Author: Prof. Brian Stoddart

For the past few weeks Fremantle, our “other home” and the port city for Perth in Western Australia, has been central to a global debate on the role played by cruise ships in the spread of COVID-19. Put simply, as Indian Ocean, Asian and other ports closed up, Fremantle became a natural destination. Within days of the pandemic being declared, ships from several lines turned up. https://fremantleshippingnews.com.au/shipping-news/

Now, during recent years Sandi and I have spent a fair time on such ships where I have been a fortunately invited lecturer, a wonderful experience. Just one of the benefits is a range of now firm friends met during the course of those lectures. Another is the vast range of fascinating people met including senior military and intelligence figures, judges on international tribunals, successful businesspeople and academics, philanthropists and all the rest. On our very first voyage, my final lectures into Capetown were cancelled to make way for… Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

That ship was commanded by Captain Jonathan Mercer. Ironically, it concluded its most recent journey at Fremantle, again commanded by Captain Mercer on his last hurrah. It began as a round-the-world voyage but is now heading towards South Africa en route home, almost all of its passengers having been flown out of Perth.

For a terrific sense of the cruising world and what has been happening, check Captain Mercer’s fascinating blog in which he particularly mentions that Fremantle stop. http://captainjonathan.com/fremantle-and-the-end-of-the-world/ He is too much the diplomat to mention all the wider drama, not so much with his ship as with those others that hove into Fremantle with confirmed cases of COVID-19 aboard.

Principal among those is the Artania, now central to a diplomatic and political as well as public health storm.

Briefly, WA Premier Mark McGowan had initiated tough anti-virus measures and was alarmed by the prospect of these ships disgorging passengers among the general populace.

That was understandable, given the developing fiasco around Sydney’s Ruby Princess story where local health officials allowed about 2,700 passengers out into the general populace even though COVID-19 had been identified aboard. That so far has led to 440 identified cases and five deaths across Australia. https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/coronavirus-ruby-princess-mistake-caused-infection-cases-to-explode/news-story/c79dcc2c83704d53b6ecd8e5b0ce7e59

[Note – some links may have paywalls]

So McGowan declared bluntly that Artania, in particular, would not be allowed to land, even though public knowledge had it that there were some very sick people aboard. https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-mv-artania-msc-magnifica-and-vasco-de-gama-everything-you-need-to-know-about-was-troubled-ships-ng-b881499462z

McGowan’s navy lawyer background before becoming a politician made this stand puzzling – maritime law and lore alike prizes life and safety at sea, as does common humanitarian principle. He seemed scarcely likely to win that one. Sure enough, the ship did dock, the sick went to hospital, as many others as possible were convoyed in exclusion to the airport and put on three planes back to Germany chartered by the cruise company.

But that was not the end of it. Some passengers remained and so did the crew, many of whom were now displaying signs of the illness. The nature of general and cabin crew staff on cruise lines is a major subject in itself, but suffice to say that for a very long time most have come from places like Indonesia and the Philippines, for a host of complex reasons. (this link is a little old but gives the background) – https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/revealing-the-secret-behind-the-crew-composition-on-holland-america-line/

As a sidebar, one major knock-on effect of what is happening now is the severe economic and financial jolt those countries will feel as a result of the disruption in cruise activity.

So, McGowan was again adamant the Artania must leave and there were wild reports about Border Force being ordered to get the ship out, that the navy would get involved and so on. https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-wa-premier-mark-mcgowan-wants-covid-19-hit-cruise-ship-artania-gone-ng-b881507578z

A vigorous behind the scenes negotiation was made all the more interesting by the presence of Captain Mercer’s Artania counterpart, Captain Morten Hansen. It turned out he has 30,000 Facebook followers, courtesy of his starring role in a European reality television show focused on the cruise industry. https://www.facebook.com/Kapitän-Morten-Hansen-Fanseite-178359965533287/

The West Australian, the state’s rag of no other choice, thought this “Bizarre”, to quote the header: https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-artania-cruise-ship-captain-morten-hansens-bizarre-background-revealed-ng-b881506884z

At the time of writing, the Artania is still at dock a few hundred metres away, according to my Marine Traffic app, and still carrying the signs of gratitude hoisted by passengers and crew, obviously not directed at the Premier.

