Mariners Can Now Get Covid-19 Vaccines at Port After Months
Stranded at Sea
By Vipal Monga, 11/1/21, Wall St. Journal
Iluminado Jagonos Jr., the 51-year-old captain of the
JP Azure, a bulk carrier shipping coal from Vancouver to
Boryeong, South Korea, has been stuck on ship 3 months
longer than his 8-month contract, unable to return to his
family in the Philippines without a vaccine certificate.
Capt. Jagonos heard about Vancouver’s program, & in October
his ship pulled into port & healthcare workers from
Vancouver Coastal Health came aboard offering Pfizer shots
to the crew of 20. As the captain received his first dose,
he led his crew in a cheer to celebrate. “You feel
invincible when you have the vaccine,” said Capt. Jagonos.
According to the Int'l Chamber of Shipping, a trade group,
over half of the world’s 1.7 million seafarers come from
developing nations like the Philippines, Indonesia &
India, which have lagged behind in vaccinating citizens.
Once unvaccinated mariners board a ship, they find they
can’t take shore leave because of local rules that keep
unvaccinated people out, or because their captain & shipowner
doesn’t want to risk them contracting Covid-19 & bringing
it back with them. That leaves the workers stranded aboard
floating steel islands with no reprieve.
“People are sad. We lost the enjoyment of the seaman’s
life,” said Daresh Villarayan, 49, a motorman on the
chemical tanker, MT Peterpaul. He hasn’t left the boat
once since he stepped aboard over 7 months ago.
“We don’t have freedom. It is the same as jail,” he said.
The ship is en route from Changzhou, China, to the
United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah.
“It places an enormous strain on the crew,” said Peter
Lahay, a coordinator for the International Transport
Workers Federation, a global trade union.
The industry is also advocating for vaccines, since the
economic impact of an outbreak can be severe. A Covid-19
infection aboard a ship or at a port can quickly ripple
across the global supply chain.
In August, a Covid infection caused the shutdown of a
key terminal for shipments to Europe and North America at
the Ningbo-Zhousan port in China. The congestion it
created spread to Shanghai and Hong Kong as other ports
struggled to ease the backlog.
In July, a suspected Covid infection aboard the MSC Ines
container ship forced the closure of one of three docking
berths at the Port of Vancouver, said Bonnie Gee, VP of
the Chamber of Shipping, a Canadian shipping industry
group. The quarantined ship remained at the berth for
roughly two weeks, reducing traffic by 1/3 at the biggest
container terminal in Canada’s busiest port.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mariners-can-now-get-covid-19-vaccines-at-port-after-months-stranded-at-sea-11635759001
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)