JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, March 1, 2025

COVID Outbreak aboard Liberian Drilling Ship at Chaguaramas

by

1079 days ago
20220317

Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

 

The crew aboard the No­ble Ger­ry de Souza drilling ship have been quar­an­tined and iso­lat­ed off the coast of Ch­aguara­mas af­ter a COVID-19 out­break on the ves­sel.

Ac­cord­ing to one of the crew mem­bers who test­ed pos­i­tive but wished to re­main anony­mous, around 19 of the 150 mem­ber crew have al­ready test­ed pos­i­tive. How­ev­er, he said they are be­ing iso­lat­ed on­board the ves­sel and wish to dis­em­bark and con­tin­ue their iso­la­tion on-land as the ship is set to de­part for Suri­name on Sat­ur­day.

"I know a lot of peo­ple want of the ship right now be­cause they're not feel­ing well and they're not let­ting us off," he said.

"They'd rather go to iso­la­tion on land be around doc­tors. The risk with sail­ing to Suri­name is once you get halfway there, you're out of medi­vac reach- he­li­copters can't reach. And the ship is two days away from beach so it's kind of a risk. If some­body takes a turn for the worst, you'd lose them be­fore you get in."

The crew mem­ber, who is not a T&T na­tion­al said he un­der­stands if of­fi­cials don't want to ac­com­mo­date them but asked that the coun­try's na­tion­als be al­lowed to quar­an­tine and iso­late on land.

"At the end of the day, there are a lot of Tri­nis that want to go in," he said.

"Tri­nis want to go home and they're not al­lowed to come in. That ain't right."

The crew mem­ber said he's done work with oth­er com­pa­nies in the coun­try which al­lowed them to quar­an­tine and iso­late on land when such sit­u­a­tions arose.

He said the ship ar­rived in Ch­aguara­mas on March 11 from Spain to re­stock and pick up oth­er mem­bers of the crew. He es­ti­mates around 30 per cent and T&T na­tion­als.

"It ar­rived on the 11th, we board­ed on the 11th, we got test­ed on the 14th and we had the first cas­es on the 14th. We had sev­en cas­es. Yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) we picked up 11 more. This morn­ing, as of now, we picked up one more," he said.

COVID-19Liberian Drilling ShipChaguaramas


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored