak is small the day after lockdown begins another announcement [Music] people have tested positive for initially the passengers remain in good spirits oh we played games we watched movies we watched the news we read we took a lot of naps we were very fortunate because our friends were in the next cabin we were able to open the door on our balconies so we were able to go back and forth between each other's cabins which in retrospect maybe wasn't the best idea but gamers did give us a little bit more space to move around we found that if we don't have a set routine the day sort of starts to drag on and and it just becomes one long long you know lethargic kind of feel so we would do things like little exercises in between there were even Zumba on the TV that we could follow to do so sometimes that have that on before you know it see it's evening and and that's pretty much a whole day done two days in and there are only 20 recorded infections the Diamond Princess cruise liner releases a statement saying they will continue to work with the Japanese authorities the Japanese government also decides that the crew will not be quarantined primarily from the Philippines India and Indonesia the crew will be expected to work for at least 13 hours a day going door-to-door attending to the guests needs any list Sri etapa Bhattacharya has been reporting on the diamond princess since it docked on the 3rd of February so some crew were reassigned to various roles they were reassigned to help out the medical center they were reassigned to deliver packages they were reassigned to deliver meals and at some point we don't know where the infection was happening in terms of the interaction was the crew getting the people said the passenger sick or was that the passengers who were sick who were passing on the infection to the crew one evening a couple of the friends we made that were staff came to the door and when I opened the sari when I opened the door they were there with gowns and masks and gloves and that's when it hit home it's like this thing is real and we're in the middle of it and how are we gonna get out of it Pizza crews going from door to door it I guess there was a little bit of concern must not have been easy for them to you know continue doing all this non-stop work while they themselves were you know under the same threat as we were the crew are scared one group of Indian staff plead with their government for help namaskar may be that we have now 30 chicken video we're taking you up one charity based in the Philippines was inundated with calls from crew members asking for help joana concepción is the chair of my grantee international an organization that supports seafarers based on the accounts are shared with us by some of the seafarers they first learned about the code without break on the ship directly from their family members who read the international news the crew members that we were able to speak to were expressing concern and frustration over being forced to continue working they would share with us the management would tell them that if we refused to continue working that their names would be sent to the headquarters of the company in Los Angeles the crew hold up signs begging for help one reads don't let us get infected the next we would like to go home we know that the crew lived in quite cramped and overcrowded living accommodation so they may have already started to infect themselves with no word from the cruise ship about when the crew will be quarantined Binay kumar posts another video Namaskar I mean a multi diamond princess a royal diamond is the proof it could be a murder danger generality least one of the families all right indeed oh we oh yeah my edge but not all the crew felt able to voice their concerns so publicly afraid of what the consequences might be of speaking out one daughter of a crew member agreed to talk anonymously I me and my siblings would try to make him understand they have to insist their rights to their health and safety they have stopped working while they are enquired t we feared for his life also think that my dad was torn between how he is going to insist that they want to stop working just be isolated inside the room for their safety and he feared also that he might lose his job if he insists that they want to stop three days into the lockdown another announcement I've finally been modified by the Japanese Ministry of Health that an additional 41 people from the targeted screening sample supportive of princes have been tested positive for coronavirus as the infections increase so do merit to spheres you know what at first uh we were just taking it on a day-to-day basis and we were thinking that since we are a little bit younger and there is strong then it will not be able to touch us at home anyway so no problem but everyday that be let me wake up and the captain is saying that all for today there's top people who are who tested positive and then the next day says on for today there's another 61 now we're looking at ourselves and said what if the morrow we will been the next one so it's it's a different way of looking at Nam despite the increase in infections the Japanese authorities insist that keeping passengers onboard the ship is the right course of action when there's lack of information then then you know control measures are slower to be implemented a lot of speculation as to how the virus spread we knew it spread from person to person possibly by droplets but others also say that it could potentially be spread by aerosol maybe even fecal-oral from you know poor hand hygiene and so there are many