23 Apr 2020

Coronavirus: Kiwi doctor on events aboard Greg Mortimer cruise ship

From Morning Report, 7:22 am on 23 April 2020

It would be anyone's worst nightmare: being stuck on a cruise ship, confined to your cabin, because more than half of the people on board have Covid-19.

But a mere two weeks ago, that was the situation Hawke's Bay-based Jeffrey Green was facing on the Greg Mortimer, as the expedition doctor for the cruise around South Georgia and the Antarctic.

Everything seemed fine for the first week, but as he told RNZ reporter Sarah Robson, it all changed when one of the passengers developed a fever.

Three of the 13 New Zealanders who were evacuated from the ship were among the six new Covid-19 cases confirmed yesterday.