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15.04.20 RubyFolo - Ruby Princess coronavirus death toll climbs

Nearly a month since the Ruby Princess was allowed to dock, the human cost continues to mount. Another passenger died today, taking the toll to 18. The cruise ship is due to leave Australian waters this weekend and two separate inquiries are trying to work out how this debacle was allowed to happen.

TRANSCRIPT

JASON OM, REPORTER: Four weeks after its controversial arrival in Sydney Harbour, the Ruby Princess has left more than 600 Australians with COVID-19.

For Graeme Lake and his wife Karla, the cruise from Sydney to New Zealand was to celebrate Karla's 75th birthday.

GRAEME LAKE: We met through a blind date. Back in the '90s. We had both been married before.

JASON OM: Passionate travellers, they had seen the world with Princes' cruises about 20 times. But about eight days into this journey, Karla started showing symptoms.

GRAEME LAKE: We both got rheumatoid arthritis and we have this dry cough but Karla's was getting worse and worse and I kept saying, that you're coughing bad - I didn't take any notice.

I believe she probably started to pick it up on the second or third day before the cruise finished.

JASON OM: After disembarking from the ship and travelling back home to Murrumba Downs, north of Brisbane, both fell seriously ill and ended up in Caboolture Hospital.

GRAEME LAKE: She was coughing but we talked and she said she's fighting. And she was fighting.

JASON OM: Karla's condition worsened.

GRAEME LAKE: They moved us up to the ICU. Everything went haywire from there.

JASON OM: 10 days after leaving the ship, Karla died in hospital.

GRAEME LAKE: Karla was the most beautiful and...easiest going wife a man could ever have. I don't think we ever argued because she wouldn't argue. This cruise has ruined us. Ruined her completely. It's broke me. It's broke the kids, the grandkids. She didn't deserve it. She went on a cruise for her birthday. It's really...devastated. Even now, I'm still struggling.

JASON OM: On March 8, the Ruby Princess was set to leave Sydney for a 13-day tour of New Zealand. But boarding was delayed while New South Wales Health carried out tests. The company says those tests came back negative for COVID-19 and that there was no reason to believe there was COVID-19 on the ship.

MARY BEERENS: Jason, you would think - If I lose sleep over, I want to know when the ship

came in on March 8, I really would like to know did we go on to a dirty ship? It is bothering me.

JASON OM: Onboard were Bill and Mary Beerens. The holiday was a gift from husband to wife.

BILL BEERENS: My dear wife has looked after me for 54 years and I felt it was a great idea

to return the favour.

MARY BEERENS: It was lovely. It was beautiful.

JASON OM: Both are now isolating in their home in Western Sydney, after leaving the Ruby Princess. They tested positive to COVID-19 and wished they'd never boarded the ship.

BILL BEERENS: If we had have known we would not have gone on to it -

MARY BEERENS: No way. No way. But we weren't given the choice of that, were we? We were just given the "okay yes, you can all go aboard now."

JASON OM: On March 16, the Federal Government announced it was banning cruise ships from arriving in Australia. While still at sea, the cruise operator told passengers, that

it had decided to cancel the cruise and expedite their return to Sydney.

The Ruby Princess returned to Sydney and despite the ban was allowed to dock on March 19. New South Wales Health was aware that some passengers onboard had flu-like symptoms but ultimately decided the ship was low risk. It says no cases of COVID-19 were identified onboard the ship, before it docked.

MARY BEERENS: We were just - they let us through, "keep walking, keep walking," what was said, "keep going, keep going."

BILL BEERENS: It was like a big celebration. All the ship crew was all lined up alongside the deck.

JASON OM: The more than 2,500 passengers onboard were advised to self-isolate for 14 days once they arrived home. For hundreds of passengers, that meant flying interstate and abroad. There are now

662 confirmed COVID cases, among Ruby Princess passengers around Australia. At least 18 people have died.

British traveller Michelle Kelly returned to the UK and says she, her wife and their two-year-old son fell violently ill but haven't been able to be tested.

MICHELLE KELLY: Within a couple of days I was seriously ill. And thought I was going to die. I couldn't breathe. The coughing was uncontrollable. The sore throat was just unimaginable. And the baby started coughing a lot and was struggling with his breathing at one point. We had paramedics there for him. He had to go to hospital.

JASON OM: The day after the Ruby Princess docked, New South Wales Health wrote to passengers, saying there were "several confirmed COVID-19 cases on the cruise ship."

Two-days-later, the cruise company said "those who tested positive were likely to have been infectious while on the ship."

GRAEME LAKE: Well, I'm angry. So I want justice. I mean, where is the CEO? My phone hasn't been disconnected but I haven't had one phone call.

BILL BEERENS: Coughing and struggling. It was - yeah, terrible. Very, very bad.

MARY BEERENS: You get different symptoms each day. Mainly the headaches, the sore throat, runny nose. Your muscles in your body just ache all over. It was terrible. You don't sleep of a night.

JASON OM: Bill and Mary's son Danny also tested positive to COVID-19, after meeting his parents when they came home.

DANNY BEERENS: This is very highly contagious and everyone should be cautious.

MARY BEERENS: I'm presuming that he got it from us, from the time that he came down with it.

BILL BEERENS: Where else?

JASON OM: The Ruby Princess remains in lockdown in Wollongong, south of Sydney, with more than 1,000 crew members onboard. More than 150 have tested positive to COVID-19.

DEAN SUMMERS, INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT FEDERATION: Well, they're more and more anxious, they're angry, they are starved of information, there's no consistent line of information, what's going on. These people are desperate to get out. They want to get off that ship, they want to get home to their loved ones.

JASON OM: Would you or your department have done anything differently looking back?

DR KERRY CHANT, NSW CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: I think I'm very keen that my department, my staff, participate openly in all of the investigations under way and if there are learnings at the end of it, we will reflect upon those and incorporate that. So I'm committed to cooperating fully with all of the investigations and I know that my staff are very keen to cooperate fully with all of the investigations.

JASON OM: Premier, can I just ask you one more question?

Just reflecting on the death toll from the Ruby Princess, do you think the families of the loved ones deserve an apology?

GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN, NSW PREMIER: Oh, I've said everything to date on that issue already and all of us want to get to the bottom of the issue. And, of course, anybody who loses a loved one to this horrible disease, deserves our utmost condolences and deepest sympathies and I express that to all people who have lost their loved ones.

JASON OM: Two separate inquiries into why the passengers were allowed to disembark have begun. It could take many months until the families of the victims are provided with answers.

Who do you hold responsible for your illness?

BILL BEERENS: Ruby Princess, definitely. Definitely, Ruby Princess.

MARY BEERENS: Yep. Yep.

GRAEME LAKE: Princess, I'm going to do whatever I can to get justice for Karla.