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[indistinct chatter over radio]
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- Hello, everyone.
I'm making this video...
just as a way of saying hi,
saying...
you know, I love you to my family and friends
and just making this in advance...
In case I don't have time to make it...
in case...
[sighs]
- We're gonna begin here with the outbreak
of a mystery virus in China that now has
the World Health Organization on edge.
- [shouting in language]
- And it's also showing up in Japan,
Thailand, and South Korea.
- Dozens sickened on a cruise ship docked in Japan.
- Carnival Corporation happens to be
the world's largest experience enterprise.
A fleet of over 100 ships,
ten different world-leading brands,
from the Italian warmth and artistry of Costa
to the relaxation and discovery of Princess Cruises.
- Princess carries more than two million guests each year
to magnificent destinations all around the world.
- The more we give people
the opportunity to connect...
the more spectacular our world will be.
- It was a guaranteed dumpster fire.
- The cruise-ship industry
is facing its biggest ever crisis.
- And the numbers are rising. - Coronavirus super spreader.
- All of those ships at sea
with all the mixing and demographics
and offshoring and ports of call
guarantee that the cruise ships
would be singularly effective
at propagating COVID.
[knock at door]
- You're all invited to reserve your cabins.
[dramatic music]
* *
- What's up, everyone?
This is Spencer, and I am in Tokyo,
about to leave with these fine gentlemen
to take a nice 15-day cruise.
So we're at the airport.
We're a few minutes from getting a shuttle
down to the harbor, and then we'll set sail.
* *
I was going to school in China,
and I have six weeks off.
- We're gonna be graduating in the spring.
We got to have at least one big hurrah.
- Initially, we wanted to go to Thailand
and then Spencer came up with idea to go on a cruise.
- We are from Poland, Dorian and I,
and, like, cruises like that,
we only see those in, you know, American movies.
- I stumbled across an ad for the "Diamond Princess"
for a ridiculously inexpensive ticket.
I shared it with the rest of the guys.
[camera shutter clicks] And we decided, "Let's do it."
- Whoa. Look at that thing.
[upbeat music]
* *
- This was billed as New Year's
in Hong Kong Harbor...
and knowing Chinese New Year's
was going to be elaborate fireworks
and celebrations and parades,
we decided to take this trip.
- Hello, and welcome to Princess Cruises.
- We were really excited.
We had several celebrations--
my daughter's 16th birthday.
It was going to be Chinese New Year.
I thought, you know, as a family,
it was a good way to spend some holidays.
- Oh!
- [laughs]
- So there's myself, my husband, Mark,
and our best friends, the Goldmans,
that travel with us.
We love Princess.
We've gone on many Princess cruises.
- And for us to unpack our luggage once
and yet stop off and see exotic places is ideal.
- When we were planning for our honeymoon,
we wanted something that was memorable and different.
The idea of just different country almost every day
and visiting different cultures,
it was definitely something different.
- We were doing, gosh, sometimes two or three a year.
- We've cruised six or seven times.
- This was our fourth.
- About seven maybe.
- Something like 14.
- I have done 35 cruises.
- I am a platinum cruiser.
Ron, though-- Ron has gone on five cruises.
- So I think I'm still a cardboard cruiser.
- [chuckles]
- It has been a rocky ride for Carnival Cruise Lines.
- We begin tonight with stories of fear and panic.
- Holy crap! Let's go!
- The Carnival-owned ship ran aground
off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people on board.
- Then this past February, an engine-room fire
left the Carnival "Triumph" powerless and adrift for days.
- Now Carnival is spending
more than half a billion dollars
in improvements to right the ship.
- Hi, guys. How are you?
- Arnold Donald took over as CEO of Carnival
after bookings fell, shares plummeted,
and some passengers sued.
- There's a lot that's right about Carnival.
These incidents represent far less than 1%
of the experience, you know, for all of our guests.
How you guys doing?
- The bottom line for Arnold Donald
is now to reposition Carnival, rebuild its reputation,
and fill his ships.
- He was willing to be the front-and-center guy
to say, "This is how we're gonna prevent these events
"from happening again,
and, you know, this is the kind of company we want to be."
- We have a double-digit capacity increase,
double-digit earnings growth.
And real results in business is returning to the shareholders.
- You know what I'm hearing? Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.
- [laughs]
What you should be hearing is excited guests
enjoying the time of their life.
- Ka-ching. - [laughing]
Yes, that too.
- Yo, Gordie.
- Hey.
- And there was a raffle for the new members,
for the "fresh cruisers" on the ship.
- Three, two--
- The grand prize was,
you would be an elite member in the Captain's Circle program
for the remainder of the cruise.
- The raffle started.
The number of the cabin is 604.
[gasps] It was us.
Yeah, free laundry, free alcohol.
We did it.
- Get it, Gordie! [crowd cheers]
- We felt like we were a pretty big deal at that point.
- We felt like we were the elites.
- We had no idea at that moment what was happening.
[indistinct chatter]
All we knew-- we were on a nice cruise,
and all of a sudden, things are slowly becoming
not normal anymore.
And I've worked for cruise ships for many years.
[pop music playing]
Working on a cruise ship really is a dream job.
When I was able to get off the ship,
I was having a good time, seeing Asia.
We were about to go to Hong Kong,
and a friend of mine mentioned that there was some crazy virus
in Wuhan, China.
- The epicenter of China's killer virus
is tonight in lockdown.
The city closing its transport network,
telling its 11 million people not to leave.
- Trying to contain a city of 11 million people
is new to science.
- 17 people are now confirmed dead,
while a new case has turned up in Hong Kong.
- The first news from Wuhan came out December 31st.
So there was only two weeks of information.
Friends and family said, "Ooh, you're going to Asia.
Are you worried about that virus?"
And we said, "No, it's thousands of miles
"from where we'll be,
and we're not concerned about it."
- Ladies and gentlemen, please,
let's have a big, big round of applause.
[cheers and applause]
[upbeat music playing]
* *
- Hong Kong was a great day.
