Who enforces quarantine rules on the dock?

purse-seiners-tie-up

Members of the fishing industry and people who work on the main dock have raised concern about what they perceive as lax enforcement of COVID-19 preventative measures for incoming vessels, particular purse seiners.

KHJ News received reports of the captain and crew of a purse seiner that had recently off loaded in Mexico, a country with a large number of confirmed coronavirus cases, walking around on the dock.

The Cape Ferret, owned by Tri Marine International, is reported to be under quarantine.

However, according to officials at Port Administration, while the quarantine rules have been set, there doesn’t appear to be a 24-hour monitoring and enforcement available on the dock as at the medical quarantine centers.

A local fishing boat owner who spoke with KHJ News said it’s a worry when crews of vessels which are supposed to be in quarantine are seen walking around.

It was mentioned at the Coronavirus Task Force meeting on Sunday that crews of  container ships and fishing vessels except boats registered and based here, are not allowed to get off their boats while in port.

Deputy Director of Health Papalii Marion Fitisemanu said at the meeting that locally based boats are not subject to this rule.

KHJ News has asked who is responsible for enforcement of quarantine rules on the dock. A senior Port Administration official said they do not enforce quarantine rules, that this is under Department of Health.

A DOH official said all they do is screen but they are not responsible for enforcement of quarantine rules. So who is responsible for enforcement of quarantine regulations on the main dock? That is the question!

UPDATE: Subsequent to airing this story a health official said while the purse seine mentioned did off load in Mexico, it has been at sea for more than 40 days before it entered port.  They view being out at sea as an effective quarantine method on the basis that there’s been no contact with any other humans.

But is there any proof that there was no contact whatsoever with other humans on the high seas?

The case of a fishing boat from Ecuador where 29 of the 30 crew members on board contracted COVID-19 without calling into any port gives pause for thought.

New Zealand journalist Michael Field reports:

According to the various ship tracking sites, this Ecuadorian purse seiner, Charo, will arrive off Papeete, French Polynesia on Sunday afternoon (Monday in the western Pacific).
Early last week Charo called at Nuku Hiva to drop off a crew member suffering serious effects from Covid19.
He was taken off and French Polynesian authorities then advised that 29 of the 30 people aboard the tuna boat had Covid19. The ship was not allowed to dock and was sent back to sea.
It will be allowed to fuel and replenish at Papeete, but no crew will be allowed ashore, and it will put back to sea once the operation is complete.
Apart from the complete horror this must represent for the crew, there are serious other questions that no one has asked – the major one being how many other fishing boats in the South Pacific have Covid19 affected crews. And how did it get there.
MarineTraffic says Charo left Manta, Ecuador’s main tuna port, on April 23. Charo is owned by Conservas Isabel Ecuatoriana Ltd, in Manta. Its registered master is a Spanish citizen, one “Angel” Badiola. The vessel was built in France in 1985.
Global Fishing Watch has tracked Charo for longer at sea than MarineTraffic has, suggesting it left Ecuador waters in February. It has been extensively fishing the high seas controlled by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.
This multi-national body has never shown much interest in crew welfare.
Charo has been fishing in crowded waters, near the exclusive economic zone borders of Kiribati and French Polynesia. Most of the fishing boats near Charo have been Chinese.
Contact between fishing boats at sea is limited. They try to stay apart, give real meaning to social distancing. But fishing boats do refuel at sea and some, legally, can tranship their catch. Whether this has allowed the virus aboard Charo is not known. Such boats will have gone to a number of other fishing vessels.
What is also important here is that while the French authorities have caught this case before the crew were allowed ashore, many of the boats in the area report to other harbors: Pago Pago, Majuro and Tarawa.
The history of South Pacific fatal impacts has always been that it comes by sea.