We might note here that Australia has long had a problem with ships, especially those coming from Asia. Back in 1880, for example, as the first planks were laid in what at Federation became the White Australia policy, ships were restricted to bringing in one Chinese person per 500 tons of gross tonnage. And those ships were not of the 45,000 tonnes type that is the Artania.

At the same time, Australian authorities were incensed to discover that, apparently, the British in Hong Kong had been exporting criminals quietly by putting them on ships to Australia! That, of course, was how Australia was founded in the first place. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/900945?searchTerm=Chinese%20banned%20from%20landing%20in%20Australia&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc|||l-category=Article|||l-decade=188 A hundred or so years later, Australia began turning back the refugee boats and that remains the policy now on both major sides of politics in the country.

Across the world from the Artania, however, an even bigger standoff was developing.

A couple of days before the pandemic was declared, the Zaandam set off on a cruise from Buenos Aires that was to finish in Chile a couple of weeks later. But COVID-19 appeared on the ship. The pandemic now declared, several cities closed their ports and the ship had to head for home, Fort Lauderdale in Florida. News reports appeared of people onboard having died from the virus and with others sick.

The Zaandam was met off Panama by sister ship, the Rotterdam (on which Sandi and I have been) that had sailed from San Diego with extra medical staff and supplies and no passengers. Large number of passengers were then transferred to the Rotterdam by tender – that means the ships lifeboats being used to transport passengers, as often happens at ports where the ships are too big to dock. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/01/us/holland-america-zaandam-cruise-ship-florida/index.html

This is the point at which those who have experienced cruising will start to appreciate the tension on board. Several planned itinerary stops have been cancelled, news spreads that sickness has emerged and, importantly, it is unclear what might happen next. For several days, this had been and remained the state of play on board. Rumours spread. People are confined to cabins – and on these ships an “inside” cabin is cheaper, but it means no windows. So being confined takes on an extra dimension. Friends and family are calling in wherever possible, the internet conveys messages, more theories appear. Then a large transfer of passengers takes place. The mood on board can be imagined. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-holiday-of-a-lifetime-an-oral-history-of-the-infected-rejected-zaandam-cruise-ship/2020/04/02/958c2288-7491-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html

The view developed on board, it appears, that “sick” and “healthy” ships were being established and that, clearly, upset a lot of passengers. That was effectively the reason the President of the line made a videoed statement into both ships to explain exactly what was going on and why. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=586897791900229&external_log_id=863dd1ebb3ceabed6a4c11954ae727e3&q=holland%20america%20zaandam

Both ships were eventually cleared to transit the Panama Canal, at which time those in charge faced another emerging problem.

Like Premier Mark McGowan in Western Australia, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida had also been a navy lawyer officer, in the US Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, and had been deployed to Iraq. And like McGowan, he did not want these ships in Florida. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/holland-american-coronavirus-covid-19-zaandam-rotterdam-2020-3

But also like McGowan, DeSantis had to allow the ships to dock (on 2 April) and for the same humanitarian reasons as allowed for by his fellow Republican, President Donald Trump. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-zaandam-cuise-ship-20200401-3cmfs42c4zep7d6rkux4utfqbi-story.html?fbclid=IwAR23f2Qyp0-37IA90o9kSfcSDek5DlNJmeYjLH008ZcEAFAQEQw1sz6PWaI

Both episodes demonstrate the resurgent localism that has emerged in wake of COVID-19, what some see as a retreat from globalism.

