WEBVTT - The Pariah Ship 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.680 I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. We're bringing you 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:05.160 one of the stories You've gotta here in this week's 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.479 edition of Bloomberg Business Week. On the afternoon of March eighth, 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.959 Holland America's MS ZANDAM cast off from Buenos Aires and 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.640 headed east on what some passengers hope would be a 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.280 multi week journey around South America and Jason. Yet, just 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:23.599 an hour earlier, the CDC had tweeted quote U s citizens, 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.639 especially with underlying conditions, should not travel by cruise ship 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.720 hashtag CDC notes increased risk of hashtag COVID nineteen on cruises. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.120 Zend M is a midsized cruise ship. It's got births, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.640 with one thousand, four hundred thirty two passengers and crew 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.200 and the sedate vibe of an ocean liner. But within 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:47.400 days of its departure, the coronavirus had stricken the ship's population. Eventually, 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.839 dozens would fall sick and three would die from the virus, 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.199 and with passengers falling ill, the ship was denied a 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.840 port by country after country. The full tally of COVID 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:00.000 cases on the Zendem well that may never be known. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.400 And what's more, certain is that the company's executives badly 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:09.080 underestimated the virus. Passengers finally disembarked in Florida on April second, 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.280 and yet Jason two months later, the cruise industry remains 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.679 shut down and economically staggered. A no sale order issued 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.399 by the CDC six days after the Zandam's departure has 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.480 since been renewed through the end of July. In a sense, 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.559 the Zandam's odyssey is a dark parable of what economists 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.360 calls socializing losses. A company takes on risks it cannot 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.640 handle itself, knowing that if things go awry, the public 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.280 will be forced to rescue it. The pariah ship. The 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.880 cruise industry was already in a COVID nineteen crisis when 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.440 the MS zan Dam set sail, Yet Holland America was 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.880 unprepared when people began to fall sick, and country after 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:52.920 country turned the ship away. By Michael Smith, Drake Bennett, 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:58.240 and k Uan Ha on March, the MS Zandam sat 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.120 at Anchor off the coast of Panama, its sun decks 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:05.360 and swimming pools deserted, the lounges and casino quiet for 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.760 the seventh straight day. Passengers were confined to their cabins, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.200 with one of the few things cruises endeavor not to 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:16.720 abundantly provide time alone with dark thoughts. Crew members moved 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.960 through the narrow hallways, delivering meals and medication. Periodically, a 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.400 doctor or nurse brought another passenger to the Zandam's small 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:29.040 medical center as its receptionaria filled coughing patients stood in 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:33.560 the corridor. The previous day, Captain Anni Smitt had come 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.000 over the intercom and announced what most of his listeners 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.600 already suspected, COVID nineteen was on the ship. Two people 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.200 had tested positive so far, and four passengers had died. 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.200 One of those deaths, according to the u S Centers 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.880 for Disease Control and Prevention, would turn out not to 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.240 be from the coronavirus. In addition, because the ship was 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.280 carrying the disease, its request to pass through the Panama 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.839 Canal into the Caribbean had been denied. As Smitt made 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.320 his announcement, fifty three passengers and eighty five crew members 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.400 were sick. The ship had been in limbo for almost 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.200 two weeks, but until now it had at least been 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.200 moving up the entire Pacific coast of South America, as 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.520 nation after nation refused to let the passengers ashore. Now 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.800 it had come to rest. A small Panamamian patrol boat 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:26.520 loitered nearby. Among the Zandam passengers were two Americans from Missouri. 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.840 Sitting in their cabin looking out their sealed porthole at 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:34.400 Panama City's palisade of skyscrapers, Clive and Sharon Hutton found 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.760 themselves veering from hope to dread and then regret. A 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.120 few hundred yards away, the Huttons could see the MS Rotterdam, 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.960 which had arrived two days earlier. It was a foot 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.080 shorter than the zan Dam at seven eighty feet, but 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.800 otherwise almost identical. Both vessels had the navy blue hull, 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.480 teak decks, and white superstructure of a Holland America Line ship. 