Letter Re: A Ship’s Belated Flu Quarantine as an Object Lesson

Hi Jim,
Here is a bit about the progress of Swine Flu in Australia with this article about a quarantined luxury cruise ship.

We now have a cruise ship, the P & O Pacific Dawn, being quarantined at Willis Island on the Great Barrier Reef – with 2000 people on board. Yesterday the ship was photographed flying the yellow quarantine flag! Our “brilliant” state health departments let 20 infected people disembark at Sydney and they [then] flew throughout Australia .

[Some background:] 13 of these people turned up at the Robina Hospital at the Gold Coast and the staff at the hospital had no idea what to do with them. The people were put in a single room with a single bed and most of the family was made to sleep on the floor. Authorities seemed to be clueless.

They (the New South S]Wales government) then let new passengers embark on the infected ship and let the ship leave Sydney on a trip. They also let three infected staff sail on the new voyage. No prizes for guessing what happened next. All people on board now exposed to the swine flu and the ship has been quarantined.

I really enjoy your web log and I have been sharing it with my friends. Keep up the great work and my prayers and best wishes to your wife with her illness. Yours sincerely – Jamie in Queensland, Australia