As those ships reached Fort Lauderdale, for example, McGowan was turning Western Australia into an “island within an island”, as he terms it, with a “hard border” being declared against (and I use that word deliberately) the rest of Australia. https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-premier-mark-mcgowan-announces-hard-border-closure-for-wa-ng-b881508092z It is not that long ago that a “hard border” in Ireland was the pivotal matter in BREXIT.

By the time the two ships did dock in Florida despite DeSantis’s original view, their parent company was displaying the bigger consequences in all this, remembering that these were not the only ships facing trouble around the world. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/cruise-ships-still-sailing/index.html

Carnival Corporation controls at least half of the global cruise line business, operating under several flags. https://www.carnivalcorp.com/ Obviously, the need to stop cruising has enormous financial consequences, and that was signalled by the corporation’s need to raise $US6 billion in additional funding. At a rough operating cost of $1 billion per month, that allows six months for things to turn right under the current arrangements. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/carnival-corp-secures-rescue-financing-package-on-wednesday-to-help-the-embattled-cruise-ship-operator-navigate-choppy-waters-in-the-months-ahead-2020-04-01

At this point, though, “turning right” will almost certainly involve major change, and in that sense the cruise industry becomes something of a touchstone for the world as a whole when it comes to what happens next. Change is inevitable.

Traditional long distance cruising demographics, for example, coincide with the groups most vulnerable to COVID-19, the over-60s and especially the over-70s. After all this, that demographic might be a bit reluctant to sail as much if at all and, in all truth, most if not all cruise lines had been trying to diversify away from a reliance on that demographic anyway.

Then, how many ports and cities will reopen to this travel anyway? And that goes for the tourism industry as a whole. Before this, places like Venice and Amsterdam had already begun shutting out big cruise ships, and they are now likely to be joined by others. https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2019/08/02/venice-calls-european-port-cities-to-arms-over-cruise-ships/1776848

Another isolation effect is to turn us medieval. Back then, villagers scarcely ventured outside a ten to fifteen mile radius ever in their lifetime. It feels a lot like that now, and if the isolation against COVID-19 continues for several months, some of those effects will likely continue.

And if we do want to cruise, how do we get to ports of departure unless, like us, the terminal is just up the road? Who will fly us there? Virgin Australia needs a massive Government bailout to survive, and Air New Zealand has signalled it will be a domestic carrier only for some time to come. https://australianaviation.com.au/2020/03/breaking-air-new-zealand-reduces-long-haul-capacity-85/

Will the confidence to travel return? In some, like the young, of course, but while some tourism experts confidently expect a big bounce back, others reckon it will take the mass tourism of recent times a long time to return. https://www.eturbonews.com/542449/coronavirus-is-the-travel-tourism-industry-lost/

For Carnival, some of its flags might well disappear. Even if they do not, the business will change and, like everything else at present, it is not immediately clear what that change will look like.

But for the moment, the Artania still sits up the road here in Fremantle with more crew COVID-19 sufferers being taken off, a symbol of the havoc wrought upon us by this virus that will go down as one of those significant historical agents of change.

In a recent and wonderful Times Literary Supplement piece, the prolific English writer and long-time Italian resident, Tim Parks, added Boccaccio (of Decameron fame) and Giovanni Villani (the fourteenth century Florence banker and chronicler) as Black Death diarists whose notes bear current relevance. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/milan-coronavirus-italy-tim-parks-essay/

(If you love Italy you must read Tim Parks: Italian Neighbours; An Italian Education; Italian Ways; and my special favourite A Season With Verona).

Like many others, I had started with Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year that recorded the English effects, but as Tim Parks rightly reminds us, the Black Death changed lives throughout the-then known world, and the themes of that time resonate now.

It is widely accepted, for example, that the plague “arrived” in Europe at Messina, in Sicily, on twelve trading ships come from the Black Sea in October 1347. Many of the seaman were already dead, exhibiting all the terrible signs of what became known as the Black Death. From there the “pestilence” spread throughout Europe killing millions, decimating towns like Florence.