things love rumors a lot of speculations and so that didn't help in terms of you know speeding up the the response at that time there was no place to remove nearly four thousand people from the ship Japan wasn't in a state of emergency and there were no hotels or any other public places that could house nearly 4,000 people in quarantine this was no consolation for the thousands trapped on the ship passengers vented their frustration to news organizations around the world of them stuck in here the level of worries and the mental stress has reached to the maximum now by February the 7th the ship has the second largest outbreak of kovat 19 in the world people are reporting long delays in getting tested at all even after they reported symptoms David Abel a 74 year old British man traveling with his wife begins documenting his frustrations what about all of the passengers not one of us to my knowledge has received any form of health check since the quarantine officers came on board that day earlier when we were in Yokohama no health checks have been given we haven't had our temperatures taken we haven't been asked any more questions and we got a cough have we got a fever are we taking any medication to reduce our temperatures that has not happened for days how are the medical people able to monitor the health situation of 2600 passengers on board it's five days since passengers were forced into a lockdown by the Japanese authorities more and more medics arrived on the dock as over 100 passengers are confirmed to have the virus but the worst is yet to come [Music] the Diamond Princess cruise ship has been carrying over 2,000 passengers on a two-week cruise around Asia the day before the voyage was due to end an outbreak of kovat 19 forced those on board into a lockdown the ship is now being held at the Japanese port of Yokohama news crews are back there setting up the tents again six days into the lockdown and there are now over a hundred and thirty confirmed cases of kovat 19 on board the ship outside of China the diamond princess is harboring the largest number of coronavirus cases in the world information has become more sparse and within days the regular updates from the captain will all but cease yes every day we have an update from the captain and how many people were tested positive and how many are being brought out of the hospital and then afterwards we're not getting any more well the the updates are getting to be lesser and lesser and we're just getting this news from our kids and from our relatives do you know that this mood and a hundred people more who were brought up that's the time that we know that there's been some kind of limitation now and what we can get from the outside probably to avoid people panicking the captain on the diamond princess was very informative even before the this virus had hit the ship he'd be full of news during the quarantine I feel he was under a lot of strain you could hear it in his voice he could only tell us so much the Japanese health authorities were in control eight days into the ship's lockdown and less than a fifth of those on board have been tested for Kovac 19 the Japanese authorities take those who have tested positive to hospitals around the country [Music] as the days pass passenger Trudy finds a new way to source information we could see the ambulances off our balcony and everyday there was more and we would look at each other my husband and I and say okay yesterday there was five now there's 10 ambulances out there and one day we did count 30 and we couldn't actually see the passengers being put into the ambulances because they had tunnels everywhere but it was just every morning you'd wake up and you'd look out and you'd say what's it going to be today each new case of Kovan 19 attracts more media and soon our cameras were around the world camped on the dock who was surprised that it was such big news I was just overwhelmed at times with the amount of attention that we got and there were times I was glad that Internet was out and we didn't have that time and energy that we put into it just [Music] looking out over the balcony of our room and seeing the media that was was amazing to me to see how many people were out there filming our ship phoning the passengers for interviews it was it was it hit home this thing is really big and we're part of it passengers become increasingly anxious for those with underlying health conditions prescriptions begin running out a news team captures a Japanese sign hanging from the side of the ship it reads medicine lacking passengers communicate over social media and soon hashtag hang in there diamond princess is a global trend on Twitter so we would keep in touch with people on the ship via Internet and social media but hearing some of them then start to be affected and and getting positive and just knowing people who who were getting symptoms and things like that that was bit scary at times obviously finally on February the 12th seven days after the quarantine began the Japanese Ministry of Health makes a statement passengers older than 80 and with pre-existing health conditions can finish their quarantine on land but the requirements lack clarity and passengers are left confused at one point during the second week they were offering to take people passengers off the ship you could stay in some kind of housing unit but I believe it was geared mostly to Japanese residents ten days since the diamond princess docked in Yokohama and only 218 people have been taken off the ship despite the long days trapped on board there are moments of fun for both passengers and crew [Music] hundreds of passengers have rooms with no windows and no access to fresh air so are allowed on deck for an hour a day fine art on the deck beautiful sunshine and the view nice they make the most of every second my husband in Iowa even joking with each other now we got to really how our dog feels like whenever we tell our dog let's walk let's walk and that dog will always be screaming like that and now it's our turn that I am asking my husband it's at our times at that time maybe we'll be going over going now really I'm always looking forward to being out having having to breathe fresh air and see see the world outside rather than the four walls of the cabin by February the 15th almost 300 people are infected when we heard every time someone would knock on our door we'd look at each other and just say okay is this the news is this the letter that tells us we're being removed and have to go into quarantine somewhere in Tokyo or outside of Tokyo so that fear was there all the time after nearly a month on board some good news for American passengers their government has sent a plane to bring them home passengers Cheryl and Paul traveling with their family a eager to leave their cabin we started calling people to go and board the buses to go to the airport and we have been in this room on the diamond princess for the last 27 days for the last 12 days we have not stepped foot out of this door into the hallway it's the first country to evacuate its citizens about step into the big wide world so I have to put my mask on this gentleman he will hand it to the State Department folks on either side and they'll put you on a bus the bus will take your airplane but for mark and Jerry Jurgen s'en disaster strikes mark a recipient of a kidney transplant is at high risk from kovat 19 so along with his wife had been regularly tested for the virus on the day they're due to leave for America a phone call we got a call again from the medical office and they wanted to come up and talk to us which I thought was strange and they knocked on the door and I answered the door and they didn't speak English at all and they handed me a they handed me a paper and it said do the duty of your test results we were going to take you off the ship and take you to the hospital and I of course thought they meant me because I was the one at risk and but then they realized that I realized it wasn't me that they were talking about my wife and she had about an hour to pack a very small bag and they took her away in an ambulance to a to a hospital in Fukushima four hours away she's the healthiest person I know so I couldn't believe it she actually tested positive mark is not allowed to go with his wife and he will rejoin her back in America friend Cole has been staying in the adjoining room we feared for our friend her husband was not allowed to go with her so he was left alone in his cabin and we had many hours not knowing what her condition was in she was calling us from the ambulance but until she really got to the Fukushima hospital and had all the tests we didn't realize she was out of danger with the virus passengers remaining on the diamond princess plead with their respective governments to help rescue them even now we're in quarantine ah well come fondue our cabin it just seems that more people are getting infected by the virus as days pass more countries and repatriation flights and more passengers are allowed to leave the ship because we know that in in a day or two there will be a chartered plane coming for us so our bags are already packed we were when we were thought through and we were told that really for tonight you got to be ready because the pain is already here and that's the time but we realized that oh it's true all our bags are packed you're really going definitely today thank you for all your players started taking picture of our suitcase and singing that now our bags are packed we're ready to go but the quarantine doesn't end there at first there was no news and then finally came the news that yes they were going to send a plane as long as you tested negative you would be allowed to get on that plane and come home where we faced another 14 days quarantine but it was worth it just to get home to Canada as some of the passengers embarked on their journeys home it's announced two lives have been lost you [Music] February 2020 and the diamond princess has the second largest outbreak of kovat 19 in the world the infection has spread four times more quickly on the ship than it did in Wuhan China where the first outbreak began owner tan and her family have been living in a windowless room and sleeping in bunk beds for the last month despite minimal contact with the outside world the virus penetrates their cabin when when I got that phone call and person on the other end of the line was telling me you know your daughter has tested positive why my mind went blank such an look on my face because my husband knew immediately that someone had tested positive and all he could ask was who who it was and I could barely speak I had to point at her to to you know sort of say it was her I had to tell the the lady on the other and I had to call her back just sort of broke down a little I think and was really frightened because these were obviously words I didn't want to hear with hundreds infected from the ship and kovat 19 spreading across the globe scientists scrambled to learn more from this outbreak renowned Japanese scientist Kentaro owatta manages to secure passage onto the docked ship shocked at what he sees he posts a video online today I entered into the cruise