Cleaning a floating petri dish: How is a cruise ship sanitized after a coronavirus outbreak?

[mfcorey1]

Earlier this year, coronavirus lurked on Princess Cruises' Diamond Princess cruise ship. It eventually infected 712 people on board and killed 13, according to Johns Hopkins data.


The coronavirus, which has since evolved into a global pandemic, has shut down the cruise industry, leaving many wary of getting on a cruise ship in the future – especially one that has seen as many infections as the Diamond Princess.

After the final passengers and crew disembarked with the ship's captain being the last person to depart the ship on March 1, according to a Princess Cruises Facebook post, cleaning was delayed. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then conducted an investigation on how the virus spread through the ship.

hen on March 31 – nearly a month after the chaos on board ended – Princess spokesperson Negin Kamali shared a statement with USA TODAY announcing that the vessel had been sanitized by BELFOR Property Restoration, which touts itself as "the world's largest disaster restoration company."

The cleaning job was complete and the vessel had been presented with a certificate from Japan's health ministry, which confirmed the Diamond Princess to be "fit to sail," with "no traces of COVID-19 on board," according to the cruise line. The ship was quarantined off the coast of Yokohama, Japan, from Feb. 5-19 after the first cases were diagnosed.

USA TODAY has reached out to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for comment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/cleaning-a-floating-petri-dish-how-is-a-cruise-ship-sanitized-after-a-coronavirus-outbreak/ar-BB139zQE?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

[Iggo]

1. My guess is, it's not.

Purely a guess, based solely on a very short stint working housekeeping in a hospital back in the 80s.

[robbob]

2. I don't understand...

I thought the Coronavirus could only survive for a limited time outside a host. So by that theory, leave a cruise ship unattended for 48 hours or so and it should be safe to return to. But I also remember a story from a month ago about cleanup crews finding traces of the virus weeks after it had been emptied of passengers and crew. So what’s the real story on this virus’s shelf life?

[Steelrolled]

4. I think you are right, and in a few days most all virus would

not be viable, and certainly after a week.

We are fortunate of the many things that will inactive virus, as it truly is fragile outside a host.

At least one exception is chillers and freezers where it can last much longer.

[JI7]

5. I wonder how reliable the story about the traces of virus after weeks was

[Phoenix61]

7. It was literally traces, not a whole virus.

Just bits of RNA.

[Flaleftist]

6. Makes sense, but if you have people on the cruise ship the whole time, then it seems you

would risk leaving the virus on the ship. It could skip from one asymptomatic person to another. Are they testing every single member of the crew and keeping them on the ship the whole time and are the tests 100% accurate?

[Takket]

3. that seems pointless........

the virus can't live on surfaces for weeks on end. how many cleaning supplies did they use? a hospital could have used those.......