• After 10 positive cases, the Hespérides ship's trip to Antarctica is aborted due to the coronavirus: there are already 10 positives among the crew

  • Pandemic: A Chilean base registers the first outbreak of coronavirus

The coronavirus has forced the definitive suspension of the voyage of the oceanographic vessel Hespérides to Antarctica.

There are already 35 of the 57 crew members who have contracted the infection, which has led the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Defense to cancel the voyage of the ship that was supposed to support the two Spanish Antarctic bases during this campaign. .

Despite the previous quarantines and the PCR tests that were performed on the crew before leaving Cartagena on December 30 to anticipate a situation like this, within a few hours of navigation two people showed symptoms of Covid, whose diagnosis was confirmed with a test.

The tests were extended with rapid tests and they found two other cases, so the ship, which should have arrived in Antarctica on January 30, turned around and headed for the Canary Islands.

Since January 4, the Hespérides has been docked in the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, waiting to try to resolve the situation and for the Navy to decide what to finally do with the expedition.

There were hopes that after a new quarantine of the crew, the ship would be able to sail again.

But of the 10 cases that were last week it has risen to 35.

Members of the expedition who have tested positive but have no symptoms are isolated from their cabins on the ship, while those with symptoms are in an enclosure, outside the ship.

Despite this serious setback, for the time being,

plans continue to open the two Spanish bases,

the Juan Carlos I and the Gabriel de Castilla,

on January 21

, since the personnel who will be in charge of starting them will arrive on the frozen continent at aboard another ship, the Sarmiento de Gamboa, which left Vigo on December 16.

As Antonio Quesada, technical secretary of the Spanish Polar Committee explains in a telephone conversation, the Spanish ship will arrive in Punta Arenas (Chile) the day after tomorrow to pick up the Spaniards who have traveled to this South American town by plane and who for two weeks they keep quarantine in their hotels to avoid contracting the coronavirus.

A shorter campaign with less science

"Without Hespérides, the campaign will have to be much shorter and with fewer personnel. It will last thirty-odd days instead of the 80 or 90 days that we had planned," says Quesada.

Instead of the 150 people who were going to be in the two Antarctic stations, some 40 will finally travel: "We have greatly reduced the science that we are going to be able to do although we will take advantage of it to do the maximum we can, and above all to be able to maintain the historical series of data and carry out the maintenance of the two stations ", details Quesada.

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  • Science and Health

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