Recently, the “Coronavirus Disease 2019” (hereinafter referred to as “COVID-19”) has been spreading worldwide, threatening people’s lives throughout the country and even the world. Epidemic is order； prevention and control is responsibility. The defensive battle of epidemic prevention and control, coming suddenly with no gunpowder-smoke, started abruptly in the land of China.
- Epidemic and Ships
The rapid spread of COVID-19 not only brought a great disaster to people on shore, but also had a great impact on ship operation and crews’ safety.
On January 27, 2020, three crewmembers of a ship from Hubei Province were confirmed to be infected with COVID-19.
On January 29, Singapore Ministry of Health confirmed that a crewmember from Wuhan, China had been infected with COVID-19.
On January 30, a large container ship from Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. was denied entry intor a port due to excessive concern over COVID-19. This ship was permitted to berth after drifting outside the port for 12 hours..
On the same day, Ministry of Transport of the P.R.C. issued the “Emergency Notice on Coordinating the Work Related to Epidemic Prevention and Control and Waterway Transport Security”. The notice required that crew were not allowed to go ashore without special reasons.
On January 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) held a press conference, defining COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
- Analysis of the Epidemic
The COVID-19 epidemic, just like the war, is still spreading. In this regard, my company has attached great importance to this situation and held several emergency meetings to deploy relevant epidemic prevention measures. Recently, another meeting on further epidemic prevention and control was held, which advocated responding to the requirement of “realizing, undertaking and fulfilling the responsibility for defending our country”.
As a captain, it is my responsibility to ensure ship’s safety in the epidemic. It is conceivable that once a crewmember is infected and quarantined, the ship will be delayed or denied entry into the port or even expelled, which will cause huge losses to the crew, ship, and shipping company.
Different from the epidemic prevention on shore, relevant work on ship has its own particularity and difficulty, which is mainly reflected in its closed, flowing and foreign-related environment. In view of this situation, ships should seriously implement relevant requirements, firmly adhere to the principle of “early preparation, early prevention and early deployment”, so as to start the defensive battle against COVID-19 on ship.
- Epidemic Control Measures on Ship
After the outbreak of COVID-19, every port of call showed great concern about the epidemic prevention of our ship. Each of them was satisfied with the relevant epidemic prevention measures and epidemic control evidence provided by the ship. Based on the experience of our ship in recent quarantines, I’d like to make the following summary from three aspects for reference: epidemic prevention awareness, epidemic prevention measures and emergency response to epidemic prevention.
- Epidemic Prevention Awareness
(1) Popularize relevant knowledge about COVID-19. In any battle, only by knowing yourself and your enemy can you be invincible. The information on COVID-19 on board ocean-going ships is relatively limited. In order to overcome the blind panic of the crew, ships should actively search for more scientific information on the Internet, such as “A Manual on Protection Against COVID-19”, “Questions and Answers on Legal Knowledge about Current Prevention and Control Work Against COVID-19”，on the basis of studying the documents issued by shipping companies. This information can be released by ship’s internal WeChat groups, or printed into books and put in a public place if there is no network for crew to study. Thus, they can comprehensively understand COVID-19 from four perspectives including common sense, symptoms, prevention, and misunderstandings, as well as legal knowledge..
(2) Correct thoughts and overcome neglect. First of all, we should have the awareness of unexpected development in mind, and only by thinking of danger in times of peace can we be prepared for it. At present, there exits a kind of careless thought among crew that there is no danger for ships since they are almost isolated from the outside world at sea, which is numb and irresponsible. Therefore, the senior officers on board should actively publicize and inform requirements of shipping company’s documents and national epidemic prevention actions in the plenary meeting and Security Commission meeting, and timely publish the official daily case statistics within ships, so as to make crew clear about the urgency and have a sense of crisis.
In addition, the defensive battle of epidemic prevention is cannot be a blitzkrieg, so the ships must be prepared for a protracted battle. The incubation period of the virus and the constant exposure of ships to the outside world as they docking and departing from the wharf require constant supervision by the senior officers on board so that crew can consistently implement and enforce epidemic prevention measures in their work.
- Stabilize the crew. As for crew shifts, the following “three suspension” provisions of the shipping company must be obeyed: suspension of crew shifts, suspension of crew’ disembarkation, suspension of applications of crew’ family members to visit on board, and special cases for shift should be reported to the shipping company’s leadership for approval. In this regard, the senior officers on board should cooperate with the shipping company to stabilize the crew.
