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The Ruby Princess
In the early hours of Thursday 19 March 2020, the luxury cruise liner Ruby Princess docked at Sydney's Circular Quay, the gateway to Australia.
Hours later, 2,700 passengers disembarked. Yet in the middle of a pandemic sweeping the planet, there were no health checks. Over the next few days, the passengers got some bad news. The COVID-19 virus had infected some on the ship, and it spread rapidly. Eventually over 900 passengers and crew would be diagnosed, and 28 would die from the disease.
Months of investigation and a special commission uncovered a series of catastrophic mistakes, from negligence to the corporate greed of an industry with a history of only caring for its bottom line. This 'super-spreader incident' was a viral bomb that exploded in the heart of Australia's biggest city - and a disaster that could and should have been prevented.
In his thrilling book, investigative journalist Duncan McNab explores the causes of the spectacular quarantine failure, the cruise industry, the lives of the victims and their families, and the turbulent politics of blame.
Hours later, 2,700 passengers disembarked. Yet in the middle of a pandemic sweeping the planet, there were no health checks. Over the next few days, the passengers got some bad news. The COVID-19 virus had infected some on the ship, and it spread rapidly. Eventually over 900 passengers and crew would be diagnosed, and 28 would die from the disease.
Months of investigation and a special commission uncovered a series of catastrophic mistakes, from negligence to the corporate greed of an industry with a history of only caring for its bottom line. This 'super-spreader incident' was a viral bomb that exploded in the heart of Australia's biggest city - and a disaster that could and should have been prevented.
In his thrilling book, investigative journalist Duncan McNab explores the causes of the spectacular quarantine failure, the cruise industry, the lives of the victims and their families, and the turbulent politics of blame.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
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Published February 23, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 16, 2021
‘Put simply, despite the best efforts of all, some serious mistakes were made.’
When the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney on Thursday, 19 March 2020, no-one realised that a viral bomb was about to explode. But should they have? By then, COVID-19 was already circulating around the world. On 30 January 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and it was declared as a pandemic on 11 March 2020.
Hours after the Ruby Princess docked, 2700 passengers disembarked. There were no health checks, and passengers dispersed across Australia as well as internationally. Eventually over 900 crew and passengers would be diagnosed with COVID-19, and 28 people would die from it. What went wrong?
In this book, Mr McNab explores both the history of the cruise industry and the series of events that led to this fiasco. Cruise ships, it would seem, are perfect breeding grounds for viral infection and many of the passengers (by virtue of their ages and or medical conditions) were particularly vulnerable. By including firsthand accounts from passengers and (usually anonymously) some crew members, Mr McNab enables the reader to see more clearly the human face of this tragedy.
It is easy, reading the sequence of events, conclude that this particular cruise should never have set sail in the first place. It is easy, as well, to look at the failure to keep and then to provide contemporaneous records to NSW Health. If those records had been provided, then the arrival of the Ruby Princess may have been better managed.
On 15 April 2020, a Special Commission of Inquiry into the Ruby Princess was established. The Special Commission was led by Bret Walker SC. The Report was handed to the NSW Government on 14 August 2020.
On 17 August 2020, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said (in part):
‘NSW Health has acted immediately to address the failures identified by Mr Walker to ensure the errors are not repeated.
The NSW Government will work closely with the Commonwealth to adopt all recommendations made by Mr Walker.’
At the time Mr McNab was writing this book, there is still a NSW Police investigation in progress, and at some time in the future there may be a Coronial inquest.
I found this book eye opening. Whatever desire I had to undertake a cruise has entirely evaporated.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
When the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney on Thursday, 19 March 2020, no-one realised that a viral bomb was about to explode. But should they have? By then, COVID-19 was already circulating around the world. On 30 January 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and it was declared as a pandemic on 11 March 2020.
Hours after the Ruby Princess docked, 2700 passengers disembarked. There were no health checks, and passengers dispersed across Australia as well as internationally. Eventually over 900 crew and passengers would be diagnosed with COVID-19, and 28 people would die from it. What went wrong?
In this book, Mr McNab explores both the history of the cruise industry and the series of events that led to this fiasco. Cruise ships, it would seem, are perfect breeding grounds for viral infection and many of the passengers (by virtue of their ages and or medical conditions) were particularly vulnerable. By including firsthand accounts from passengers and (usually anonymously) some crew members, Mr McNab enables the reader to see more clearly the human face of this tragedy.
It is easy, reading the sequence of events, conclude that this particular cruise should never have set sail in the first place. It is easy, as well, to look at the failure to keep and then to provide contemporaneous records to NSW Health. If those records had been provided, then the arrival of the Ruby Princess may have been better managed.