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.360 The Hutton's watched as two orange and white tenders shuttled 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.160 between the ship. The covered boats were bringing over much 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.280 needed protective gear and COVID tests along with doctors, nurses 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.160 and crew members who had volunteered to reinforce their colleagues 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:13.000 on the Zandam, and they were carrying away passengers deemed 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.680 COVID free. With each trip they were separating more of 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:21.440 the healthy from the unwell. That morning, medical personnel in masks, 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.120 gloves and gowns had appeared at the Hutton's cabin on 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.880 the Dolphin deck to take their temperatures and have them 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.640 fill out a questionnaire. Passengers who passed this cursory check 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.680 were eligible to transfer to the Rotterdam. As far as 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.960 the couple knew they'd passed, both were fever free and 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.200 felt fine, and people over age seventy as they were 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.560 were being given priority. Then hours later, the medical staff 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.720 came back and told them to unpack. Lance as everyone 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.760 called him, had divulged on his questionnaire that he used 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.240 a c PAP machine, a device to treat sleep apnea, 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.840 for reasons he couldn't understand. That was disqualifying. They had 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.320 to remain on the six ship, as Lance had started 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.480 calling it. The Huttons, from the small town of Forest Dell, 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.840 had bought their tickets many months in advance. They'd fly 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.279 to Buenos Aires, spend a couple of days in the city, 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.120 then set sail down the east coast of South America 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.240 around Cape Horn and back up the other side. And 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.520 because they had sprung for the extended thirty one day option. 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.000 They'd continue after the first leg, ended in San Antonio, Chile, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:26.400 all the way up to the Panama Canal and on 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.240 to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The capstone for 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.680 Lance would be an excursion to Machu Picchu, the fifteenth 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.279 century Incan ruined in the Peruvian Andes. In the weeks 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.000 before their departure, Lance had monitored the spread of the 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.400 coronavirus and begun to worry about the trip. He'd followed 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.359 the cruise ship outbreaks, first on the Diamond Princess in 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.240 February and then on the Grand Princess days before his 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.200 own voyage. Princess cruizes, like Holland America, is part of 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.880 the giant cruise operator Carnival. At eighty and seventy nine 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.960 years old, respectively, he and Sharon were squarely in the 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.080 at risk population for COVID nineteen. Lance had wanted to cancel, 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.200 but Holland America sent him an email on February specifying 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.720 that refunds were limited to customers who could prove they 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.479 had had contact with someone who had the virus or 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:17.159 had recently traveled to China. On March five, he checked again, 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.120 but the policy hadn't changed. On March sixth, the day 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.920 before the Zendaims passengers began boarding, Holland America did loosen 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:29.080 its cancelation policy. Lance never learned of it, and so 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.880 the couple had gone ahead with the trip. Throwing away 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.919 twenty thousand dollars just felt too extravagant to a retired 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.680 school superintendent. I'm sure many people on board felt the same, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.080 he said, speaking by phone as the ship sat in 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.800 Panama Bay. If they'd had a chance, they would have 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.240 gotten out of it. Now, the Hunton's just wanted to 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.560 get home. Word of the deaths had rattled the couple. 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.200 Lance was particularly worried about Sharon, his wife of fifty 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.960 six years. She had bronchiac TASiS, a chronic condition that 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.840 made her susceptible to airway infections, and he'd lost faith 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.440 in the company that he now painfully realized he'd trusted 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.280 with their lives. I just don't think they thought about 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.240 this very well, he said. That's the only complaint I have. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.040 By the time the Zandam made it to port on 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.080 April two, its passengers would be some of the only 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.520 cruisers left on Earth. Some would still be very sick 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.840 and not all of them would survive. Two months later, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.720 the cruise industry remains shut down and economically staggered. A 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.040 no sale order issued by the c d C six 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.360 days after the Zandam's departure has since been renewed through 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.120 the end of July, but Carnival and Royal Caribbean International, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.280 the industries two dominant players, tentatively planned to start cruising 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.000 again on August one. If the industry keeps to this timeline, 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.200 ships will be departing and moving thousands from port to 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.680 