Ruby Princess


Ruby Princess is a Crown-class cruise ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises.
The Ruby Princess was built in 2008 by Fincantieri in Trieste, Italy, as a sister ship to and. She was turned over to Carnival Corporation and Princess Cruises in late October 2008. She was formally named at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on 6 November 2008 by Trista and Ryan Sutter.
The ship became infamous in 2020, as the source of over 10% of Australia's early COVID-19 cases. By 24 April at least 22 deaths in Australia and the United States were linked to the ship. A cluster of cases in New Zealand was also linked to the ship.

Design

Ruby Princess continued the modified design with the Night Club moved just aft of the funnel, rather than suspended over the stern like the original designs.
By gross tonnage she was the largest ship in the Princess fleet until the arrival of the new.

Areas of operation

Ruby Princess was initially based in Los Angeles for cruises to the Mexican Riviera, Hawaii and California coastal cruises. In late 2019, Ruby Princess' base moved to Australia.

2020: spread of COVID-19

On 8 March 2020, Ruby Princess departed Sydney, Australia for a 13-night cruise around New Zealand. Intended ports of call were Fiordland National Park, Port Chalmers, Akaroa, Wellington, Napier, Tauranga, Auckland, and Paihia. The cruise was cut short on 15 March and Ruby Princess returned direct to Sydney from Napier.
Ruby Princess' visit to Napier on 15 March 2020 led to a cluster of 16 COVID-19 cases there.
On 19 March 2020, the ship arrived back in Sydney, New South Wales two days early from the New Zealand cruise, docking at 3am, as some COVID-19 swabs needed to be tested as an urgent matter. The ship disembarked 2,700 passengers later that morning. The state health minister, Brad Hazzard announced on 20 March 2020 that 13 of the people on the ship had been tested for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and 3 of them were positive. New South Wales health authorities asked all passengers to go into self-isolation. It was announced on 24 March that one passenger had died and 133 on the ship had tested positive for the coronavirus.
As of 30 March, at least 440 passengers had tested positive for the virus. 211 were in New South Wales, 71 in South Australia, 70 in Queensland, 43 in Western Australia, 22 in the Australian Capital Territory, 18 in Victoria, three in Tasmania and two in the Northern Territory. By 31 March, five of them had died, one in the Australian Capital Territory, two in Tasmania, one in New South Wales and one in Queensland. By 2 April, cases in New South Wales had risen to 337 passengers and 3 crew members, and total passenger cases had risen to at least 576, excluding passengers who left Australia without being tested.
On 1 April, the ship was off Port Botany. The International Transport Workers' Federation had called on the Australian government to allow the crew members to be disembarked so that they could be flown to their countries of residence. At that point, there were 15,000 crew members in 18 cruise ships sitting off the Australian coast. Six from Ruby Princess had been medically evacuated. Aspen Medical was contracted to carry out medical assessments on the ship and visited it on 2 April.
Another three passengers from the ship were reported dead in New South Wales on 5 April, and a fourth in Queensland. Another died in Western Australia on 6 April followed by one in Tasmania on 7 April, bringing total deaths to 13. The death toll reached 21 on 18 April 2020 with the death of a second man in the United States. About 900 passengers from other countries other than Australia and left Sydney after the ships arrival there; few specifics are known about infections or deaths in this group. The death toll was reported to have reached 22 on 13 May, with the death of an 81 year old passenger.
There had been 662 confirmed cases of the virus, including 342 in New South Wales. 11 cases of secondary transmission from people infected on the ship had been reported, which had not led to any deaths.
As of 8 April, the ship's crew of about 1,000 remained on board, with 200 exhibiting flu-like symptoms; 18 had tested positive for COVID-19. The vessel moored at Port Kembla on 5 April 2020. 542 crew members were taken off the ship for repatriation to Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States between 21 and 23 April. 190 members of the crew have tested positive for the virus. The ship left Port Kembla on 23 April. On 7 May, the ship arrived in Manila and disembarked 214 Filipino crew members.

Criminal investigation

On 5 April 2020, New South Wales Police launched a criminal investigation into whether the operator of the ship, Carnival Australia, broke the Biosecurity Act 2015 and New South Wales state laws, by deliberately concealing COVID-19 cases. A report by The Guardians Matilda Boseley commented: "Since the ship's 2,700 passengers were allowed to freely disembark in Sydney on 19 March, federal and state authorities have been pinballing blame."
On 7 April 2020, it was reported that the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, had requested Crown Law to check whether her country's laws had been broken.
As of the evening of 8 April, 30 investigators had been assigned to Strike Force Bast which was looking into the Ruby Princess case: as to "the communications, actions, and other circumstances that led to the docking and disembarking of the vessel" without a quarantine. The ship's voyage data recorder had been seized.

Special Commission of enquiry

On 15 April, the NSW State Government announced a Special Commission of inquiry to investigate events surrounding the Ruby Princess. The Commission is headed by barrister Bret Walker. It is scheduled to report by 14 August 2020.
The Commission held hearings on 22 and 23 April for crew members prior to the ship leaving Port Kembla for Manila, late on 23 April.