Sitting here now in Fremantle, Western Australia, nearly seven hundred years later, the helicopter noise I hear is sparked by the presence of some modern cruise ships that have become the successors of the dozen that reached Messina. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-28/cruise-ships-present-a-perfect-coronavirus-storm-of-problems/12093768

The culprit de jour is the Artania which, my MarineTraffic app tells me, is a 44,000 tonne ship built way back in 1984 (thank you, George Orwell), 230 metres long and registered in the Bahamas.

But the “Grand Lady” or the Queen of the Line in some descriptions, is even more interesting than that. She was launched in 1984 by Princess Diana and named, appropriately, Royal Princess as part of the Princess Line fleet in which she sailed until 2005 when transferred to P&O. In 2011 she was sold and then chartered by the Phoenix Reisen travel conglomerate and shipping line in Germany. Artania carries about 1200 passengers and almost 600 crew.

Back in December 2019 she left Hamburg on a 140 day round-the-world trip down the West African coast then out into the Indian Ocean, across to Southeast Asia, down the Australian East Coast, onto New Zealand then across to South America, up to the Caribbean, the USA and Canada before heading home to Germany. That cruise was due to end this May and for many aboard, would have been the trip of a lifetime.

But that timeline put it right across the trajectory of COVID-19.
Inevitably, its journey was altered. According to some passenger accounts, at least, that had started in Singapore and Indonesia by February 2020. https://www.translatetheweb.com/?from=de&to=en&ref=SERP&dl=en&rr=UC&a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.schiffe-und-kreuzfahrten.de%2fnews%2fcoronavirus-ms-artania-auf-abwegen-in-asien-waehrend-ihrer-weltreise%2f198473%2f  Ports were closing daily because of the virus threat, so the ship made for Australia, where things were also getting grim. On March 14 the company cancelled the cruise and Artania was set for a non-stop “crossing” to Bremerhaven, with any passengers not wanting to do that to be flown home to from Sydney.

Then came the Ruby Princess incident in Sydney where passengers who had returned positive COVID-19 tests were somehow allowed to wander off at large, setting off a major chain reaction.

The Princess line, of which Artania was once part, already had a troubled role in this global panic. During February, when Artania was around Singapore, the Diamond Princess was stuck in Japan with multiple COVID-19 cases and a major challenge on how to proceed. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/06/inside-the-cruise-ship-that-became-a-coronavirus-breeding-ground-diamond-princess

This resonated especially in Perth, Western Australia – James Kwan, the state’s and Australia’s first COVID-19 fatality, on 1 March 2020, was a well-known local tourism figure, and had been evacuated from the Diamond Princess. Since then, cruise ships had figured prominently in dispatches.

That demonisation was understandable, but not necessarily logical. The argument was that hundreds and thousands of people were cocooned on these ships that became, in popular parlance, “petri dishes” for the virus. That is true to an extent. But the New Zealand story here is interesting – health authorities there publish details of all positive cases, and a huge percentage are directly connected with air travel. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120577713/coronavirus-66-south-island-covid19-cases-confirmed

Ships are much easier to demonise than aeroplanes, it seems – although both now face troubled futures. https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/covid-19-puts-travel-industry-in-a-perfect-storm-of-chaos/

Like those Messina ships, Artania was a pariah by the time it arrived off Fremantle, rumoured to have up to seventy COVID-19 cases aboard. WA Premier Mark McGowan (a former navy lawyer) argued trenchantly that the ship was a Federal responsibility so the sick should be taken care of in defence facilities and the rest not allowed to land. https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-wa-premier-mark-mcgowans-solution-for-covid-19-cruise-passengers-off-fremantle-ng-b881500431z The local Australian Medical Association branch was already concerned at the state’s lack of pandemic preparedness and considered Artania’s arrival as a looming disaster.

That was reinforced by the arrival of the Magnifica with more COVID-19 cases, the imminent arrival of the Vasco de Gama (most of whose passengers will now quarantine for fourteen days on the local tourist island of Rottnest, named originally Rats Nest in 1696 by Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh who failed to identify the marsupial quokka) and recent visits from other diverted cruises.

