Current Events > 57 Argentine fishermen test positive for COVID despite spending 35 days at sea

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8520485/Mystery-57-Argentine-fishermen-test-positive-coronavirus-35-days-sea.html

Argentina is trying to solve a medical mystery after 57 sailors were infected with the coronavirus after 35 days at sea, despite the entire crew testing negative before leaving port.

The Echizen Maru fishing trawler returned to port after some of its crew began exhibiting symptoms typical of COVID-19, the health ministry for the southern Tierra del Fuego province said Monday.

According to the ministry, 57 sailors, out of 61 crew members, were diagnosed with the virus after undergoing a new test.

However, all of the crew members had undergone 14 days of mandatory quarantine at a hotel in the city of Ushuaia.

Prior to that, they had negative results, the ministry said in a statement.

Two of the other sailors have tested negative, and two others are awaiting test results, the province's emergency operations committee said.

Two sailors were hospitalized.

'It's hard to establish how this crew was infected, considering that for 35 days, they had no contact with dry land,' said Alejandra Alfaro, the director of primary health care in Tierra del Fuego.

'Supplies were only brought in from the port of Ushuaia.'

A team was examining 'the chronology of symptoms in the crew to establish the chronology of contagion,' she said.

The head of the infectious diseases department at Ushuaia Regional Hospital, Leandro Ballatore, said he believed this is a 'case that escapes all description in publications, because an incubation period this long has not been described anywhere.'

'We cannot yet explain how the symptoms appeared,' said Ballatore.

The crew was placed in isolation on board the ship and returned to the port of Ushuaia.

Argentina exceeded 100,000 total cases on Sunday, and the death toll rose to 1,859. The majority of infections are in the Buenos Aires area.

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I'm guessing the quarantine failed in some way.

oh no it's even spreading to the fish now

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More proof it's airborne.

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False negative?

HiddenRoar posted...

False negative?

for all 57?

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Likely a quarantine failure. Less likely but still possible the virus was dormant for 15 or more days

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Someone could have taken the test and then caught it before getting on the ship.

TreyFlowers posted...

for all 57?

Wouldn't need to be all 57. Just 1 would be enough. Then it spread to everyone else.

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Crazyman93 posted...

Wouldn't need to be all 57. Just 1 would be enough. Then it spread to everyone else.

Yeah I misunderstood your post.

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TreyFlowers posted...

for all 57?

Only need 1 to spread it.
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I'm not Hidden Roar, though before I saw his post I was going to say one of the tests didn't come back right.

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Its simple they tested negative but were tested before their exposure to corona would show. As test results take 7+ days in US. That gonna happen a whole lot. People thinking they negative when they relying on old test.

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I wonder if they contracted it multiple times from each other

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HiddenRoar posted...

False negative?

That's my guess. Apparently getting false results, both positive and negative, is insanely common. Unless they were tested multiple times and each time it was negative, odds are this is what happened.

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TreyFlowers posted...

'Supplies were only brought in from the port of Ushuaia.'

Time to go back to wiping down your groceries. The CDC was wrong again.

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BlueTigerLion posted...

Its simple they tested negative but were tested before their exposure to corona would show. As test results take 7+ days in US. That gonna happen a whole lot. People thinking they negative when they relying on old test.

But they were tested, spent two weeks quarantined in a hotel, and then spent 35 days at sea.

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Maybe 1 had a false negative or hugged his positive wife before leaving and gave it to everyone? idk

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My guess would be that they were all negative. The quarantine at the hotel failed for one or more people. A week later on the boat the infected started to get sick but had mild symptoms. That person(s) exposed a few more people. A week later those people got mild symptoms. A week after that it's a full on outbreak and people start thinking it's not just sea sickness.

It's either that or someone is lying. Like somehow, someone came aboard during those 35 days. Smugglers?

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This is a huge mystery that needs to be addressed and given proper consideration.

this could be a game changer.

The timeline on this isn't very clear. Did they do the 14-day quarantine before they left or after they came back?

Either way the obvious answer here is that at least one of them broke it and no one's confessed to it yet.
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I didn't read the article but it could have been possible they didn't disinfect the ship prior to leaving and the virus was on something like a doorknob that someone touched immediately upon boarding and departing as well. That could be a reason why it happened even with a quarantine. Test not being accurate for 1 person works as well.