Ship passengers cause surge in cases
SYDNEY: Australia reported a jump in coronavirus cases yesterday almost entirely due to passengers who disembarked a cruise ship in Sydney several days ago, prompting widespread criticism of the official response to the pandemic.
The ship, Carnival Corp’s Ruby Princess, became the country’s largest source of coronavirus infections as one of its passengers also became the eighth fatality nationally.
In a chain of events described by New South Wales Police Minister David Elliott as a ‘‘monumental stuffup’’, about 2700 passengers were allowed to leave the ship when it docked in Sydney on March 19.
By yesterday, about 130 of those passengers had tested positive and officials were frantically hunting down other travellers to test them and track their movements.
Australia stepped closer to a full lockdown yesterday, with authorities warning of harsher penalties for anybody violating selfisolation orders as they began to worry hospitals were starting to feel the strain.
With 2136 cases, Australia has registered significantly lower rates of coronavirus compared to elsewhere in the world, but the infection rate has quickened in recent days and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said it was now at a ‘‘critical stage’’.
Carnival Corp said it was ‘‘profoundly sorry’’ to learn the passenger, a woman in her 70s, had died.
In Western Australia, police and Australian Border Force officers at Fremantle Port were making sure noone from the cruise ship Magnifica disembarked while it was there to refuel yesterday, as the state prepared to impose new border controls.
Premier Mark McGowan said at least 250 of the more than 1700 passengers had upper respiratory problems.
As the Covid19 pandemic accelerates, with nearly 383,000 cases and at least 16,500 deaths, and infections reported from nearly every country, governments continue to grapple with measures to slow its spread.
In Britain yesterday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered Britons to stay at home to halt the spread of coronavirus, imposing curbs on everyday life without precedent in peacetime.
All but essential shops were to close immediately and people were not to meet family or friends or risk being fined, Johnson said in a televised address.
He had resisted pressure to impose a full lockdown even as other European countries had done so, but was forced to change tack as projections showed the health system could become overwhelmed.
Deaths from the virus in Britain jumped 54 to 335 yesterday as the Government said the military would help ship millions of items of personal protective equipment including masks to healthcare workers who have complained of shortages.
In Italy, 25 out of 90 doctors working at its Oglio Po Hospital near Cremona were found to be infected with Covid19, compounding the strain faced by a health system overwhelmed by the world’s second biggest outbreak and lacking sufficient protective equipment.
Adding in nurses, technicians and other employees, a fifth of the hospital’s personnel has tested positive, hospital director Daniela Ferrari said.
At a national level, 4268 health workers — or 0.4% of the total — had contracted the virus as of
March 20, according to National Health Institute.
Other developments yesterday:
China’s new cases have doubled, driven by infected travellers returning home from overseas, so it has tightened restrictions in Beijing and other major cities, as it relaxes them in the epicentre of the virus, Hubei province.
India has expanded lockdown measures, halted its national train network, banned domestic flights as of tomorrow, and stopped international flights landing until March 31.
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Myanmar has reported its first two confirmed cases, one of the last countries in Asia to be hit by the pandemic.
A coronavirus $US2 trillion economic stimulus package has failed to advance in the US Senate as the chamber remained deadlocked for a second day.
South Korea reported 76 new cases yesterday, maintaining a downward trend in new infections which raised hopes Asia’s largest outbreak outside China may be slowing.
Austria is mobilising its military reservists for the first time since World War 2, asking them to fight the outbreak by helping with food supplies, medical support and police operations.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was forced yesterday to walk back a decree letting companies suspend pay to workers amid the pandemic, following rising discontent over his handling of the crisis.
Cuba’s Government yesterday banned Cubans from leaving the country, closed schools and suspended interregional public transport.
The EU will send ¤20 million in humanitarian aid to Iran, which is subject to US sanctions, to help alleviate the coronavirus, and will support Teheran’s request for IMF financial help.
South Africa will to go into a nationwide lockdown for 21 days starting tomorrow, and Thailand will begin a monthlong state of emergency tomorrow.
Curfews have begun in Saudi Arabia, Albania, Sudan and Algeria, a state of emergency declared in Kyrgyzstan, Ivory Coast and Senegal, and Nigeria has closed its land borders. — AAP/Reuters