While the Premier had eventually to compromise, Twitter and Facebook commentators went way further: “send them packing, back where they belong” and worse, far worse, characterised the public response. Just the odd humanitarian voice thought the sick needed care.

That was a direct offshoot of the now-well known pandemic panic that saw supermarket shelves stripped of toilet paper and hardware stores of generators and methylated spirits. https://thewest.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-panic-buying-chaos-as-wa-shoppers-turn-violent-ng-b881489862z

As with the Black Death, it was everyone for themselves.

And this was just three or four weeks after local opinion had been that more cruise ships operating out of Fremantle as a result of port disruptions like those suffered by Artania would be a great boost to a fragile state economy.

This was another demonstration of just how rapidly COVID-19 was reframing daily life and, as at Messina, what had seemed like a good thing was now decidedly something else.

The Fremantle story also saw the continuation of another theme present in Messina.
Many if not most Black Death accounts laid responsibility for the origins of the disease with “Asia”. More recent accounts place its rise around 1320 in the Kyrgystan/Mongolia region. The spread was then said to be through China and India and on into Europe.

It is readily apparent that the current slanging match led by President Trump blames China for the rise of COVID-19. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/trump-calling-coronavirus-chinese-virus.html That rhetoric further excoriates China for then having the temerity to offer assistance to subsequently afflicted countries.

Much conservative Australian commentary mimics this. Organisations like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute – that claims to be “independent and non-partisan” (but was set up by a John Howard conservative government and remains part-funded by the Department of Defence) – serves up a constant China-bashing line, as in this from its Director: http://www.aspi.org.au/opinion/letting-beijing-bully-know-our-neighbourhood ASPI staff figure prominently in the The Australian that has adopted an aggressively anti-Chinese stance on just about everything – an ex-Australian journalist produced this on the virus: https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/how-chinese-president-xi-jinping-failed-to-manage-the-coronavirus-outbreak/news-story/1a06e142ed15bf4124a95b1c3f4533e7

Now, this present viral strain did appear first in Wuhan, and China originally did struggle to deal with it and now seems to be in control – even if critics like Fernando argue that we cannot trust the data coming from China. That suggests we can trust the data coming from the United States or from Australia for that matter, and many of us would hesitate to go that far.

Right now, as with so many international matters, focus should be on cure rather than cause, and on the ways in which a global community can collaborate to combat this problem, not to mention the rapidly escalating financial and economic one which is following.

It is useful here to caution against immediate attribution of blame, as the Black Death case again indicates.

Almost every European account of that catastrophe suggests, as noted earlier, that China and India “were to blame”. Yet as Laksmikanthan Anandavalli pointed out a few years ago (in one lovely essay among several others on plague in Tangents), there is a problem here. No major account of India at that time (including the great work by that inveterate Arab traveller, Ibn Battutah) details anything like the Black Death. Yes, there were outbreaks of pestilence – but none exhibited the tell-tale symptoms of that scourge. https://mla.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj1421/f/tangents07.pdf

What this points to, of course, is the way in which assertions transform into accepted fact, and the need to revisit those assertions – and we are all guilty of the first at some point, and delinquent on the second too often! (Everyone who has got to this point will now go off factchecking, so apologies in advance for any discrepancies.)

The Black Death changed the-then known world for generations, and signs are this present “pestilence” will do the same. Cruise ships and airlines are under immense financial pressure, the tourism industry will likely change dramatically. It was already challenged, with cruise ships shut out of places like Amsterdam and Venice (which suffered so massively back in the fourteenth century).

