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World Dream crew quarantined in Sebaru
Close to home: Indonesian Navy personnel help the 188 Indonesian crew members of the World Dream cruise ship board the Dr
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lose to home: Indonesian Navy personnel help the 188 Indonesian crew members of the World Dream cruise ship board the Dr. Soeharso naval hospital ship in the Durian Strait, Karimun, Riau Islands. The crew members were evacuated from the cruise ship amid concerns over the novel coronavirus and have been quarantined on Sebaru Island in the Thousand Islands regency of Jakarta.(Courtesy of the Indonesian Navy’s information service)
The government transported on Wednesday 188 Indonesian nationals working as crew members aboard the World Dream cruise ship to the relatively uninhabited Sebaru Island, located north of Jakarta, for quarantine amid coronavirus concerns.
Indonesian Navy First Fleet Maritime Security Task Force commander Cdre. Yayan Sofyan said the transfer of the crew members to the Dr. Soeharso naval hospital ship went according to plan. “The transfer has been completed. It went well,” Yayan told The Jakarta Post.
The transfer was made under the supervision of the First Fleet Maritime Security Task Force in the Durian Strait near Karimun regency, Riau Islands.
The crew arrived on the island, part of the Thousand Islands regency, on Wednesday afternoon. They will be monitored by health officials for 14 days before they can be declared healthy and return home.
Governments worldwide are scrambling to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus after a surge of infections in Italy, Iran and South Korea.
The World Health Organization reported that, as of Wednesday morning, 78,190 cases of COVID-19 had been registered in China, including 2,718 deaths. Outside China, at least 2,790 cases and 44 deaths had been reported across 37 other countries.
The United Nations health body also reported that there were now more new cases of the coronavirus each day outside China than inside the hardest-hit country. "Yesterday, the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told diplomats in Geneva, as quoted by AFP.
Indonesia is among the many countries that have worked to repatriate their citizens from virus-hit regions. After evacuating Indonesians from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, the government now hopes to help its citizens on two cruise ships: the World Dream and the Diamond Princess.
The World Dream suspended its operations after docking in Hong Kong earlier this month. It spent days in quarantine at the Kai Tak Cruise terminal after three Chinese nationals who had been aboard the ship between Jan. 19 and 24 tested positive for the virus, Reuters reported.
The ship’s 1,800 passengers disembarked in Hong Kong on Feb. 9, leaving 1,814 crew members onboard, according to World Dream’s operator Dream Cruises.
The government also identified 69 healthy Indonesian crew members aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is currently in quarantine at a port in Yokohama, Japan.
Japanese authorities quarantined Diamond Princess and its 3,711 passengers and crew for two weeks from Feb. 5. By the time the quarantine was over, 634 of those aboard had tested positive for the virus.
As of Tuesday, the Indonesian Health Ministry confirmed that 69 crew members of the Diamond Princess were healthy, while another nine tested positive and were sent to local hospitals for observation.
The healthy Indonesian crew members have expressed hope that the government will airlift them from Yokohama Port to prevent any further chance of infection.
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said the government chose to transfer those on World Dream first because it was located closer to the country. The ship anchored in international waters near the province’s Bintan Island to ease the transfer of the crew.
Jokowi said that Jakarta was currently in negotiation with Tokyo on whether to evacuate the 69 healthy Indonesian crew members from the Diamond Princess.
"The process is ongoing. Any future decisions should be made with prudence. We have 267 million citizens [at home]," he said.
Jokowi said there were two options regarding the evacuation of Indonesians on the Diamond Princess: by air or by sea.
"Each has its own risks and merits," he said, adding that the government had yet to decide where it would quarantine the evacuees.
Earlier, the government said it picked Sebaru as the location of quarantine for the World Dream crew since the island was sparsely inhabited and had adequate facilities to treat patients.
The island also has health facilities that have been used in the rehabilitation of drug addicts.
The government previously placed 237 citizens and one American spouse of an Indonesian national in quarantine on Natuna Island after evacuating them from Wuhan.
However, authorities were criticized for releasing them without further testing for the disease. (glh)