port while COVID clusters still burn around the world and 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:55.360 a vaccine remains notional. To help customers swallow any misgivings, 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.200 Carnival has offered rates as low as twenty eight dollars 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.520 a day, including food. The company says it's learned from 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.280 its first deadly wave of COVID nineteen outbreaks. In announcing 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.520 its plans, Carnival promised to use this additional time to 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.840 continue to engage experts, government officials, and stakeholders on additional 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.560 protocols and procedures to protect the health and safety of 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.640 our guests, crew and the communities we serve. Of course, 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.000 the company had time to do all of that before 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:27.200 the Zandam departed two. The Diamond Princess outbreak, which sickened 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.440 more than seven hundred and killed at least thirteen on 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.280 an East Asian cruise, happened a full month before, and 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.080 yet the accounts of those on the Zandam and those 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.880 outside Holland America and Carnival who stepped in to help 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.520 get the vessel home suggest that the company squandered that time. 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.680 Its executives badly underestimated the virus. They assumed the Zandam 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.680 was safe because it was traveling through a part of 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.080 the world with relatively few COVID nineteen cases, and they 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.760 assumed protocols created for past on board disease outbreaks could 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.920 contain the new one too. When neither of those things 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.840 turned out to be true, they assumed someone would help them. 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.320 At the end of the day, those issues had to resolve. 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.680 That ship couldn't sit off the coast of any of 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:14.040 those countries indefinitely, says Orlando Ashford, who resigned as president 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.880 of Holland America on June one. We had to end 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.520 up someplace. So it was just a function of who 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.280 was going to go and step up in a sense. 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.839 The Zandam's odyssey is a dark parable of what economists 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.840 call socializing losses. A company takes on risks it cannot 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.160 handle itself, knowing that if things go awry, the public 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.320 will be forced to rescue it. In the zan Dam's case, 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.680 the rescue was literal and the losses measured in more 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:46.200 than money. Claudia Osiani and her husband Won Henning, who 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.439 reached the zen Dam on the afternoon of March seven, 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:50.880 were only a five hour car ride from their home 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.080 in the Argentine resort city of Mar del Plata. The 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.640 cruise was Henning's gift to his wife for her sixty 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.640 fourth birthday. One of the zan Dam's first ports of 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.280 call was the Falkland Islands, whose penguin rockeries and quaint, 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.439 incongruously British towns are the prime attraction for most visitors. 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.280 Argentines have a different relationship to the ease Las Malvinas, 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.719 as they call them, shaped by a disastrous N two 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.120 war with the UK over the remote colonial outpost. Oceani, 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.600 a psychologist, had treated veterans of the Falklands War for 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.160 post traumatic stress disorder as a young resident at a 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.360 naval hospital and Since then, she'd dreamed of seeing where 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.640 they had fought. As experienced cruisers. Oceani and Henning new 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.040 Holland America's reputation for luxury at prices below those of 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.160 the top end lines. With berths for fourteen hundred and 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.360 thirty two passengers and six hundred and fifteen crew, the 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.480 Zandam is mid size. Some newer ships accommodate four times 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.520 that number, with the sedate vibe of an ocean liner 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.960 rather than a cancoon bachanal a Rococo pipe organ dominates 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.319 the atrium, and music themed memorabilia throughout the ship. Guitars 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.880 autographed by the members of the Rolling Stones and Queen 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.040 a saxophone signed by Bill Clinton evoked the bygone rock 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:09.440 and roll youth of the mostly older passengers. Oceani didn't 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.440 want to seem ungrateful for her husband's lavish gift, but 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.559 like Lance Hutton, she was uneasy. On the drive to 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.280 Buenos Aires, the couple assured each other that the crews 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:23.000 would probably be mostly locals. Argentina had just seventeen confirmed 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:27.320 COVID nineteen cases and one death. At the time. We said, no, 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.920 we're going so far south, she recalls, it's just going 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.520 to be a bunch of Argentines and maybe some Chileans. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.520 When they got to the ship terminal, though, they found 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:40.160 themselves in a sea of Europeans and Americans, all those 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:44.360 people from where the pandemic was. The next day, passengers 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.719 settled into their cabins or explored Buenos Aires at four 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.640 or forty four pm local time, with the crew making 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.960 final preparations to embark. The U S Department of States 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.320 Bureau of Consular Affairs announced a travel advisory via Twitter. 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.000 U S citizens, especially with lying conditions, should not travel 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.240 by cruise ship. The tweet warned hashtag c d C 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:10.200 notes increased risk of hashtag COVID nineteen on cruises. Many 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.719 countries have implemented screening procedures, denied port entry rights to ships, 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.440 and prevented disembarking. A little more than an hour later, 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.160 the Zandam cast off into the broad mouth of the 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.920 Rio de la Plata and headed east. Montevideo, Uruguay, was 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.200 to be its first port of call. According to Ashford, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.720 the State Department advisory didn't warrant canceling the Zandam's trip. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.120 These things ebbed and flowed. He says, it was not 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.679 clear there were a lot of statements at that point. 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.080 The priority was making sure passengers who had paid for 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.200 a premium cruise got their money's worth. We're trying to 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:49.640 protect and deliver a wonderful guest experience, a wonderful vacation experience, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.960 Ashford says, and that's what this business is engineered to do. 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.520 Protecting the guests from the accelerating epidemic was not something 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.960 he thought he would have to worry about. It was 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.959 on the other side of the world, he says. As 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.440 the zan Dam set sail, Ashford's own wife and teenage 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.280 son were in the middle of a four month world 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.720 cruise on the m S Amsterdam. Ashford wasn't frightened for 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.000 his family. I had a conversation with my wife, he recalls, 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.240 Will I take you off a ship where no one 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.840 has COVID and fly you to Seattle, which was a 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.320 hot spot at the time. No, he told her, you 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.760 are on the safest place. According to Holland America spokesman 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.760 Eric Elviord, the cruise line made sure to follow the 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.880 CDC's recommendations at that time, adding cleaning procedures and giving 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:39.520 health surveys to embarking passengers on the zan Dam, Oceani 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.040 did feel relatively safe. For the first few days of 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.360 the journey, she and Henning befriended a few Argentine and 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.760 Uruguayan couples, and after Montevideo and two days in the 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.440 South Atlantic, the ship arrived at the Falklands. An old 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.640 friend who lived there met the couple and guided them 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:59.040 around the four decade old battlefields. It was wonderful being there, finally, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.000 Oceani said, is but if visiting the end of the 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.480 world made the pandemic feel distant to the ship's passengers, 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.520 their hosts saw things differently. The World Health Organization had 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.760 just declared COVID nineteen a pandemic. Kim Doutois, a twenty 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.120 six year old South African who worked on the Zandam 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.400 as an assistant shore excursion manager, says that as she 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.320 was loading the vans for a penguin tour, she noticed 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.440 the local drivers were fearful. At that time, there were 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.480 no known cases on the Falklands. They would tell us, 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.360 if you want to blow your nose, throw it in 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.240 this packet right away, and we'll seal it up and 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:37.080 throw it away. Dotoa says they were nervous about ships 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.880 coming in. They had reason to be. The Zandam's next 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.160 stop was Punta Arenas, Chile, a city as close to 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.080 Antarctica as it is to the Chilean capital of Santiago. 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.840 Each year during the austral summer, cruises visited more than 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.960 one hundred times, disgorging tourists who spend money in local 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.920 shops and restaurants, and gaze across the Strait of Magellan 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.560 at Tierra del Fuego, the Archipela Ago where South America ends. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.640 On March seven and eight, three year old Britain on 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.840 a small luxury cruise ship called the Silver Explorer, had 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.040 gotten off in town for a half day tour of 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.680 the area. Five days later, the ship stopped at Khalta Tortell, 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.480 an isolated coastal village of stilt houses and wooden walkways, 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.520 and the passenger began showing symptoms of COVID nineteen. He 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.120 was taken to a hospital where he tested positive for 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:29.160 the disease, then airlifted to Santiago. Punta Arenuss Mayor Claudio 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.680 Radonitch is convinced the man was patient zero for the region. 