'Chaotic' cruise ship quarantine was 'a major failure, completely inadequate and a mistake' says disease expert who has now isolated himself after seeing conditions on board

UK Daily Mail ^ | February 19, 2020 | Staff

[C19fan]

A Japanese disease expert has branded the Diamond Princess quarantine a 'major failure', 'completely inadequate' and a 'mistake'.

Kentaro Iwata said he had placed himself in a 14-day quarantine for fear of infecting his family after a brief visit on board the ship yesterday.

The Kobe University infectious diseases expert said conditions on the ship were 'completely chaotic' and violated quarantine rules.

His video has racked up more than a million views amid a barrage of criticism of Japanese authorities after 542 people were infected during the lockdown.

[C19fan]

Considering cruise ships are floating petri dishes keeping people on board seemed like a stupid mistake. All but guaranteed the virus would spread throughout the ship.

[caver]

This sure can’t do any good for the cruise ship business.

[Red Badger]

And it did. The HVAC system is essentially a tunnel connecting all the ship together.................

[Grampa Dave]

Diamond Princess had completely inadequate infection control, and there was no professional ID person in charge.

“Diamond Princess has completely inadequate infection control, and there is no professional ID person in charge. Passengeres, crews, health care professionals working inside are at risk of infection, and the practice is even worse than what I saw in Africa. Immediate action is needed to save people inside.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtHYZkLuKcI

As of Tuesday, 542 cases of the virus, known as COVID-19, have been identified among the 3,711 quarantined passengers and crew, making the ship the site of the most infections outside of China. The Diamond Princess cruise ship is also the only place where health officials have seen the disease spread easily among people beyond China.

[Grampa Dave]

Even back in the middle ages, they knew how to do a proper quarantine.

The practice of quarantine, as we know it, began during the 14th century in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics.

Ships arriving in Venice from infected ports were required to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing. This practice, called quarantine, was derived from the Italian words quaranta giorni which mean 40 days.

[allendale]

The ship should have docked at a remote island, the passengers and crew let ashore and observed for three months. Much could have been learned about the nature of this disease.

[null and void]

The only surprise here is how poorly the normally fastidious Japanese handled the situation on board the ship.

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

[lepton]

A fundamental principle of quarantine, is that you separate those infected from those who are not, and that further you separate those who are exposed but not yet infected into small groups.

The method chosen was so far outside of that that they in effect guaranteed spreading of the disease amongst those shipboard.

This was obvious from very early on.

[Moonman62]

Considering cruise ships are floating petri dishes keeping people on board seemed like a stupid mistake.

...

The stupid mistake was not ensuring that the quarantine rules were being followed.

[dp0622]

Yeah I’ll pass for a while :-)

[dp0622]

Hey I didn’t know that that’s cool :-)

[PIF]

theres a whole earlier thread with people commenting how well the ship has been handled ...

[Buckeye McFrog]

WORST.....LOVE.....BOAT.....EPISODE.....EVER!!!

[goodnesswins]

Yup...my hub was anxious to get me to go on a cruise this year...now...no way

[silverleaf]

Japan deserves criticism and worse for making the decision to force these people to stay on the ship in inadequate quarantine facilities

An onshore site or sites should have been established early on

[DCBryan1]

he ship should have docked at a remote island, the passengers and crew let ashore and observed for three months. Much could have been learned about the nature of this disease.

FIRST! We need to bring back mfg of medicine/mask/equipment in case of true pandemic.

SECOND, we need to reactivate quarantine islands on US soil/territories. I nominate those islands closed down by Clinton/Bush/Obama to include Midway Island, Johnston Atoll, etc. We need to rebuild those. We also need to reactivate Pease AFB and Presque Isle AFB as back up CONUS quarantine. All of the above were former SAC bases. We need to spin up Hickman AFB, Andersen AFB (Guam) and Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico as primary quarantine bases. There are a couple of USVI air strips we can use for East Coast/Caribbean.

As far as the rest of the world? Lots of former SAC bases/greek islands, diego garcia, Thule, Canary Islands, etc.

BRING BACK quarantine islands!

[Grampa Dave]

Your ancestors didn’t just cook pasta and make good wine, (nothing wrong with that).

Many were very good leaders with common sense.

[silverleaf]

Now 621 cases, 24 critical

[silverleaf]

Not many cruise lines train or equip to become a level 4 biohazard quarantine zone

[I want the USA back]

Cruise ships were not made to be floating hospitals. Don’t expect privileged treatment on a boat.

A cruise ship is a perfect environment for a pandemic. You breathe recirculated air exhaled by other passengers. You depend on the ship’s crew, which does not consist of medical personnel, to keep you free of contamination.