The Australian cruise liner Greg Mortimer , which has been anchored for two weeks off Uruguay with more than a hundred cases of Covid-19 on board, docked Friday in Montevideo to evacuate part of the passengers to Melbourne. Some 110 Australians and New Zealanders will then disembark three hours later to join the medical plane which must take off during the night.
"Strict sanitary measures" will be put in place to evacuate these passengers, announced Wednesday the head of Uruguayan diplomacy, Ernesto Talvi. The medicalized Airbus A340 chartered by cruise ship Aurora Expeditions for this operation landed in Uruguay at dawn on Friday. Passengers will then be escorted by coach to the Carrasco airport, more than 25 km from the port, under a safe escort. They will board the plane directly: there will be no on-site migration control or baggage handling. The flight must take off at 06:40 (French time) this Saturday. "Human contact will be almost zero," said the Uruguayan foreign minister on Wednesday.
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The Greg Mortimer , carrying some 217 passengers and crew, had been stranded off the Uruguayan capital since March 27. The Bahamas-flagged ship left Ushuaia in the far south of Argentina on March 15 for a cruise to Antarctica and the British island of South Georgia. However, the crossing was shortened due to the appearance of suspected coronavirus cases. After being driven back by the British Falkland Islands, the ship set sail for Montevideo, several thousand kilometers further north.
At least 128 cases of Covid-19 have been identified on board, according to Aurora Expeditions. Since the ship's arrival off the Uruguayan capital, eight people (five Australians, one Briton and two Filipinos) have been admitted to hospitals in the city due to their worsening health. Three of them, Australians, will be able to take the flight, Montevideo announced Friday. The other five are in "stable" condition , according to the Uruguayan foreign ministry. The twenty or so passengers remaining, Americans and Europeans, mostly British, and the 80 crew members will still have to wait. The cruise line said on Friday it was looking for charter flights so it could bring everyone home.