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.000 We believe this came with tourists. He says, when news 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.720 of the diagnosis got out, Kaleta Tortell barricaded the single 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.080 road into town, and Radonitch begged the Punta Arrenus Port 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.240 director to ban cruise ships. When the Zandam arrived on 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.680 March fourteenth, the port was still open and residents were 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.520 starting to get sick. Chilean authorities required temperature checks for 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.640 everyone getting off the ship to explore the town. It 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.280 was very ugly. Could feel people staring, just wanting us out, 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:06.360 Osani recalls. The sense of foreboding was heightened by the 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.080 news that the extended leg of the voyage had been canceled. 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.480 Everyone would disembark a week later in San Antonio. Countries 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.960 were closing their borders, and Holland America wanted to ensure 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:21.760 that passengers could get home that day. March was also 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.880 when the CDC ordered all cruise ship departures to stop. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.640 In justifying the measure, the no sale order laid out 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.920 some of the characteristics that made the vessels particularly vulnerable 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.720 to the new disease. The dynamics of passenger to passenger, 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.080 passenger to crew, crew to passenger, and crew to crew 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:43.080 intermingling in a semi closed setting are particularly conducive to 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:48.400 stars covey to spread, resulting in high transmission rates. Packed 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.000 theater or a crowded excursion van is an ideal environment 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:56.320 for a virus that spreads through respiratory droplets. Confined quarters 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.600 increase the odds it will spread between cabin mats, especially 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.000 among crew sleeping several to a room and eating impacked 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.600 mess halls. The older demographic of the clientele makes them 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.560 more likely to get severe cases of the disease, and 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.240 with each port it visits, a cruise ship releases its 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.479 passengers into a new community. The CDC began working with 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.520 global cruise companies to harden their fleets against disease in 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.920 the early two thousands after a series of high profile 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:27.240 gastro intestinal outbreaks on ships. The zen Dam is flagged 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.320 in the Netherlands, but like the rest of the one 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.520 hundred or so cruise ships calling on American ports, it's 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.000 subject to two surprise inspections a year by US authorities. 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.040 Since it's christening in two thousand, the zan Dam's inspection 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.000 scores and the CDC's vessel sanitation program have averaged nine 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.480 point five out of a hundred in it got a 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:52.640 perfect hundred. This hasn't, however, translated into actual perfection. According 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:57.159 to the VSP database, the ZENDAM has reported five disease outbreaks, 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:02.159 four norovirus and one unknown since two thousand, an unusually 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.760 high rate. Holland America has more reported disease outbreaks than 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.560 any other cruise line. VSP data show, as indicated by 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.280 the VSP scores, Zanda maintains a high level of attention 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.520 to guest health and sanitation. Holland America's Elviord wrote in 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.800 an email, Nora virus is very common shore side and 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.760 can be brought to a ship easily and is easily 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.480 transmitted from person to person. The day before the CDC 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.520 no Sale order, the member companies of the Cruise Lines 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.439 International Association, including Holland America and the other major lines, 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.600 had announced the voluntary suspension of all departures from US ports. 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:45.240 Before that, however, they'd lobbied heavily against restrictions on cruising. 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.439 On March six, the c l i A issued a 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.520 statement saying any action to restrict cruising is unwarranted and 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.040 at odds with the World Health Organization. The group warned 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.600 of possibly irreversible effects on the national and local economies 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.720 depending on cruise tourism. On March seven, the chief executive 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.440 officers of Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian met with Vice 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.520 President Mike Pence at Port Everglades, after which Pence touted 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:15.240 their new plans for quarantining passengers who became ill at sea. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.360 Weeks later, the CEO of Carnival Holland America's parent company 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.399 was still assuring the public that it could protect those 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.600 already aboard its ships. We do things you don't see 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.520 in the general public, Arnold Donald said in a Bloomberg 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.320 Business Week interview on April one, the day before the 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.399 zan Dam was finally able to dock in Florida. We 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.040 do temperature scans, we do medical records, we have a 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.520 medical on board. We do deep cleanings. Because you have 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.000 to keep in mind, we sail around the world all 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:48.760 the time. There's been ebola, Zica, stars, merse, so we 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.400 have to deal with this stuff all the time. CDC 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.040 officials say the cruise industry ignored recommendations to act sooner. 