In addition, the senior officers on board should also stabilize crew’ thoughts. Attention should be paid to the - emotional fluctuations of each crewmember during the epidemic period, including the epidemic in his family and hometown, the shifts on public holidays, shore recreation and entertainment and other situations that may trigger emotional fluctuations of crew. Convenient means of communication should be provided on board for crew, especially those whose families are in affected areas, to remove their psychological burdens and enable them to work patiently and steadily on board. Stable thoughts among crew are the foundation and prerequisite for the safety of the ship.
3.2 Epidemic Prevention Measures
(1) Clean the interior of ship according to “Maritime Labor Convention, 2006”. The galley, vegetable store, meat store and other cleaning dead corners should be cleaned thoroughly. The inspection interval of drinking water and food should be shortened, and the expired, rotten and moldy food should be treated in time. After each berthing, the tally room, office and stairway are the key disinfection places. Disinfection can be carried out with 250-500mg/L chlorine containing disinfectant. During this process, the worker should wear protective equipment, and record the disinfection time and method for future reference. During the epidemic period, encourage crew to wash hands, bathe and change clothes more often, and provide special disinfectant and hand sanitizer in dining room, laundry room and toilet to avoid colds. Centralized sanitary inspections of cabins should be conducted on board, and the rooms with dirty, disordered and poor condition should be rectified in time.
- Monitor crew health to ensure their physical and mental health. The temperature measurement should be carried out twice a day, mainly by individuals, and the head of department should take random measurements to monitor the health of the crew, and give the final summary to the ship’s captain. Each crewmember should fill his body temperature in form and sign it after each measurement, and keep the measurement record for future reference. Temperature measuring tools should be disinfected after use to avoid cross infection. Pay attention to the crew for other signs of illness, such as cough, chest pain, weakness of limbs, etc. Suspected cases should be isolated and reported decisively.
During the epidemic period, crew should be encouraged to take part in more physical exercises and cultural activities. Various sports and activities, such as table tennis competitions and singing competitions can be set up on board to enrich crew’s leisure-time activities and enhance their physical and mental health.
Food and fresh water supplies are directly related to the health of crew. So it is important to ensure the safety of food supply and prevent crew from buying food by themselves. It is necessary to prepare sufficient food and fresh water to reduce the frequency of supply and ship-shore contact. Food supply should be mainly fresh vegetables with balanced portion of vegetables and meat. The kitchen should also pay attention to the epidemic prevention in food, providing high-temperature cooked food with no raw one, to fully ensure the nutrition and health of food.
- Strengthen the health and epidemic prevention work during the berthing period. The berthing period may be the most dangerous period for ships to be infected, so doors and windows should be closed during berthing, and opened for ventilation after leaving the port. During this process, the external personnel that may be contacted by the ship include: pilots, stevedores, agents, loading personnel, port joint inspection personnel, shipping company personnel, materials and spare parts delivering personnel, refueling and refilling personnel, food supply personnel, etc. In addition to wearing proper protective clothing for normal work, the crew who may be in contact with the outside world, such as the watchman at the ladder entrance and the deck officer on duty, should also wear N95 masks, goggles and gloves correctly. Those who must enter the accommodation area of the ship should be asked to wear masks. In addition, if the ship is equipped with an infrared thermometer, it can ask external boarding personnel to take temperature measurement and make records. Those who are found to have fever or cough should be refused to board. If the boarding personnel do not cooperate, the ship workers should actively communicate with the agent for assistance.
- Combine epidemic prevention and control with ship security. Ship passages should be strictly controlled, so that security measures can serve as a safeguard for epidemic prevention and control, and no irrelevant personnel can be allowed to board the ship. Control of accommodation area should be strengthened to ensure that only one passage is left, and that no outsiders are allowed to enter the living area without permission. For ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore activities, the chief officer should strictly follow the security measures to control them. In times of serious epidemic, it is suggested to improve the security level inside the ship and strengthen the security measures for epidemic prevention.
3.3 Emergency Response to Epidemic Prevention
(1) Set sick rooms as the emergency quarantine areas. The crew with fever, cough and other abnormal symptoms should be resolutely isolated. Once the suspected cases are accepted, all doors and windows of the quarantine area should be closed, and epidemic prevention and quarantine warning signs should be set outside the quarantine area, and irrelevant personnel should not be allowed to enter. The internal circulation in air conditioning and public air conditioning ventilation system should be prohibited. The mechanical ventilation system in the sick room should be used less or even stopped using. If it is used, it is necessary to equip germicidal netting outside the external ventilator’s filter, and spray disinfectant regularly. High concentration (1000mg/L) chlorine containing disinfectant should always be prepared for emergency. Those who have to enter the quarantine area, such as medical workers, food delivering workers and transporting workers must wear medical protective clothing. Articles used by patients in the quarantine area should be disinfected or incinerated.
