Coral Princess: Covid outbreak onboard branded ‘inevitable’

A Covid-19 outbreak on an Australian cruise ship has been branded “inevitable” and may be a taster of what is in store with the virus, an expert has warned.

The Coral Princess arrived in the Harbour City today as part of a 12-day cruise. The ship departed from Eden on the New South Wales south coast carrying over 2,300 people.

There are 115 crew members and 24 passengers battling the virus, according to Carnival Australia.

Those who wish to disembark the ship at its dock in Sydney must show a negative result on a rapid antigen test first.

However, it is believed that the virus circulating among passengers was most likely brought onboard with them rather than from the cruise.

President Marguerite Fitzgerald said: “We believe and the health authorities have also said that most of those guests probably brought COVID with them onto the ship when they embarked in Brisbane.

“We knew this was going to happen...no one expected that we’d keep COVID off ships, it was just about managing it.”

Professor Peter White, from the University of NSW, said Covid is the “major risk” to cruises now, with outbreaks likely to be seen more often.

“Around one in 20 cruises would have a norovirus outbreak on them [before the pandemic] but we know that SARS-CoV-2 is probably more transmissible and infectious,” he said.

“We often consider a cruise ship as sentinel surveillance because we start seeing the outbreaks first on the ships,” he added.

Also speaking to ABC News, Brisbane passenger Liz Bolton and Clive Bolton said that despite the caution, their enjoyment has not been disrupted: “It’s not as bad as people are making it out. We are loving it. We feel really safe.”

Australia recorded 41,336 new coronavirus cases and 58 related deaths on Tuesday. It comes as outbreaks of Covid-19 are on the rise thanks to new subvariants BA.5 and BA.5.