ship diamond princess which is bombarded by a lots of a copy 19 in session right now I looked into the several places inside the ship turned out the cruise ship was completely inadequate in terms of the infection control but inside Princess Diana gee I was so scared I was so scared of getting copied 19 because there was no way to tell where the virus is no green zone no red song everywhere could have virus and everybody was not cheerful about it there was no single professional infection control person inside the ship and there was nobody in charge of infection probation as a professional 18 days since the passengers quarantine began a third death [Applause] two days later a fourth all the fatalities so far are Japanese and over the age of 18 thirty eight days since the diamond princess first set sail all remaining passengers disembark so after receiving our approval of disembarkation this morning when we were packing that was exciting for us because we were going home and it's a strange feeling being in a strange land when you know there's so much going on around you and the only thing you can think about is getting back home so packing was a release for us it was it is a good feeling the princess cruise liner issues all passengers a full refund and a free future cruise five Annika mijo why not I believe Princess Cruises did everything that they knew how to do at that time or at this time in order to help us emotional support mental health eight to anybody who required it but for the crew their quarantine is only just beginning as they embark on another 14 days of isolation its announced another two people have died a woman from Japan and a British man the death toll now stands at six the crew remained fearful as at least a hundred and fifty of them have been infected with the virus Princess Cruises told the crew that they would be receiving all the compensation that they worked for during the entire period of the quarantine and many of the crew members while they are grateful for this are concerned that would not be enough to sustain their families and means given the uncertainties that they are now facing that they might not be able to return back to work it's not until March the first six weeks after the ship set sail that the crew along with captain Gennaro Armour leave the ship he makes a speech to the crew the captain is praised for his handling of the crisis on a tan along with her daughter Kate who soon recovers from the virus make posters in support of the captain the captain was really reassuring and then we could hear his emotions in his voice and he's carrying nature in in the way he would speak to us and we felt all that support coming from him captain Armour has managed to stay free from kovat 19 and is soon on his way home to Italy as crew and passengers return to their 56 respective countries the World Health Organization declares Kovac 19 a global pandemic by now the global death toll is reported to be over 4,000 conversations now turn to how officials from both the princess group and the Japanese government allowed the corona virus to spread so aggressively it infected 712 people the ship's company says they were taking instructions from the government on how to impose quarantine measures and how to prevent infection on board the government says they were faced with an unprecedented situation and the two were trying to prevent more infection on board and trying to save lives with Corvette 19 of course as an added level of complication because this this is a new disease caused by a new virus great amount of fear a lot of uncertainty so that probably led to some delay in how the the health authorities in Japan responded to the outbreak less than two months after the quarantine ends it's announced 14 passengers from the diamond princess have died but I think what this particular infection has shown them is that really these ships are not designed and they're not managed to be able to deal with such an infection I think the biggest lesson that has been learnt or will be learned from this is that in actual fact they should never have really stayed on board and being quarantined on board they should have actually either gone on and be repatriated probably would have saved more infections and possibly lives despite the outbreak on the diamond princess the princess fleet continues to sail passengers on the Sun Princess cruise are targeted by angry locals on the island of réunion concerned the ship will bring covert 19 ashore the Sun Princess along with three other princess cruise liners are infected with the virus in total 41 passengers died the ruby princess docked in Australia is the worst of them with 21 deaths the Australian government is now launching a criminal investigation so what about the future of cruising in terms of the disease control I think you know the ideal thing if I if we just focus on covet 19 the thing that we really need is a vaccine and the sooner we get better this the better it is [Music]

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 1,204,063

Rating: 4.7947731 out of 5

Keywords: cna, cna insider, cna documentary, outbreak, quarantine, Diamond Princess, yokohama, wuhan, coronavirus, covid-19, cruise, pandemic, lockdown, travel, japan, asia, asia stories

Id: CDjM834YWrs

Length: 48min 19sec (2899 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Air-ion]

CNA is an English based news channel in Singapore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNA_(news_channel))

This is their story of the cruise ship stuck in Japan.

[u/tsian]

Wow... that was quite insane... Thank you for sharing.