ANTWERP - A pilot who visited the ship Minerva Oceania to lead it to the port of Antwerp appears to have become infected with the coronavirus. This is reported by the Maritime Services and Coast Agency. The ship has been in quarantine in the Leopold dock for several days now because 15 of the 26 crew members tested positive for COVID-19. However, when the pilot arrived on the ship, the outbreak was not yet known.
"We deeply regret this but were prepared for the situation", the agency states Friday. "All colleagues with whom this person has been in contact were informed personally and will also stay home preventively. We will wait for the other test results, but we will not fail to take action there as well".
The agency states that sufficient pilots are still at work and therefore there is no impact on shipping traffic to and from the port.
A second pilot also visited the ship in question, but that person shows no symptoms for the time being. He will stay in home quarantine for two weeks, just like his positively tested colleague
The big questions
The Flemish pilots are worried. Some of their colleagues have piloted a ship on which, it turned out, fifteen crew members are infected with corona. Do they now also have Covid-19? Did the captain of the Minerva Oceania, who is now in quarantine for fourteen days, lie about the state of health of his crew? This needs to be investigated very carefully.
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by Marine-Pilots.com - published on 9 June 2020
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In this episode we have a chance to meet Ivana-Maria Carrioni-Burnett, a Marine Pilot from the UK who works on the River Thames.
Ivana highlights the concerns and fear that can be felt by those working in the maritime industry during COVID19. On the vessel, the seafarers are in their own isolation, or 'families' and then the pilot and other port personnel come onboard and they may be asymptomatic. For the port personnel, they aren't sure if the crew might be infected. Then there are the families - for the seafarers, they are often far from their families and are not sure when they may have a chance to see them again. For the pilots and port personnel, they need to go home to their families and may be concerned that they could be bringing COVID into the household. Through it all there is a need to keep healthy and happy.
Ivana's Top Tips include so many more than I was able to keep in the video, but the key is really community and communication.
- communicate and be kind to each other
- share your culture and faith, take advantage of the opportunity to learn more about each other
- exercise, even if you don't have a gym onboard, you can make weights with water, heft tins - just be careful not to drop on the deckhead! (maybe there's an old piece of carpet lying around?)
- quiz nights, taking turns setting up the quizzes, or sharing quizzes between ships
- setting up an onboard library with books and music
What are your top tips for keeping healthy and happy onboard?
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by Marine-Pilots.com - published on 10 February 2020
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Found on YouTube. Created by KGW News. (08/02/2019)
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