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.320 We have told them time and again to stop sailing, 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.720 said Cindy Friedman, an epidemiologist who leads the CDC's cruise 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.440 ship Coronavirus Responds task Force in an April tenth interview, 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.480 dealing with the outbreaks on the Princess ships had been 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:14.400 costly and complex, involving doctors, health officials, diplomats, and military 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.639 legisticians on multiple continents. The sooner these ships stopped sailing, 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.640 the better for protection of public health and to preserve 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.560 resources that could be used elsewhere, Friedman said. After leaving 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.520 Punta Arenas, the Zandam steamed towards Ushawaya, Argentina, three hundred 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.680 and eighty miles to the southeast. Some passengers went to 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:35.720 bed early to make sure they were up the next 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.879 morning to savor the passage down Glacier Alley in the 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.119 Beagle Channel, named for the ship that first mapped it, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.080 with Charles Darwin aboard. Amanda Bogan was up late. The 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.239 twenty seven year old worked on the cruise as an 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.680 entertainment host, organizing and m seeing trivia nights, magic shows, 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.399 scavenger hunts, and on this particular night, the Orange Party, 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:00.240 a celebration of the cruise lines home country circular aiding 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.040 Among the Orange clann guests, Bogan wasn't thinking about the pandemic, 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.760 and none of her supervisors had told her she should be. 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.840 We were at the very bottom of South America, so 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.959 far away from everything that was happening, she says, the 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:16.800 idea that the coronavirus would reach the ship just seemed impossible. 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.560 During the party, Bogan felt the floor tilting. It was 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.800 unusual to be so aware of the ship turning. Later, 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:25.879 she made her way down to the officer's bar and 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.440 met some friends, and they explained that the ship had 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.280 turned around. Argentina was shutting its ports against the pandemic. 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.480 Chile too, was preparing to close its borders, banning cruise 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.080 ships as of eight the next morning, so the ship 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:43.320 was racing back to Punta Arenas. The Gandam arrived well 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.360 before dawn, and guests received a note from Ashford under 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.480 their doors. Our current sailing will now terminate in Punta Arenas, Chile, 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.600 where we have arrived today. It read, we are sincerely 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.280 sorry that your voyage has come to such an abrupt end. 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.800 There were instructions about rebooking lights and a section on refunds, 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:05.000 but the note was wrong. Chile, it turned out, had 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.440 closed the port early, and when the sun came up 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.480 passenger saw a navy cutter between the Xan Dame and shore. 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.320 At nightfall, with the ship anchored in the harbor, residents 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.240 gathered for impromptu protests, blaring their car horns and screaming 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:22.840 angrily across the water. The next evening, March sixteenth, Captain 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.320 Smit announced that negotiations between Holland America until in health 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.800 officials had broken down. The Zandam was headed back to sea. 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:32.960 The only thing that captain could tell us is we're 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.920 going north, says Rick de Pino, a New Jersey patent 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.800 attorney who was on board with his wife Wendy. In 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.720 the absence of a sure thing, the navigation officer plotted 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.800 courses to three possible ports, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, and 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.280 Puerto Vayar to Mexico. On the night of March twenty first, 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.560 De Pino, says, the cruise director addressed the audience at 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.600 a comedy show. I really don't know where we are going, 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.960 he remembers the man, saying, it's the voyage to Nowhere. 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.960 A cruise to nowhere was still a cruise. We tried 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.399 to pack every day with as many fun activities as 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.600 we could, says Bogan. Corporate had given them the go 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.760 ahead to do anything they could, anything to keep them 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:17.560 I guess just happy and distracted. There were extra trivia 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.919 contests and a twist Off dance party. The casino bars 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.199 and hot tubs were full. An English tenor sang to 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.320 a crowded theater, joking between numbers about how the ship 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:32.840