Chuckles Chuntering-Coronavirus

Let me introduce Dillon, who is ready for any pandemic coming! He's been watching the news with worry and I'm trying to calm my poor wee boy! It doesn't help him when I'm sneezing all over the place! Just a minor cold though, nothing serious and I'm feeling fine. 

I've been watching with horror the ongoing drama on board that cruise ship Diamond Princess-a floating petri dish if ever I saw one. The passengers are all talking about the dreadful failure of quarantine, and crew spreading the infection around the ship. I was following the videos of that American couple Paul and Cheryl Molesky-does anyone know if they are ok? I last saw the couple on the evacuation flight but I've heard nothing since. There was a US man who was afraid to leave the ship because of the quarantine arrangements on the flight, an Australian man who tested positive hours before leaving and has been seperated from his wife now, Briton Alan Steele, who recovered from the virus and was released, and the British couples like David and Sally Abel, and Alan Sandford and his wife, who have been sharing their videos online. I feel like I know them all personally and hope they all get through this ok.

The quarantine is a joke. Watching the passengers stroll along the deck so close to each other with only a flimsy mask on, all touching the same ship's rail as they go. Seeing them all out on their balconies without masks. People coming into contact with those bringing the meals each day. It sounded like there was contact during the exchange of trays three times a day. Were the trays properly scrubbed? Were the crew regularly changing their gloves as they moved from cabin to cabin? What precautions were those making the food taking? Were utensils, plates and trays being scrubbed before re-use? Were the crew using a hand sanitiser? Were the passengers issued any? Were the crew regularly tested? Are the testers following the quarantine or spreading it? I was pretty concerned by what I saw and my dad and I agreed that this would become a disaster and it has.

Having read all these prepper and apocalypse books I have my own idea of what quarantine should be. First, if the cabins have kettles, I'd be bringing the passengers things like packet pasta, MREs, pot noodles, packet soup, extra tea and coffee sachets, energy drinks, boil in the bag meals-things they can prepare themselves in their cabin for safety, along with bottled water and food pre-wrapped before coming onto the ship that can have the packaging wiped down ie pre-wrapped fruit, bottles of water, biscuits and crackers, wax wrapped cheese, chocolate bars, you get the idea? If the rooms have microwaves it would be a supply of ready meals. Empty trays should be put outside the cabin for collection and taken away without contact. Trays with food should be properly scrubbed, staff changing gloves for each cabin, and food left outside the cabin for the passengers to collect and take inside. If I was on that ship, I would be refusing all but essential human contact and I would be staying in my cabin and avoiding all other passengers and crew to give myself the best chance of being safe.     

My other concern is the haphazard end of the quarantine. Nations are rescuing their people and taking them back to a proper quarantine so there should be no further spread amongst those people back in the USA, Australia, UK etc. Several US citizens on their rescue flight home developed coronavirus symptoms as they travelled-so yesterday I watched in alarm as the Japanese were just released from the ship with no two week proper quarantine following like other countries, to make their own way home on public transport! That is very worrying for anyone out and about in Japan! If any of those people caught the virus AFTER their final testing, in the several days waiting for the results, they may have spread that virus everywhere in the area upon their release. And the media had no masks on when interviewing these people! I was watching pretty much in horror!

I do have a few questions. Why were there no WHO experts directing operations on the ship to ensure full successful quarantine instead of untrained crew doing it? Why did these rescue flights not extract passengers home when there were only a couple of cases on the ship, like the rescue flights from Wuhan? During this window, most people were not infected and it would have been better to get them home for quarantine or treatment rather than let them wait and catch the virus as quarantine failed. 

Watching this drama unfold, it makes me want to avoid any kind of holiday on a confined ship or river boat! Get well soon everyone.