Coronavirus: Two Australian Al Messilah crew members allowed to leave COVID ship before outbreak known

Two Australian crew members from the coronavirus-infested Al Messilah were permitted to disembark before a mass outbreak was detected aboard — with one of the mariners then boarding a flight to NSW and the other travelling to a rural property near Busselton to self-isolate. The West Australian can reveal a male vet and a female stockwoman both left the ship after it berthed at Fremantle Port last Thursday, two days before another crew member tested positive for coronavirus. Yesterday 24 of the 52 crew who remain on the livestock carrier were diagnosed with COVID-19. Health Minister Roger Cook said last night that both Australian crew members had been tracked down by authorities and had tested negative to coronavirus. “The WA resident has since gone into a State quarantine hotel to complete 14 days of quarantine,” Mr Cook said. “The NSW Department of Health is overseeing arrangements with the NSW resident. “As an extra layer of precaution, the WA Public Health Emergency Operations Centre is investigating any potential close contacts of the WA resident. “The situation has been extremely well-handled by the WA Health Department from the moment we learnt that there was a positive case on the vessel.” The scenario — which threatened to snowball into a repeat of the Ruby Princess nightmare when coronavirus-infected passengers carried the disease to all corners of Australia — has prompted an overhaul of WA’s rules for returning Australian mariners, all of whom will now be required to complete 14 days of hotel quarantine when disembarking. The female stockwoman was able to drive herself to her family home on a rural property near Busselton after a family member left a car in Perth for her to use. She was originally told to self-isolate at home from Thursday afternoon until midnight on Saturday. When news broke that a crew member aboard the Al Messilah had tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, she was telephoned and told to continue isolating at home for a further 11 days. That plan changed again yesterday when she was directed to return to Perth and enter hotel quarantine. The male vet is understood to have travelled directly from the Al Messilah to the airport on Thursday where he boarded a flight to NSW. “At (that) stage there had been no indication from the ship’s captain that the Al Messilah had potential cases of COVID-19 on board,” Mr Cook said. “A West Australian resident drove alone to her home where she immediately went into self-quarantine. “The second Australian crew member flew to NSW. When a crew member on board the Al Messilah returned a positive result after a routine test, the two Australians were contacted by telephone to arrange for a COVID test.” Both of the Australian crew members had spent more than six months stuck aboard the ship as ports across the globe moved to ban shore leave for international mariners in an attempt to stop the importation of coronavirus. The Al Messilah set sail from Fremantle in April for a 23-day journey delivering more than 60,000 WA sheep to the Middle East. The crew unloaded at the ship’s destination port in Qatar but were not able to disembark because of coronavirus restrictions. Instead, they started steaming back to Perth to collect more sheep after coronavirus was detected among crew members aboard another live sheep ship — the Al Kuwait — which was then docked at Fremantle Port. But that plan changed once the Al Kuwait was finally cleared to leave Fremantle, and the Al Messilah crew was instead sent to South Africa to pick up more sheep to transport to the Middle East. After arriving at East London Port in South Africa, the crew and exporter were held up for more than 80 days because of a political fracas caused by a legal bid to permanently ban livestock exports by sea. They finally set sail on September 3, delivering sheep to the Middle East before heading back to Fremantle, where they arrived on October 15. Australian Live Exporters Council chief executive Mark Harvey-Sutton said he was confident there was “no community risk” and the two Aussie crew members had followed the “correct processes”. It remains unclear how coronavirus found its way aboard the Al Messilah and Mr Harvey-Sutton declined to speculate where the COVID-19 “touch points” might have been along the supply chain. Instead, he called for a “nationally consistent approach” to quarantine and testing at Australian ports. “Industry has put in place a contactless supply chain during stock loading and offloading, and has put in appropriate precautions,” he said. “But there is no nationally-consistent approach. Even at the port level, there are different processes in place and this is why consistency is important. “There needs to be one national consistency, and greater thought given for how to deal with crews because there are not many ports around the world allowing crew changes to take place. It is a real problem.” Mr Harvey-Sutton said he did not know whether there was a crew changeover in the Middle East. Health authorities now plan to remove the infected crew from the Al Messilah and place them into hotel quarantine, a process Mr Cook said would begin today. Mr Cook said the ship would need to retain a skeleton crew to keep it operational and that it would be “deep cleaned” and “disinfected” in the same manner as the Al Kuwait earlier this year. Bulk carrier Key Integrity arrived at Fremantle Port from Geraldton yesterday carrying one coronavirus-infected crew member who is isolating in his cabin. The remaining 19 crew were tested for COVID-19 yesterday with results due today. Premier Mark McGowan said about 30 vessels arrived at WA ports “each and every day” — mostly to collect iron ore in the State’s North West. “It’s becoming clear that ships arriving with COVID-19 onboard is one of the weakest links and the biggest risk to our way of life in Western Australia,” he said. “This is why we are demanding the Commonwealth Government step up and work with other jurisdictions on this issue. “We need a co-ordinated international approach to this and we need our Federal Government to take international action.”