Our borders will not be so open again for a very long time. We may see limits on essential services goods last longer than we think. Many banks are reluctant to accept actual cash, hastening electronic commerce that will lead to further social inequality. As universities and learning institutions go fully online, will we ever get students back into lecture halls and classrooms? Will we ever again work in large open-plan environments, or even in the same building? Perhaps we will be the twenty first century version of The Lonely Crowd? https://university-discoveries.com/“the-lonely-crowd”

But to return to Tim Parks – the other important question may well be who becomes the great chronicler of all this, someone from whom the future might learn as we learn from Boccaccio and Ibn Battutah, Defoe and Villani? Who will chronicle the modern plague ships? It is a fascinating story.

While historiographically speaking I sit more in the “longue durée” than the “defining moment” camp, right now it seems that 14 March 2020 might in future be regarded as the day the world changed.

And that, of course, was because of COVID-19 on which every Facebook, Insta, TikTok, Snapchat, WeChat, WhatsApp et.al. pundit has become expert.

What happened?
• Just about every sporting event in the world was suspended for the foreseeable future.
• New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern shut her country’s borders to help maintain its reputation as the last outpost of civilisation.
• Most cruise ships were heading for their nearest ports (if they could get in) and to go no further.
• Airlines slashed flights and prices and tried to make their destinations attractive.
• The tourism industry worldwide took a pounding.
• Australia cemented gold medal status as the globe’s greatest toilet paper hoarder.
• Italians sang from their balconies in a show of national unity rarely seen.
• China sent supplies to assist the overloaded Italian medical system.
• The United States added the United Kingdom to its list of banned source countries.
• “Social distancing” became a dinner party subject, where dinner parties were held.
• Already shaky economies, like Australia’s, began to wobble.
• National leaderships came under severe scrutiny.
• Citizens everywhere began re-examining their lives.

Places around the world began re-examining their futures:

https://odishatv.in/odisha/ab-tak-60-countries-will-covid-19-change-fate-of-the-world-437900

As 14 March began, for example, I faced a possible balancing act. With a Kiwi colleague, I was due to head to Noosa for a Wellness Summit in connection with a project on which I am assisting. The wisdom of that trip was already in doubt, then came Jacinda’s announcement. If my pal came to Australia, he would have to self-isolate for two weeks upon his return and that was not practical.

That was off, then, to create another possibility. On the following weekend Sandi and I were now scheduled to join a cruise ship in Fremantle, and I would lecture on board across to Tasmania. That ship had already been diverted away from its scheduled Asian ports towards Australia and…New Zealand.

I had been asked if I might join the ship in Broome up in the northwest. Originally, I couldn’t because of the Wellness Summit but that now cancelled… I could join the ship in Broome on Monday. So I sent that possibility off to the agent.

Then I went off to dinner with friends (Sandi was in Adelaide) where the virus was front and centre – including a Facetime chat with a friend resident in Italy who was walking around isolated city streets. On the way home, yet another Aussie resident in Italy was radio interviewed about how much her life had changed.

I got home to emails saying that going to Broome was not necessary. In fact, the ship would come into Fremantle and end its voyage there. My services would not be needed, and no new cruises would start for at least thirty days.

My diary was suddenly cleared and I was free, to do…what?

One of my screenplays has just been made “Official Selection” at a competition in Rome. Maybe I could go to a movie and watch how it is really done. But who else would be there, and could I “social distance”?

The same might be said of going out for breakfast, to a bookshop, an antique outlet, a gallery, live music, a play. There’s no sport to go to, or watch on TV, live at least.
On Monday, the college I work with in Sydney will start delivering all classes “remotely”, that is by way of video. The unions have fought this for years, but the virus has forced the issue and with that particular genie having now escaped the bottle, will we ever get it back inside and capped? Very likely not.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/online-learning-platforms-see-increased-demand-amidst-covid-19-12488726

Those at dinner focused on the idea of meetings. Most are now to be run remotely – our college ones will be from this week. There are ramifications here. Some cultures do not find that method acceptable, it has to be face-to-face. How will that be navigated? And will students now take the remote instruction as the norm? There have been question marks over lectures for years, this will likely be the tipping point.
https://www.thoughtco.com/lecture-pros-and-cons-8037

There is a potential way of life change here, or maybe a “Back to the Future” moment. We live in Fremantle where the lifestyle is mainly coffee shop, pub, restaurant. That is to say, it is the pretty typically urban public culture that has become almost global. Istanbul is like Fremantle and Sydney, London, New York and all that. The Saudis might be a bit different, say, but that “coffee house” culture has been with us for three hundred years and more.

Perhaps less so from now on. There is a lovely Facebook note reminding knitters, sewers and quilters that “this” is what they have been training for! Activity in solitude. There suddenly seems to be more time for reading, too, if we can afford to buy books in whatever form because in many ways this is the capitalist world’s equivalent of colony collapse.

Jacinda Ardern’s message was reported in one outlet as “Jacinda Shuts Down Queenstown Tourism”. When I asked my New Zealand brother about some of the practicalities concerning the new measures, his reply was shrewd as always: the aim really was to stop people coming in, not to manage them through self-isolation.

That will hammer an already staggering economy. Year-on-year reports already had this summer tourist season as a poor if not dreadful one, and that was before the virus shut the doors completely. Businesses will fail, incomes will disappear, lives will change.
And the same is true in Australia. While the Government spruiks the idea that the virus has eroded the economy, people have for months been whispering the “recession” word, and that was underlined by the stock market route of the past week. There is another tipping point a la 2008.

The Australian economy rests on minerals, tourism and education: iron ore, coal, travel and students. The last two are being smashed by this meeting of economic slowdown and virus. My Perth brother tells me the first two are also slowing noticeably because the two week quarantine period plays havoc with cargo shipping logistics. That is then additionally aided and abetted by the belligerent approach to China adopted by the Government and propagated by a mendicant media. That all helped transform the virus campaign into a racist one focused on the “Chinese disease”.

As in America, the leadership approach to all this has been found wanting, really. In the education field, for example, some authorities have chosen to be more concerned about the immediate financial hit and implications than about the health and welfare of students, staff and the public. That is simply unsustainable and points to yet another change in public sentiment that will be required once the dust settles on this, if it does settle.
More disruption than settlement is likely in industries across the board. My inbox today carried an impassioned plea for support from the director of a small professional theatre in Sydney. It is threatened already, thanks partly to a mad situation in which not one Australian playwright is being funded by the Australian Arts Council through the next four years.
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/funding-catastrophe-hits-playwrights-20190819-p52imy.html

Then, Tom Hanks’ Gold Coast experience is not helpful. Cast and crew will not travel to Australia (or New Zealand) from anywhere else under the present circumstances. Joint productions across countries will be almost impossible to mobilise – my “Official Selection” screenplay needs such an Australia-France collaboration.

A friend has a feature film all set to drop, but no guarantee of a cinema in which to screen it. My film daughter in the UK (who with her partner is setting up a support service for the self-isolated elderly in their local community) reports that productions there have slowed to a trickle almost overnight – who will fund anything that might not ever see the inside of a theatre, or the faces of an audience for that matter?
https://www.screendaily.com/news/uk-film-sector-scrambles-to-respond-to-the-coronavirus-crisis/5148114.article

And in a totally different realm, how will the international aid and development industry navigate all this? It is the ultimate cross-border, cross cultural operation with funds provided largely by now-under pressure Western economies for work to be conducted in less successful states. As another colleague points out, Australia’s recent and much vaunted aid push into the Pacific (in large part to counterbalance the massive Chinese presence there) will struggle to survive aggressive budget raids to fund the anti-virus campaign.

And even if it does, then operatives on the ground will struggle to reach sites (he tells me that at present in Mongolia, where I worked on a project last year, there are no flights at all in or out of Ulaan Baatar, the capital). How will the work be done?
https://en.trend.az/business/transport/3205217.html

No wonder, then, that there has been a widespread rediscovery of Daniel Defoe’s almost four hundred years old A Journal of the Plague Year. We need all the lessons learned we can from that piece of history.

There is much more to come.