The Carnival Cruise Ship That Spread Coronavirus Around the World

At about 6 a.m. on March 19, William Wright, a retired Australian mortgage broker, woke up feeling a little off. He had a cough and his nose was running, though it didn’t seem too bad. In any case, there was no time to linger in bed. Wright and his wife, Lucia, had just docked in Sydney after a 10-day journey around New Zealand on the Ruby Princess, a 950-foot, 1,542-cabin vessel operated by Carnival Corp.’s Princess Cruises subsidiary. The couple’s disembarkation time was 8:05 a.m., so they quickly packed up and had breakfast. They arrived on schedule in the Explorers Lounge, the nightclub where they’d been told to assemble with other passengers leaving at the same time.

Unloading a cruise ship is a complex process, and delays aren’t unusual. But the Wrights waited only a short while before being told they could go. They made their way through the corridors, past crew members waving goodbye and offering high-fives. Getting through Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal took only a few minutes. Despite the accelerating Covid-19 pandemic, Australian officials had cleared the Ruby to disembark without restrictions. Passengers didn’t even need to show their passport, let alone get their temperature checked. The only paperwork was an immigration form that border guards glanced at before waving people through.