Editorial July 15th 2022

Welcome to this week’s editorial, I must admit that I was quite amused by the media frenzy reporting of the Coral Princess and its 100 cases of Covid docking in Eden. With no other intention but to gain clicks, sell papers or draw viewers the main stream media all jumped on the bandwagon of calling the outbreak a “Cruise from Hell”. Many were calling it the “Ruby Princess 2” and, for a brief moment in time it made the news of the day. But was it? When the ship docked in Eden the reports were that 100 of the 2300 on board had Covid. By the time it sailed on to Sydney there were 114 infected crew members and four passengers doing the right thing and isolating after positive results . A Princess Cruises spokesperson said the crew who had tested positive were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. While many might think that a cruise would be the least safe place to be with Covid it turns out that being on a cruise ship is safer than wandering around the streets of Bega, Moruya or Batemans Bay. Firstly to board you must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test at the terminal. Wouldn’t it be safer for us all if this was a condition of going to town. Unlike town masks are recommended to be worn on the cruise, but not required, though exceptions may apply in certain venues. On board they encourage everyone to use the hand-washing sinks and hand sanitizer dispensers at venue entrances and in high-traffic areas throughout the ship and clean public areas and staterooms thoroughly and frequently using a safe disinfectant proven to quickly kill coronaviruses. With the exception of just a few shops and cafés we appear to have dropped our guard on sanitising and disinfecting. Adding to the onboard Covid measures Princess Cruise ships feature enhanced air filtration with upgraded HVAC systems. These systems are designed to replace air within public spaces and staterooms every five to six minutes. The good people of Eden would have seen 800 masked passengers ashore on independent tours and exploration, along with those on Princess shore excursions, all following the same health and safety protocols that were found on board. By the time the ship berthed in Sydney "around ten" more passengers tested positive and were put into isolation. The reality of the situation is that 2,176 Covid free passengers alighted the ship to a maskless environment that had 12,200 cases reported in one day along with 2,200 hospitalisations, 60 in ICU and 20 deaths that day. None of the office workers they might have encountered had regular mandatory testing and certainly there was little if any evidence of social distancing, sanitising, disinfecting or mask wearing outside of the cruise terminal. There are many in the community who currently have asymptomatic Covid. They don’t test, they don’t report and they don’t isolate. Yet they move among us. Then there are the ones who do test and cut short their isolation by ether “soldiering on” because they need the money or coming back early because they need the money. They too are part of our day to day. What we know is that the new Covid strains spread more rapidly and that the long term physical impacts of being reinfected is unknown though suggested as being of concern. Yet so few now wear a mask, so few sanitise, hugs and kisses are back on the table and the news of Covid is as much yesterday’s news as the Coral Princess “outbreak”. With deaths now in excess of 10,000 and the rate of deaths and infections now exponentially climbing there is probably a far greater risk of contracting Covid in the streets of our local towns than on any cruise boat. It will be interesting to see the inevitable outcry from those who are opposed to mandatory mask wearing should it be reintroduced to stem the tide of the latest Covid variant. If all of this is a little too confronting and making you reconsider you next trip to town, or to whether you should take up mask wearing and sanitising you might like to plan to be some where much safer. How about a an nice cruise? Until next lei