It was also the first day
where we were actually wearing masks.
- Cheese!
- How does it work? - I don't know.
How do I put my hands inside? Well, let's find out.
- Let's find out.
- We're gonna be safe,
but we're not gonna lock ourselves in a ship.
- Three... all: Two, one.
- Three, two, one, seven.
- We met Spencer and his friends.
- They were fun.
- Yeah, they were students in China, so...
- So they were the ones that started talking
about this virus.
I says, "You mean like Corona beer?"
And they said, "You're not wearing masks?"
And I go, "No."
- Hong Kong--it's just an awesome place,
but it was also Chinese New Year.
And the city's actually quite dead.
No one from China was going into Hong Kong
because they were scared of this virus outbreak.
[suspenseful music]
- The really big fireworks and festivities
were canceled because they didn't want
Chinese mainland folks coming into Hong Kong.
We were disappointed because it's one of the things
we were looking forward to.
- You're right. - Dude...
- It was just starting to take hold
that you shouldn't have large groupings of people.
- So they had a lot of the festivities
for Chinese New Year's in the lobby,
and that was really fun to watch.
- A happy Chinese New Year.
- Oh... [applause]
[percussive music playing]
* *
- Happy New Year!
[applause]
[suspenseful music]
- Cheers.
* *
- The highlight of the trip was definitely Vietnam.
- Oh, my gosh, dude.
Just a sea of people in this massive cave.
* *
[water trickling]
- [laughing]
- No virus.
No virus, no virus, no virus.
- [laughs]
* *
- China is urging its citizens not to travel abroad
as it struggles to contain the virus
that has now killed more than 100 people.
The total number of confirmed cases
is now at more than 4,500.
- Part of the risk we face right now
is that we don't yet know everything we need to know
about this virus.
- The World Health Organization
says it is still too soon
to call it a global public health emergency,
but the new virus is spreading.
* *
- I started feeling sick the day after we left Vietnam.
- [chuckles]
[upbeat music playing]
- I was with the other three guys,
and I started to feel really weak and tired.
Went back to the room.
Something wasn't right.
[tense music]
I was feeling concerned that whatever I had
wasn't just the common cold.
* *
- Hey, everybody.
So...
I just put a video on YouTube
about getting ready for this cruise.
17-day cruise
from Costa Cruise Line.
And although my nerves
were more about going on a vacation by myself,
especially for that long and being on a boat for that long,
now we've got to worry about this little icky virus.
Even when I kind of started getting whiff
that the virus was gonna be an issue,
I still didn't really think about it.
Honestly, I thought probably people were overreacting.
* *
- My wife and I-- we debated it for weeks,
whether or not we should go on this trip,
and we rationalized going on the trip
because we're just going to Hawaii,
and Hawaii is part of the United States.
It's a state of the States.
- When I look back,
it's impossible that head office
didn't know what was going on,
that they were not informed
of those possible case of COVID,
but I felt still good to go on the "Ruby Princess."
- We have cruised quite a number of times,
and I can say that the cruise line that we felt
the most comfortable with is Princess.
- We got to Taipei, Taiwan,
and everybody was wearing a mask.
There was something in the air
that made everybody a little bit anxious
about what's happening.
- Okinawa is really where things started to get real.
[indistinct chatter]
- There was a very strict health inspection.
They don't want anybody sick getting on that island.
- I thought, "This is probably a good thing
"we're wrapping this up,
'cause who knows what's gonna happen from here?"
- February 3rd, we're headed back to Yokohama Bay.
Dorian goes to the gym.
- So bye.
- Kamil and I go up to the top deck.
And we see a text from Dorian.
It says the manager of the gym says that there was a--
there was a person on our ship who had the coronavirus.
- Dorian got this gossip info
that there was this guy who got off in Hong Kong
and he was infected.
He was tested positive.
And we went downstairs.
We were drinking coffee,
and you could have felt this tension,
like, around the table.
People on their phones...
Whispering to each other...
about this guy who got infected.
* *
- We were told we were speeding up
so we could get in there quicker...
And that we would be all getting temperature tested.
And that way, once we get in there,
we could actually disembark.
* *
- The "Diamond Princess" left Yokohama on January the 20th.
On board, there was a man from Hong Kong.
The ship spent five days
going from Yokohama to Hong Kong.
That passenger disembarked in Hong Kong and fell ill.
Hong Kong authorities notified the "Diamond Princess"
on February the 1st.
But it took four days before any real action
was taken on board the ship.
[indistinct chatter]
- Not bad.
- We were never told of any individuals
on the ship that had come down with the coronavirus,
other than they were going to keep their eye out.
- * YMCA, it's fun to stay at the-- *
- We went out of our room with no reservations
about where we could go or what we could do.
- * Clock strikes two, three, and four *
- We did know at that point that coronavirus was serious.
We didn't know that it risked killing people,
and we particularly knew at that stage,
it risked killing elderly people.
And bear in mind there were a lot of elderly people
on board the "Diamond Princess."
[light music playing]
- The incubation period can be as high as 14 days,
but it can be as low as 2.
all: * Happy birthday to you *
- So if you go from two days to three days
to four days with everybody acting normally
in an environment that's really conducive
to spreading pathogens of all natures...
[cheers and applause]
- Hip-hip... all: Hooray!
- I would say the majority of the spread
probably happened in that window.
[chime sounds]
- This is the captain speaking from the bridge.
Please be advised that we have been notified
by the Hong Kong public health authorities
that a Hong Kong resident
who traveled for five days on "Diamond Princess,"
disembarking in Hong Kong on January 25th,
tested positive for coronavirus
on February 1st.
We are indeed closely recording and monitoring
all persons who have reported to the medical center
with cold and flu symptoms
during this voyage.
If you have experienced any of these symptoms--
fever, chills, or cough--
we ask you to check with our medical staff.
As you can see, ladies and gentlemen,
the situation is under control,
and therefore there are no reasons for concerns.
[tense music]
* *
- I was just dripping with fear.
I started making my walk down to the medical center,
and I don't know that I've been that scared ever before.
* *
[chime sounds]
- The Ministry of Health has notified us
that ten people
have tested positive for coronavirus.
The ship will remain under quarantine in Yokohama.
The length of the quarantine will be at least 14 days,
as required by the Ministry of Health.
- We were awoken by the captain's announcement.
Phil got up and went out on the balcony,
and it was the "oh, my God" moment.
[siren wailing]
[person speaking Japanese over PA]
* *
- Military trucks.
- Yikes.
- When the captain said, "Oh, we will be quarantining,"
everyone looked at each other like,
"Did he really just say what I think he said?"
* *
[gate slams]
- So this is our room when you come in from the door.
Kids are busy with homework and doing some puzzles.
Husband's at work.
Just toilet and shower.
Getting through 14 days
in the cabin with no windows
and the four of us in bunk beds,
it was quite daunting.
Mostly we stand up to have our dinner...
except for Caitlin, who's sitting down.
- Today we're gonna do chair Zumba.
- We had to set up a daily routine
to make sure that we didn't slump
into a sort of dazed time line.
- Exercise time. Here's Jerri and Jerri.
Little Jerri says she's done a mile of this today.
- Over a mile.
- We are washing our clothes in the bathtub.
* *
- It should stand up.
There we go.
[continues indistinctly]
- Lunch is here.
Salmon, ooh.
* *
- You know, one of the mistakes they made was,
they said anybody that needed
any type of special food or drink,
they would supply it at no charge.
- Three, two, one.
- By the next day, they put a limit
on how much alcohol we could order
because they ran out 'cause people were all getting drunk.
- It's a party!
- There wasn't much else to do. [both chuckle]
- Whoop! Whoop! Ha!
* *
- Carnival knew that there was a pandemic.
They knew that there was a worldwide health hazard.
There was no justification whatsoever
for Carnival continuing to offer cruises
and to sail on cruises
past the "Diamond Princess" debacle.
My office number was ringing off the hook
at the end of January
of people contacting me, saying, "I can't get a refund.
I'm afraid to go on a cruise,"
and they're stuck in going.
And the way the cruise tickets are drafted,
there's really no way to get your money back.
- I was very, very much aware of the "Diamond Princess,"
but we always thought, "It happened to them.
It won't happen to us."
At that time, if we would have canceled,
we would have lost about $7,000 to $8,000.
[people cheering, ship horn blaring]
- I never thought about canceling my cruise
on the "Grand Princess" at all.
Princess sent us a lot of emails
saying they were taking precautions
so that we wouldn't have to fear.
- The "Grand Princess" left San Francisco
on February 11th.
On February 21st, a male passenger
visited the medical center reporting flu-like symptoms.
- I kept expecting Costa to cancel,
but we had all sorts of assurances from the cruise line
that, you know, the cruise was going forward.
- I called them at least seven times,
and every time, I got the same answer.
"No, no, no. Everything is fine.
"There's no problems.
No refund, no problems."
- This cruise was so cheap.
Ah!
Going on the plank.
Because I booked it so last minute,
they're just trying to fill the rooms.
So excited.
I still didn't really think
the virus was gonna be an issue.
Going on.
And my husband didn't want to go.
He doesn't like boats,
so I'm just gonna go do it without you
and then see if you like it, you know,
watching me have fun.
Oh, my gosh.
I came to regret--
you know, it's kind of one of those karma things.
[chime sounds]
- This is the captain from the bridge.
I've finally been notified
by the Japanese Ministry of Health
that an additional 41 people
have been tested positive for coronavirus.
- You got to get this.
Our picture.
- Okay, they've got a bunch of people in white coats...
- They were marching. - Lined up there.
- They're not white coats. They're white hazmat suits.
- They're white hazmat suits.
- No one knew what was going on.
I mean, the scientists didn't know.
The crew didn't know. The ship's captain didn't know.
Japanese Ministry didn't know.
People in government back in America--
no one really knew anything.
- We were isolated from information.
- It is very important that you continue
to listen to these announcements until the end...
- The only information we got was
from the captain over the loudspeaker
and little pieces of paper that appeared at our box.
- Being isolated from the rest...
- We had television that was working
with the "Diamond Princess" being the lead story
on every channel.
- 61 people have tested positive
for coronavirus on the--
[reporters speaking in languages]
- The huge jump in these numbers in one night
is a cause of enormous concern.
- Okay, come out.
There's the main crews.
You can see there are satellite trucks behind them.
- We got very busy trying to communicate with people
in the news industry and to try to tell people
that this was not a good place
for us and the other passengers to be.
- This is not a safe environment.
- The whole thing is, here we are quarantined--
healthy people and sick people in the same location.
I think that whole idea that that's how you're supposed
to do quarantine is crazy.
- On board, other stressed American passengers
described rising tensions between health authorities
and people who say they aren't being told
if and when they might go home.
- And that concern is felt very acutely
by the people who are on that boat.
* *
- Good morning from the Seratti-Goldman room.
We woke up to more ambulances parked.
Not a good sign.
- We would see them bringing in ambulance after ambulance
after ambulance.
- Look how many they've got out there...
unloading.
- Periodically, you know,
someone wouldn't be around anymore.
- Ah, sorry. Okay.
- You want to go next?
- I probably had COVID.
It went from a fever to mild sore throat.
[knock at door] Coming.
When I actually got tested,
I was kind of left to assume
that that test had come back negative
because I had not been taken off the ship.
- This is your captain speaking from the bridge.
I kindly ask you to continue checking your temperature.
[thermometer beeps]
- I was starting to show symptoms,
and then the day we got the thermometers,
I checked the temperature,
and it confirmed what we thought--
that I had a fever, and we reported that.
There were some mornings
I wasn't sure I was gonna come back.
It was nasty.
It was the worst flu I've ever had.
If you combine that with the angst and the stress
of being confined in a room that's probably 4x3--
it took them two days to get me the results back,
and I was taken off the boat.
- Of those who were symptomatic,
I believe the positive test rate
was in the 20% range, thereabouts, initially.
- Say ahh...
- After they had tested the folk who were symptomatic,
they started then testing folk who were over 80.
- There was a lot of elderly people.
He has had two kidney transplants.
So that's why we got flagged to even be tested
- [gagging]
- Thank you very much. - All right. Thank you.
- As they began randomly testing
people who were elderly,
they kept getting the 20% positive rate anyway,
which told you the thing was spreading through the boat.
- We were worried about the numbers rising,
and our bigger concern was the ventilation system.
So we asked about that, and we were assured
that the ventilation system was not a problem.
- There is no current evidence the illness
breaks through the air ventilation systems.
Please know that your health and safety
are our number-one priority.
- The chief medical officer would come on
and say, "We've talked to the best medical experts."
We're like, "Nah, the numbers are going up.
"This is not the safest place.
"You don't quarantine sick people and healthy people
together in the same location."
[siren wailing]
- Okay, we just heard sirens.
They came running out to see what's going on.
I'm gonna go in and listen to this announcement.
- To give you an update about the additional cases
that were confirmed earlier. - Record him.
- Well, let's write this down.
- We have now been advised that the number of cases
of which five were crew members.
[tense music]
* *
- The crew was interacting with other passengers
and interacting with us
eight to ten times a day or more.
[knock at door] - Coming.
- Hello. - Hi, sir.
- So there was no quarantine on the boat.
- Thank you.
- I immediately saw that.
- The crew was being asked to work
as both service professionals
and medical professionals without adequate protection.
* *
- Thank you.
- Stay well. - You too.
- There is an extremely high cost
to the low prices that people pay for cruises.
Cruises have become so unbelievably cheap
and part of that is 'cause they want to get you
on the ship so that you can spend money
on drinks and on shore excursions.
Having said that, the real underbelly of it
is there are literally thousands of crew members
on every single cruise ship
that are making pennies an hour.
They're generally speaking from third world countries.
They can only make a fraction of what they would make
on a cruise ship back home.
[upbeat music playing]
- Cruise lines like Carnival
register all their ships
in foreign flags of convenient countries.
Princess itself
is incorporated in the country of Bermuda,
and they do this to avoid U.S. taxes,
U.S. wage and labor laws,
and U.S. occupational health and safety laws.
So maritime law permits them great flexibility
in avoiding their legal obligations
under U.S. law.
* *
- Okay.
[speaking language]
- The company policy is we're told
to not really speak to the media.
If you speak to the media, the repercussions
are that you will not have a job.
- The Indian nationals have, in fact,
put out a video message requesting the Modi government
to pull them out of the ship.
- Please, this is a request that say please help us.
Right now we are really scared. Our family is scared.
Everybody's scared.
- I got really sick.
I got scared, and I called up,
and they asked me to stay in the cabin.
I had a roommate who was sick a day before me,
who was being also isolated in the cabin along with me.
There was nobody who showed up on our door
to come and test us.
They were saying that they were pretty busy dealing
with more serious patients and--
which is why we got a little furious
and is why I made the first video.
I just want to inform you that we need help.
We need extra manpower from the Japanese authority
or from different authorities
who could come in and help us--
everyone be tested and be separated from the people
who are infected.
* *
- It was definitely hard on the "Diamond Princess"
because it felt that some people's lives
were more important than others.
But back then, I was still in the service mode,
and we tried to have fun with the passengers
and keep their spirits high.
[upbeat music]
- I had got up early,
and I went down to the international café,
and I was having my typical morning cup of coffee,
and my wife came down and handed me her iPhone.
And on the iPhone was a posting on Cruise Critic
of a previous passenger
that had been on the ship from February 11th
through February 21st--
had died of coronavirus.
And I looked at my wife,
and I said, "We are in deep crap."
* *
- Carnival learned on March 2nd
he had tested positive for COVID-19,
and he died two days later.
* *
The main thrust of all of our reporting
was, why did the cruise ships keep sailing...
When there was an abundance of signs,
warnings, and cases
that suggested there were enormous risks
to continue cruising on these ships?
* *
- They told us they were gonna put
all these protocols in place.
And there's people coughing in front of us, behind us,
and I'm thinking to myself,
"Oh, well, surely they're gonna get turned away.
They're not getting on."
- [coughs]
- And then they just let them right on the ship.
- [coughing]
[people coughing]
- Right now there's not a whole lot left.
As you can hear, there's still coughing in the background.
A lot of these people are smokers, though.
So it's really hard to tell what is a significant cough
and what's not.
So just kind of put up with it.
Hopefully, we're okay, and I will talk to you guys later.
* *
- Good morning, good morning, good morning.
It's day 11.
No updates yet from the captain.
He did not make any announcements yesterday at all
about new cases.
So that was very good news.
- But we're just hanging out and enjoying our breakfast.
There's my lovely wife, Jerri.
I get a call from the medical office,
and they say, "We want to come up and see you."
He hands me this paper,
and it just says, "Because of something on your test,
you will be removed from the ship."
And I says, "You mean right now I have to get packed and go?"
And he says, "No, her."
- They escorted me down off the ship,
down in the little tunnel, got into an ambulance.
I go, "Okay, they're taking me somewhere."
- On the "Diamond Princess" in Yokohama, Japan,
the number of confirmed cases also rising.
- Did you just say that there are 67 new cases?
Is that what I heard?
285--that's a number that I was not familiar with.
At the very beginning of this quarantine,
I had complete confidence and trust and faith
in the information that we were being given
in the captain's announcements.
I realized mid-interview
that I had been a little bit naive
in believing that "Diamond Princess"
was going to be as transparent as possible with me.
- We felt like the longer we were on the ship,
the more likelihood of us getting sick as well.
- Every day it's exponentially increasing,
and we are in a petri dish waiting to get infected,
if we're not infected.
- I sent several emails to our local senators.
My last email to him was not very nice.
I said, "You need to do more than monitor.
"You need to get off your ass and get us off this ship
before we all get sick and die."
And they didn't really answer that.
- We heard a report that the U.S. will be evacuating
Americans off this ship.
All right, bye-bye - Bye.
- All right, Gordon, one out of ten,
how helpful was that? - Zero.
- I talked to Phil Roe.
He's a Congressman from the first district here
and also a personal friend.
- It was during a congressional briefing
that Congressman Roe raised the question about the status
of Americans on that boat
because he had talked to a passenger
and heard that the conditions on the boat
were actually worse than being reported.
- Dr. Kadlec called.
I think we all recognized at the time
that the "Diamond Princess" was ground zero
at that particular moment.
If we could get on the "Diamond Princess,"
we would get a significant leg up
into understanding the virus.
Also, if it were my family members stuck on that ship,
I think I would have wanted somebody to go get them
and bring them home.
- Myself and Lawler had worked in a number of big outbreaks,
including Ebola outbreaks.
I didn't think I was gonna be jumping out of aircraft again.
It's been a while since we've deployed like that.
This was a rapid response,
even though there was no special-operations
infectious-disease response capability
in the U.S. government.
So it was quite disorganized.
I literally bought clothes at the airport.
We got a taxi and then headed down to Yokohama.
[vehicle beeping]
[dramatic music]
* *
- Our team went on board to do an initial assessment.
We're going into a relatively unknown environment.
We're dealing with a virus
that we still don't understand very well.
We decided that we would treat the entire ship
as essentially a hot zone.
- Within minutes of stepping on that ship,
we knew coronavirus was everywhere.
It was like water.
[tense music]
It was surreal.
I feel like I'm in an Ebola outbreak
'cause I'm wearing all the stuff.
I got the same smells.
I got the same feel except I'm surrounded
by really bad art
in the art gallery of a cruise ship.
- I was pretty shocked, to be honest,
when we got on board the ship
to see how varied
the infection control practices were.
- Several state room doors were open,
and people were unconscious.
We'd go down a stairwell
and find really inconsolable crew members
who just had one of their bunkmates
go off to the hospital.
Their future was uncertain.
So it was quite terrifying for the crew.
- We thought we had quite a bit more time
and started to lay out some of the plans.
By the time we eventually got back off the boat,
that plan had changed, and we understood now
that the aircraft were gonna be there the next day.
* *
[harpsichord music]
- A producer with CNN sent me a message on Skype,
and she said, "Hey, I hear you're getting evacuated.
Congratulations."
And I had no idea what she was talking about.
- Sunday early a.m....
we started off with two teams--
Team Charlie and Team Lima.
Two aircraft were en route.
- CDC decided, and we agreed with them,
anybody who is visibly ill or symptomatic
would not be subject to repatriation.
- We were going to have to pass a medical inspection
in order to get on that plane.
Two officers from the CDC came to our door
and asked, "How are you feeling?
"Do you have a cough? Are you sick?
Do you have a fever? Okay."
That was the medical examination.
- They said, "Okay, just people
who don't have the COVID."
but the problem was, they didn't know who had the COVID.
- We were not done seeing all Americans
before they started to load them
for transport to the airport.
So we looked out a porthole window,
and, sure enough, they were loading the passengers.
- Hand the passport to this gentleman in the yellow.
He will hand it to the State Department folks
on either side.
They will keep your passport. Then they'll put you on a bus.
The bus will take you to the airplane.
The airplane takes you to United States,
and then you get your passport.
- Whoo-hoo. - All good with that?
- Okay. - Whoo-hoo.
- Sayonara. - Sayonara.
- I'm just gonna say "papa." - Papa.
- [chuckles]
- I'm gonna miss you guys so much.
- All right, Gordie. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Where's bus two?
- Our deck was like the last deck to disembark.
So Spencer and I were literally
some of the last people to get off the ship,
but that also means that there are people
on the bus for, like, four hours
just waiting outside the cruise ship.
- Bus number two. Yes.
- Get on board. - Okay.
- Any idea how long until we get moving?
- The CDC had given assurances
that no one who had tested positive
or was symptomatic
would get on the aircraft to be repatriated.
What we had not considered as a possibility is...
on the way to the airplane
that test results would come back
to indicate that people were potentially positive.
- We there yet? [people chuckle]
- The U.S. officials find out that 14 of the Americans
have tested positive for the virus.
Worse--they're all sitting on the buses
with the other healthy Americans.
- The whole load of passengers were at risk.
We contacted Dr. Fauci,
Dr. Schuchat from CDC,
Dr. Walters from State.
The conversation got a bit contested.
- This debate over whether to bring
the infected Americans back--
it's very animated.
It's very intense.
They're trying to make this last-minute call
with serious repercussions.
* *
- What happened on the "Diamond Princess" operation
is there's multiple leaders.
So there was no unified command
and no single person that was responsible.
- That's it. - That's it.
- Yep, that's the exact plane.
- Ultimately, the decision was made
that we would bring all of these folks
together and load them on the aircraft.
- In order to get off the bus and board the plane,
they had to give us our passport.
We sat there for about three hours
because they lost our passports.
- Stanley.
Can you grab your stuff and come on down, please?
- They had accumulated this big box of passports.
So they'd go through the whole thing,
give have a couple of passports out,
go to the next bus, do the same thing.
- Kamala Rhodes.
- They're passing them back.
This is not a good way
to, you know, prevent spread of this virus.
- If you have a passport,
you can get off and board the plane.
* *
- They transferred us to the cargo plane,
where we sat another couple hours.
* *
- I was in a long line for the porta-potties
when one of the guys in these hazmat "Ghostbuster"-type suits
came up to the lady right in front of me...
and said, "You've just tested positive."
She said, "I feel fine."
He said, "Well, you're asymptomatic,
"but you're positive.
"So would you please come with me
and get in this tent over here?"
Well, I'm in complete shock.
I haven't seen anybody for two weeks
until I got on the bus,
and now I'm standing for 15 minutes
next to somebody who was positive.
And I walked back to Phil,
and I said, "We've got a problem."
* *
- We had our hands full
for all types of medical problems on the aircraft,
and there was only one physician on each aircraft,
with hundreds of patients, in my case.
I had nine medical emergencies on board.
I had a syncope, a self-limiting seizure,
lots of nausea and vomiting,
to chest pains, respiratory distress,
as well as I had two patients
become symptomatic with coronavirus.
- I got up and went over to the card table
where the air force doctor was.
He took my temperature, confirmed that it was over 103,
and immediately put me in the quarantine area.
* *
- It was past midnight in California.
There's a line of military personnel,
and they keep saying, "Welcome home, welcome home."
- The "Diamond Princess"
demonstrated this is a highly transmissible virus.
It almost certainly has to be spreading by aerosol route,
and it really looks as if people without symptoms
are capable of spreading the virus.
That really hit us, in terms of understanding
how difficult this would be to control.
[tense music]
- I had a conversation with my family this morning,
and I told my children that while I didn't think
that they were at risk right now,
we, as a family, need to be preparing
for significant disruption of our lives.
It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore
but a question of exactly when this will happen
and how many people in this country
will have severe illness.
- After that telebriefing, the market tanks,
and just pandemonium ensues across the administration.
[percussive music playing]
The president is in India at this time,
but when they catch wind of what she has said
on the telebriefing and how much the market has fallen,
they go into this overdrive of message control.
- I think Dr. Messonnier talked
about the potential for community transmission.
It's helpful to think about a bad flu year.
- The White House, at this point,
views the pandemic as a public relations crisis
and not as much a public health crisis.
- It's very important to say that our efforts at containment
so far have worked.
- On February 20th,
"The Washington Post" writes this article
that says the CDC was overruled
on this decision in bringing back the infected Americans.
And the president sees this and is just furious.
At this point, he is obsessively watching
the coronavirus numbers
the same way he watches the stock market--
as a direct reflection of him.
So he calls Alex Azar and says,
"Who made the decision to bring these people back?
This doubles my numbers overnight."
- I was called into the Oval Office
with Secretary Azar, Dr. Fauci, and Dr. Redfield.
It had been reported that the president wanted to sack me.
President Trump said, "Anthony."
He always referred to Dr. Fauci as Anthony.
"Anthony, did we do the right thing
by bringing those people home from Japan?"
I don't think I had enough time
to either break a sweat or pass out
because Dr. Fauci said,
"Well, Mr. President, I think it was the right thing."
And the president, without acknowledging me at all,
said, "Yes, it was.
It was the right thing to do."
- I think the fact that they didn't know
how to handle the situation on a single cruise ship
off the coast of Japan
and that people at the top levels of the U.S. government
would be arguing about it and contradicting each other
and that the president would threaten to fire
multiple people because of it,
because of one cruise ship,
that would foreshadow
all of the things that were to come.
They can't get that right.
How are they gonna get the rest of this right?
[tense music]
* *
- After disaster response operations,
we have to report into our harbor.
We realized there were many more cruise ships out there.
* *
And then within two days, we were back in San Francisco
for the "Grand Princess."
- ACT 1...
we're heading to the blue boat.
Got a ways to go.
- This is a safety announcement.
A helicopter operation is about to take place.
You should remain inside.
- We were fortunate that my wife had booked a balcony,
that we could look outside,
and we saw the helicopter bring the test kits in.
- Well, the sample collection continues.
We expect the test results
sometime tomorrow morning.
As a reminder, we do not have any confirmed cases
of COVID-19 on the "Grand Princess."
- This is the "Grand Princess."
About every 17th patient is infected.
[indistinct]
And so we're getting them off the boat.
- The "Grand Princess" cruise ship
has been moored off the coast of California
since Wednesday night.
21 individuals on the "Grand Princess"
tested positive.
- On the flight to Atlanta,
the president was watching Fox News on "Air Force One,"
and he was seeing the case numbers rise,
and he knew there was this cruise ship,
the "Grand Princess," floating off the coast of California.
- If it were up to me, I would be inclined to say
leave everybody on the ship for a period of time,
and you use the ship as your base.
But a lot of people would rather do it a different way.
They'd rather quarantine people on the land.
Now, when they do that, our numbers are gonna go up, okay?
Our numbers are gonna go up.
- There was exasperation
on the part of a lot of U.S. officials
when they heard those comments,
because the cat's out of the bag.
The virus is spreading.
Do you not realize
we have a much bigger crisis on our hands
than this one ship?
- So we just had a great meeting.
Tremendous unity in the Republican Party.
- When you mix disastrous disease outbreak and politics,
you get politics in this country.
- It'll go away.
It will go away. Just stay calm.
- You know, cruise ships are not a source for coronavirus.
- We need a little separation
until such time as this goes away.
It's gonna go away.
- There's lots of natural social distancing.
The ships are large.
- You know it is going away?
- I think there was a lot of movement
to figure out what was going on,
but the response time from a CDC that wasn't warm
to admitting that there was a problem at the time
and an administration that was downplaying it, you know,
led the cruise companies to behave this way as well.
- We're doing a great job with it, and it will go away.
Just stay calm. It will go away.
We want to protect our shipping industry,
our cruise industry, cruise ships.
- The CDC wanted to issue a No Sail Order,
which is within the agency's purview.
- Cameras keeping moving to the wall.
- Guys, keep-- - Keep moving to the wall.
- You guys got to keep going all the way back, come on.
- But a lot of the cruise industry is in Florida,
which was a crucial swing state,
and it would mean a massive shutdown
to a pretty big industry.
[reporters shouting]
So there was a big fight with the White House
over getting this No Sail Order out.
- March 7th, Grant Tarling, the Chief Medical Officer,
is publicly promising
that they were using a cleanser
that was proven to eliminate coronavirus
within 30 seconds.
- There was no enhanced protocols that we saw.
The only enhanced protocol that I'm aware of
is that we had to fill in a form
confirming that we had not come through a list of countries
within the 14 days prior to boarding.
- That was nothing out of the ordinary.
They were just walking around wiping hard-surface areas,
and there were hand sanitizer stations.
[upbeat music playing]
- Nobody was wearing masks.
all: * We all live in... *
- We didn't felt that the virus was around
or a threat to us at all.
It was very positive.
- So we're about to disembark in San Juan
and then do a little shopping, do a little exploring.
Our first stop was in Puerto Rico,
and my husband and I grabbed our gear,
and we headed off the ship.
And the first thing I noticed was an ambulance.
The people working the ambulance
were wearing, like, a hazmat outfit,
and I looked at my husband, and I said, "That's COVID."
- First, we thought we were gonna be docking
back in San Francisco,
and we just kept floating and circling and floating.
- The "Grand Princess" was a different kettle of fish.
We had to take what we did in "Diamond Princess"
and put it on steroids.
The number of patients
we'd have to put in quarantine was over 1,000.
It was, if you will, the last stand
for coronavirus cruise ships,
and realize that we were probably on the precipice
of a full-blown pandemic.
[dramatic music]
- The problem with the government's fixation
on getting people off these cruise ships,
which was well-intentioned,
is that it took so many people
and so many resources.
It meant that there was less attention paid
to what was actually happening on the home front
and all the spread that was happening
and the delay in getting a No Sail Order out.
- There was a meeting
with the cruise ship executives, the CEOs
to tell them they really got to come forth
with a plan to tighten up the protection
of people who go on,
as well as what happens when they go off.
So they've been given the mandate to fix it,
and if they don't fix it,
then they're gonna maybe get some regulations
that they don't like.
- To give you a sense of the time line,
I think it's important to remember that at March 7th,
Grant Tarling is promising in a press conference
that they have this sanitizer,
and six days later,
they're agreeing to the voluntary shutdown.
- In the interest of doing what's right
and upholding our core values...
And we will do everything in our power
to return each guest home
with the greatest amount of care possible.
- We're steaming on to Antigua,
which is our final stop before we cross the ocean.
We're talking about whether we're gonna get off,
and I look out the window,
and the ship is sailing past the island of Antigua.
- We absolutely were held hostage.
If they had told the truth,
we would've never gotten back on the ship in Puerto Rico.
We would've gotten a flight home from there.
- It was a very scary feeling
to spend five days
going across the Atlantic Ocean,
where there's no cavalry coming.
[upbeat music playing]
They decided that we weren't gonna have
any, like, organized group activities,
but they didn't shut down the casinos,
and they didn't shut down the bars.
[person cheers]
- Anything that didn't make money was canceled.
The things that made them money
remained open for quite some time.
- We were in Wellington on the Saturday
and then Napier on the Sunday,
and it was as we left Napier
that we were informed that the ship was being sent
back to Australia effective immediately
and the cruise was being cut short.
We were told at the time
that it was because of the bad weather
that was north of the island.
- In the medical center,
there's at least a dozen individuals
who are suffering from COVID symptoms,
and some of them are in severe states...
and yet the cruise director
is leading this grand old party time
at the moment that people are going through major suffering
in the medical center.
all: * Got this feeling in my body *
- It felt like you were in a different world.
They made us all feel
that there was no COVID on the ship.
We could go along and have fun and do what we wanted to do,
and we'd be fine.
[applause] Thank you very much!
Have a great day!
Enjoy this day!
Go out! Enjoy the bars! Enjoy the dining here!
Eat everything! Eat everything!
[laughter] You have to eat everything!
Please, eat everything!
Have a great afternoon. We'll see you later. Bye!
[cheers and applause]
- We actually learned through the media
that our woman and man in Puerto Rico
tested positive for COVID before the ship admitted it.
They kept telling us that that COVID test has not come back.
That COVID test has not come back.
Why was it so important
to pretend that there's no COVID on the ship?
Why were they interested in allowing all of us
to continue to mingle and to continue this cruise
as though there's not a problem?
- Carnival's share price is down 30% today,
but it's 85% down
since its highs just a few weeks ago.
- For us right now with pausing our sailings,
the critical thing for us is cash.
[upbeat music playing]
- The cruising companies--
I think they want to protect their image first.
Image is big, 'cause image
is what brings passengers to them.
I think the image is based on security.
They will always say that passenger well-being
is their priority.
- Our highest responsibility
and our top priorities are compliance.
Compliance. Compliance.
Environmental protection. Environmental protection.
And the health, safety, and well-being of our guests.
Of our crew and the people and the places we touch.
And, of course, our crew and our shoreside personnel.
- It's, "We got two ways of making ourselves profitable.
"We either increase the amount of money coming in,
"which is often onboard revenue,
or we decrease our expenses."
You get a cheap cruise because Carnival Corporation
pays no corporate income tax.
- That's not true.
It's true from an income tax standpoint,
but we pay lots of other taxes.
- They have found a labor force
that is willing to be routinely taken advantage of.
They have found ways to avoid government regulation
so that they can have Get Out of Jail Free cards
wherever they need them.
Unfortunately, I think, in a lot of ways,
what's going on with the cruise industry
is capitalism taken to the max.
[ship horn blaring]
- The day before it returned,
"Ruby Princess" reported to Sydney health officials
over 100 cases of acute respiratory distress.
- Authorities are tonight scrambling
to track down thousands of people
who were allowed to disembark a cruise ship
that docked in Sydney riddled with coronavirus.
The government is pleading with every passenger
to stay at home.
- We got to the airport.
We were just scanned straight through.
No temperature checks.
We got on our flight.
- We arrived in LA,
and from there, we flew out to Chicago.
We did not wear a mask.
We still felt that we were fine.
- Quite unannounced,
we were told we were all getting off in Marseille
and being flown home to Atlanta.
- It appears that we're gonna be getting on a bus
and going to the airport.
- We were told there was gonna be social distancing.
- [chuckles]
- Well, those buses were crammed packed
full of people,
many of them coughing and hacking, et cetera.
[person coughing]
- They load us on this big airplane,
and I can see that a lot of the people
are starting to really fade.
- I noticed a gentleman that was coughing every breath.
- This gentleman later died once he got back to the States,
but at that time,
we just knew he was in very, very deep trouble.
- And the man next to me
was coughing the whole time,
and he had a mask
that was kind of halfway up and down his face,
and he kept wanting to talk to me.
And I was like, "No, I can't talk to you now."
- So everyone had this fantastic expectation
that as soon as we landed in Atlanta,
everything's gonna be great.
Imagine 250 people are getting off this airplane,
and if you don't have a temperature
and you mark no to their little three-checkbox questionnaire
that you're fine, you're going home.
Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye! See you...
- That very last day when we disembark
there were all those crew member
with, you know, signs,
and they were sad to see us go, you know,
and we were sad too.
And, boy, we didn't know
what was waiting for us,
but the worst was for them.
[ship horn blaring, scattered cheers]
- Immediately after the "Ruby Princess" disembarked,
they took the ship out to sea.
They know that they had
over 100 very sick people on the boat,
and they had a party for all the staff.
Initially, the cruise industry's position
was that they thought they'd be sailing again in July.
They went out to sea.
They were gonna give the crew a bit of a vacation.
And then in a month or two, they would be back at work.
all: [chanting] Send us home. Send us home.
- Revolt on the high seas
as fed-up cruise ship workers demand to get off.
all: [chanting] Send us home. Send us home.
- They were not receiving their paychecks
but would resume once business started again.
And, in fact, that never happened,
and then the next issue became,
how are we gonna get these people home?
- The U.S. Coast Guard says at least 54,000 crew members
remain aboard 85 ships in U.S. waters,
but it's reported more than 100,000 crew members
around the globe
have been given no firm details
on when they can disembark.
- The crew stayed out there longer and longer,
and they became more and more concerned
for their repatriation and their well-being,
and more concerns came forward until the point
that we realized people were in great need of help.
Crew members started reaching out to me
just after the "Ruby Princess" and the "Diamond Princess."
I created a group on Facebook
as a way to just connect crew members
who were waiting for repatriation,
but very quickly I realized that the crew members
didn't want to post.
There was a lot of fear around posting.
- Some were moored in the United States.
Some were out at sea,
and other people waited for months with no information.
- They spoke about the suicides
that had taken place on other ships.
I had messages that said, "What do we have to do to go home?
"Does somebody have to sacrifice themselves?
Does someone on our ship have to commit suicide?"
[tense music]
* *
[indistinct chatter]
* *
- It is with great sadness that I share with you
that earlier this morning,
one of our teammates went overboard
and was found deceased once recovered.
We have lost a member of our Princess family.
The next of kin has been informed.
- I wonder if you have any regrets, Arnold,
looking back on some of the ways this has been handled,
given what we learned about the "Diamond Princess,"
which was back in January.
The "Ruby Princess" still went to sea 5 1/2 weeks later.
With hindsight, do you regret letting that ship go to sea?
- I would tell you this-- that you make the decisions
with information you have at the time.
If you know everything today,
you know, we're at stay at home and shelter in place.
And if we had known that information at that time,
that that was the best way to deal with this,
then, clearly, we would have done that.
- All the efforts were to take a position
that they, too, were a victim of COVID-19,
they were caught by surprise,
and that they have no responsibility
and, in turn, no liability.
- When we were on the "Diamond Princess,"
we were guaranteed a pandemic
because of the international demographics of the crew
and the passengers and how long that ship
had been sailing around Southeast Asia.
To deny it is a failure
to understand catastrophic, contagious, infectious disease.
Cruise ships pose a direct threat
to the rapid spread of respiratory viral diseases
around the world.
- I'm gonna tilt your head back just a little bit.
- Hundreds of Americans are under quarantine this morning
after landing at military bases
in California and Texas.
- We know that 14 more people have been diagnosed
with coronavirus since leaving the cruise ship
and getting on the plane.
Now they're all in the U.S.
- Good afternoon, everyone.
This is Spencer.
I'm no longer on the "Diamond Princess."
I'm currently in sunny California.
We're in basically a giant fenced-off yard
where we can walk anytime that we want.
I'm just keeping hope alive
that, you know, I don't develop symptoms
over the course of the next couple of weeks,
but I have been evacuated.
Again, Spencer coming to you
from not the "Diamond Princess."
* *
- 55 years ago,
Princess Cruises sailed its first voyage.
Never in those 55 years
have we been tested in the ways we have been tested
over the past 40 days.
Literally thousands of you have sent us notes
asking how you could support Princess...
and to all of you, I have a simple request.
While our ships take a brief pause
for 60 days out of service...
we ask you to book a future Princess cruise...
- And we're looking forward to more cruises.
I mean, this is not souring our appetite for cruises.
- We're definitely, absolutely going to go cruising again.
- We were scheduled to cruise again in May.
We had kids graduating from school.
- If Costa said, "You can have a free cruise,"
I would not take it.
I'll go on many other cruise lines,
but I will not go on Costa ever again.
- We'll see what life-- what the future holds,
but our goal is to--
certainly my goal is to return to cruising if I can.
- Right now, I am not ready to go back.
If, in the future,
this virus goes away,
I would thoroughly love to go back to my job,
because I love what I do.
- Everyone's talking up the enormous extent of demand
and the bookings that are coming through.
So outline for us, Arnold,
exactly where we are with U.S. cruises.
- Concerning U.S. cruises,
we're excited to finally get guests back on board.
July 3rd, "Carnival Vista"
will be sailing out of Galveston.
July 4th, "Carnival Horizon" out of Miami.
And we have ships sailing elsewhere around the world,
so we're excited.
We finally are gonna get people back on the ships.
[soft piano music]
* *