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According to an article this week by Jenny Noyes in the Sydney Morning Herald , new research has found at least eight people caught COVID-19 on a QANTAS flight to Perth, which was carrying infectious Ruby Princess passengers, with the report’s findings to be published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal next month.

The report reveals according that at least eight cases and most likely up to eleven were contracted on board the QANTAS flight, which was carrying at least sixty cruise passengers, most from the Ruby Princess and Ovation of the Seas.

Twenty-eight Ruby Princess passengers boarded the QANTAS flight shortly after disembarking the Ruby Princess with the researchers finding that thirteen were carrying the virus and eleven were infectious.

The report goes on to say that Western Australian researchers have used genomic sequencing to identify how twenty-nine of the passengers on the five-hour QANTAS flight, who would later test positive for COVID-19, contracted the virus.

QANTAS medical director Ian Hosegood said the findings presented the only confirmed example of transmission on board a QANTAS flight and he expressed frustration that Qantas was unaware at the time that cruise passengers who posed a potential COVID-19 risk would be on the flight.

Laying the blame squarely on NSW Health the Sydney Morning Herald reported that he said, “We had no idea that at least 60 passengers had come off the Ruby Princess and other ships where COVID was already spreading.”

He added, “Had we known, they would have been stopped from travelling,” and “as has been established by the special inquiry, the moment QANTAS became aware that Ruby Princess passengers had been released and were travelling by air, we asked repeatedly for the manifest in a bid to stop these same passengers boarding any of our domestic or international flights,” “but we were told by the Department of Health that the manifest could not be provided for privacy reasons.

“These passengers should have been in self-isolation at home or in a hotel,” he added.

A report edited from the Sydney Morning Herald by John Alwyn-Jones