(2) Urgently respond to and report the epidemic. Any infected or suspected case found on board should be reported to shipping companies and the port authorities as soon as possible. The emergency procedures such as emergency report, emergency isolation, emergency disinfection and emergency treatment should be exercised in advance.
4. Actively Respond to and Coordinate with the Port in Quarantine Work.
The spread of the epidemic has caused great panic in many foreign countries, and even some of them have taken the epidemic as an excuse for “anti-China” and “Chinese exclusion”. Radio quarantine, anchorage quarantine, on-site quarantine and other quarantine measures have become extremely difficult to implement. But in any case, the ship should coordinate with the port in quarantine work, rather than neglect, evade or conceal.
Before arriving at the port, the captain should inquire agent about the quarantine requirements of the port in advance so as to make preparations for quarantine. Firstly, it must be ensured that the Ship Sanitary Control Exemption Certificate (SSCEC) is valid. The entry-exit sanitary and quarantine certificates issued by other countries should also be kept on board and be valid.
According to “International Health Regulations (2005)”, unless the contracting government does not require, the captain generally needs to fill in “Maritime Declaration of Health” before entering the port, which is not only a declaration, but also a promise, a responsibility. The captain must be cautious and fill in the form carefully and faithfully.
Before entering the port for quarantine, the signal Q flag and other specified signals of each port should also be displayed correctly. For example, Malaysia requires to display the upper “2” and lower “5” flags in addition to the Q flag during the daytime, and the upper red and lower white lights at night. The display should not be removed until the quarantine is over. The requirements vary from port to port, so the captain should consult relevant information in advance to to be sure.
The epidemic prevention and sanitary work on board must be sufficiently trusted by the port. On-site temperature measurement, filing records, quarantine inquiry and other aspects should be done as seriously as possible. It should be noted that the first contact person of quarantine personnel on ship is the watchman on duty at the ladder entrance. If they see that the watchman on duty wears masks correctly and the epidemic prevention measures are in place, they will be given a sense of security and trust to some extent. When accompanying the quarantine personnel, the senior officers on board should always wear masks and take epidemic prevention measures.
It is worth noting that during this period, if a crewmember is detected to have physical abnormalities or other obvious quarantine problems (such as pestilence) by the port health and quarantine agency, it will be directly used as evidence of quarantine problems. In the current situation of rampant epidemic, full attention must be paid to quarantine with no carelessness. Health quarantine and safety inspection must be placed on the same important position to avoid any delay in the normal operation of the ship due to quarantine problems.
5. Reflection on Epidemic and Suggestions
In fact, COVID-19 is very close to crew. In the history of public health in the world, 10 provinces in China were listed as epidemic areas during the outbreak of SARS in 2003. Since 2009, in addition to COVID-19, five other epidemics have been classified as PHEIC: H1N1 Flu in 2009; Wild-type poliovirus in 2014; Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014; Zika virus in Brazil in 2016; Ebola virus in Congo in 2018. In addition, yellow fever, cholera, avian influenza and even Asian Gypsy Moth (AGM) are also the epidemics that crew often face.
COVID-19, which is still spreading, has revealed obvious deficiencies in ship management, the extreme shortage of epidemic prevention materials for ships, and nonstandard and unprofessional epidemic prevention measures. Ship managers must seriously summarize and ponder over the following questions: How to respond to the quarantine of ports in other countries? What epidemic prevention measures should crew take when calling on ports that are classified as PHEIC or infected areas? What should be done on board in case of infected and suspected cases?
In view of this, I suggest that all shipping companies should include the epidemic prevention materials as standard equipment in the ship’s medical equipment, including N95 masks, protective glasses, protective clothing, disinfectant, etc. These supplies can also be used for basic medical care on board, but they are of higher level and are applicable to epidemic prevention standards. In addition, all shipping companies should incorporate the standard procedures for handling epidemic emergencies encountered by ships into their system documents, so as to provide reference for future epidemic emergencies. All ships should also incorporate the handling of epidemic emergencies into their training plans of daily emergency exercises, so as to ensure epidemic alertness, reasonable prevention and preparedness.
6. Conclusion
As long as we have an objective understanding of the epidemic, respond to the epidemic calmly, prevent the epidemic scientifically, and unite as one, we will be able to win the battle of epidemic prevention and control. (Source: WeChat official account of China Marine Technology)