A crew who was serving food to the cruisers may have been responsible for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on Ruby Princess.
The Princess Cruises-operated (Carnival Corporation-owned) ship departed Sydney NSW Australia on March 8 for New Zealand and returned back to NSW on March 19. Its outbreak resulted in 600+ confirmed Coronavirus cases nationwide as well as at least 18 deaths.
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said on Monday that at this stage they would think it was "probably a crew member working in probably the galley, someone who is serving food, someone who would get across a number of passengers for it to spread like it has."
He added that was not proven as fact yet, but "would seem to be the most obvious point of transmission is someone who is handling food on behalf of multiple hundreds of people."
An investigation was launched after ~2700 passengers were allowed to disembark in Port Sydney without adequate screenings - an action the Australian Border Force blamed on the NSW health authorities.
According to NSW Health, 66 crew on Ruby Princess had tested positive for COVID-19 and many were close to recovery. Another 11 crew were medevaced from the vessel and hospitalized in Sydney health facilities. The remaining crew are still quarantined onboard. Ruby Princess is currently docked at Port Kembla, south of Wollongong.
For other Ruby Princess accidents and incidents see at the ship's CruiseMinus page.
For Coronavirus updates on cruise ship quarantines (infected passengers and crew) and top-pandemic countries (COVID-19 cases and deaths, daily updated statistics) see at CruiseMapper's Norovirus page.