A Newshub investigation into the Ruby Princess cruise ship has found that a crew member from COVID-19 stricken northern Italy was allowed to join the ship for its journey around New Zealand.
The crew member flew from Italy to Dunedin via Auckland and joined the vessel on March 12, the Ministry of Health confirmed. The Public Health Unit spoke to a senior doctor on board and agreed to isolate the staff member for 14 days.
After the ship had left Sydney on March 8, the Ministry of Health confirmed it passed health checks in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Hawke's Bay before returning to Sydney on March 19. But it is unable to confirm whether there is a link between this crew member and the COVID-19 outbreak in New Zealand.
COVID-19 was onboard the ship when it left New Zealand, and it left behind a cluster in Hawke's Bay.
After it docked in Sydney, passengers were allowed to be released and the disease quickly spread.
The Ministry of Health's Director-General Dr Ashley Bloomfield believes the ship didn't pick up the virus in New Zealand, instead it brought it here.
"I don't think it took COVID-19 from New Zealand to Australia," he said on Monday.
"What seems clear if you look at the picture of what happened on the Ruby Princess is that there was one or more people on that ship with COVID-19 when it departed Australia."
Bloomfield's comment follows media coverage in Australia that claims the virus was on board when it left for New Zealand. If so, then a Newshub investigation has found New Zealand health officials failed to find COVID-19 on the ship despite repeated checks.
Those checks are what Australia relied on when letting the cruise dock in Sydney. Health officials in New South Wales say the cruise was assessed as "low risk" based on the level of illness on board and the negative COVID-19 tests done on passengers while in New Zealand.
The New South Wales police commissioner has now confirmed that a homicide investigation is now underway to determine where the virus came from.
"The only way I can get to the bottom of whether our national biosecurity laws or state laws were broken is through a criminal investigation," Mick Fuller said.
Patrick Gower's Analysis
- Cruise ships were banned in New Zealand on March 14 and the Ruby Princess sailed out on that day, but it was exempted to go to Hawke's Bay since it was deemed safe
- Clearly our way of assessing these ships is not up to standard
- Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield's assertion on Monday that COVID-19 was on board when it got here raises a number of questions - are there cases in Milford Sound, Dunedin or Christchurch that we don't know about?
- No comment from officials has been made about the crew member from northern Italy, a detail that has to be of interest in the Australian homicide investigation.