On 15 April 2020, a Special Commission of Inquiry into the Ruby Princess was established. The Special Commission was led by Bret Walker SC. The Report was handed to the NSW Government on 14 August 2020.
On 17 August 2020, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said (in part):
‘NSW Health has acted immediately to address the failures identified by Mr Walker to ensure the errors are not repeated.
The NSW Government will work closely with the Commonwealth to adopt all recommendations made by Mr Walker.’
At the time Mr McNab was writing this book, there is still a NSW Police investigation in progress, and at some time in the future there may be a Coronial inquest.
I found this book eye opening. Whatever desire I had to undertake a cruise has entirely evaporated.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
February 7, 2021
A superbly researched and well-written account of the cruise ship fiasco that increased the spread of COVID throughout Australia and beyond. Full of first person accounts and interviews, McNab made me feel that I knew some of the passengers and I dreaded reading their fates. While this was big news in Australia, many of my friends and family in the US haven't heard of The Ruby Princess. This book presents the history, crisis on board, consequences then judgements in a clear and intriguing narrative that anyone would find interesting.
Thank you to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan Australia for the opportunity to read this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan Australia for the opportunity to read this book.
September 22, 2021
OKAY I FINALLY FINALLY FINISHED THIS IT ONLY TOOK ME A MONTH AND TWO DAYS.
Read on BorrowBox.
Anyway so what I got from this is:
- cruising is a fricking shady business
- like, the epitome of profit over people and destroy the environment
- Carnaval cruises, no exception
- they definitely had ample opportunities to NOT do the thing they did
- there were SO many points at which someone could have just made the right call and things wouldn’t have turned out as bad as they did
- NSW health DID mess up
- we hate Peter Dutton but he didn’t actually have anything to do with this 💀
- nobody likes brad hazzard but apparently not technically his fault either 🤔
- Gladys Berejiklian apparently did alright here 😒
- Australian inquiry thing basically is more leaning toward NSW health making making big mistakes here
- I think the book overall blames carnaval tho and I agree
- in summary: ban cruises. just do it. watch that one patriot act episode
Other thoughts:
Okay this author did the WORK, this was so fricking thorough and it was necessarily very heavy with details, so I did take ages to get through it but still extremely commendable journalism. Also appreciate the pretty wry humour slipped in to keep it interesting regardless and audiobook narrator did a great job with that.
Read on BorrowBox.
Anyway so what I got from this is:
- cruising is a fricking shady business
- like, the epitome of profit over people and destroy the environment
- Carnaval cruises, no exception
- they definitely had ample opportunities to NOT do the thing they did
- there were SO many points at which someone could have just made the right call and things wouldn’t have turned out as bad as they did
- NSW health DID mess up
- we hate Peter Dutton but he didn’t actually have anything to do with this 💀
- nobody likes brad hazzard but apparently not technically his fault either 🤔
- Gladys Berejiklian apparently did alright here 😒
- Australian inquiry thing basically is more leaning toward NSW health making making big mistakes here
- I think the book overall blames carnaval tho and I agree
- in summary: ban cruises. just do it. watch that one patriot act episode
Other thoughts:
Okay this author did the WORK, this was so fricking thorough and it was necessarily very heavy with details, so I did take ages to get through it but still extremely commendable journalism. Also appreciate the pretty wry humour slipped in to keep it interesting regardless and audiobook narrator did a great job with that.
October 27, 2021
A interesting read. We were so lucky in New Zealand to escape relatively lightly from Covid with all those infected passengers gaily circulating ashore in various ports. I do remember at the time that one of the local tour guides became infected by passengers and that caused an outbreak in the community. The whole thing was a chapter of errors and could have been prevented if Carnival and Princess had put people’s health before profits!
July 20, 2021
Written to shock; mission accomplished, I was suitably shocked. An interesting read, although a bit sensationalist... I wouldn't have been surprised to see 4 exclamation marks at the end of some sentences!
March 10, 2021
This book is very inaccurate and doesn't reflect the correct story. The author clearly wrote the book before waiting for the official investigation report in order to cash in on all that "greed".
May 21, 2021
Quite a few inaccuracies within this book. Interesting but with inaccuracies it makes you question the legitimacy of all the claims in the book. Seems quite biased.
July 16, 2021
Not impressed. Title puts the blame on the Ruby Princess- could have been NSW Health Disaster, but I guess that doesn’t sell well.
July 26, 2021
A damning, factual investigation of the cruise ship industry and the Ruby Princess in particular.
September 13, 2021
Sorry, but one of the most boring books I've (tried to) read. Poor flow so hard to follow.
August 24, 2024
Both infuriating and heartbreaking.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews