When the ship comes ashore, will you remember the story!
On January 20, 2020, the Diamond Princess, carrying more than 3,000 crew members and passengers, set off from Yokohama, Japan. No one thought that a nightmare was about to unfold. An elderly passenger from Hong Kong, China, disembarked in Hong Kong on 25 January and was diagnosed with new coronapneumonia on 1 February. On 3 February, the "Diamond Princess" cruise ship returned to Yokohama port ahead of schedule for off-shore isolation.
During the quarantine period, Japan continued to test the ship's 1,723 passengers, by the end of the quarantine on board the number of confirmed to reach more than 400 people. Subsequently, the isolation of passengers disembarked, the number of confirmed people continued to grow.
The Diamond Princess is one of the 15 most luxurious cruise ships in the world. The ship is one of the largest and most well-equipped luxury cruise ships in the world's "Princess" series, like a five-star hotel at sea.
Diamond Princess, 116,000 tons, cruise ship length 290.4 meters, 48.2 meters wide, up to 62.5 meters, 116,000 tons. It can accommodate 2,670 passengers, with 1,337 cabins, 748 private terraces and five main restaurants on board, offering Italian, European, American and Asian dishes.
There are four swimming pools of varying sizes, a Princess Theatre with a capacity of more than 700 people, a variety of bars, nightclubs, luxury casinos, duty-free shops, fitness centres and spas, libraries, the largest internet cafes on the sea, and even a romantic wedding hall.
About 3,700 people on board the diamond princess, which had a large-scale outbreak of new crowns, began quarantine on February 5, and the first batch of passengers who tested negative for the first time on February 19 were disembarked, and by March 1, all of them were evacuated, resulting in 723 confirmed new coronapneumonia, 13 of whom died.
Three months ago, at the beginning of the outbreak of the new coronavirus,
The cruise ship was stranded in Japanese waters and gained worldwide attention for its large number of infections and incorrect isolation.
Three months later, all the people who have been through it are still in shock.
Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases announced on the 3rd the occurrence of the new coronal pneumonia cluster infection of the Diamond Princess cruise ship's in-ship environmental survey results, found that the confirmed person used the room toilet floor, pillows, telephone, television shaker and other high frequency detection of the new coronavirus, in the asymptomatic confirmed room also detected the virus.
The Institute of Infectious Diseases collected samples from 600 places, including public spaces on board, crew and passenger rooms, to investigate whether there were genes (RNA) specific to the new coronavirus. As a result, the virus gene was detected in 21 of the 33 rooms of the confirmed patients, and 10 of the 13 rooms of the asymptomatic patients were also detected.
It is thought-provoking that several incidents have occurred during the outbreak, similar to those encountered by the Diamond Princess cruise ship. So what is the reason why such cruises are repeatedly left ungoverned?
In reality, some countries allow ships owned by foreigners to fly their flags. As a result, some foreign ships often buy the flags of those countries in order to evade their own taxes and other coercive measures, which are known as the flag of convenience. At present, the international market in the cruise ship registration part of the flag of convenience.
However, because the ship flying the flag of convenience and the flag state does not have a "real connection", in the event of a problem, the convenience flag is difficult to function. It is because of the circumstances of the flag of convenience that the United Kingdom "pretends to be deaf and dumb" and despises its responsibilities as a flag State.
The convenient flag ship exposes many disadvantages, which makes the international shipping safety interests in many aspects can not be guaranteed. After decades of development, the convenient flag not only did not disappear, but more and more.
In the current international situation, the elimination of convenient flag is not realistic, we can only do our best to regulate the convenient flag, strengthen management, coordinated development, and jointly safeguard the international maritime security.
In addition, the outbreak of the new crown also exposed the international cruise ship sea navigation problems, such as the epidemic prevention facilities and measures are not perfect, cruise rights and obligations are not in place.
The incident has also aroused international concern, there have been voices calling for the speedy improvement of relevant international laws to protect the lives and interests of cruise passengers.