Five weeks since the Ruby Princess sailed into Sydney harbour and sparked Australia's largest outbreak of COVID-19, the troubled ship has left Australian waters.
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It sailed out of Port Kembla heads at sunset on Thursday under a water cannon salute, after three days of a major police operation to repatriate hundreds of crew.
A sign of the solidarity and goodwill that has built up between the Illawarra and the ship's crew in recent weeks, the cannons are a known maritime symbol of respect and honour.
Many residents turned up at Port Kembla and on Flagstaff Hill in Wollongong to farewell the vessel, waving as it sounded its horn for departure.
The Illawarra more broadly has shown great compassion and that has ensured that what will be remember will be the people on the ship, not the virus.
- Arthur Rorris
And on the back of the ship as it sailed out between Port Kembla heads, a sign read "thank you Illawarra".
But while love and thanks prevailed between the crew and residents of the city that hosted it for 19 days, the controversy surrounding the Ruby Princess is not going anywhere.
The ship is now responsible for more than one in 10 of Australia's cases of coronavirus, and 21 patients linked to the ship have died. In Canberra, it has been linked to a fifth of all cases.
And in Tasmania, Australia's chief medical officer Brendan Murphy has indicated more than half of the state's 205 cases could be linked to the ship.
With the government under fire for allowing 2700 passengers to disembark in Sydney Harbour while some were showing symptoms and awaiting tests for COVID-19, the ship was sent to Port Kembla in the early morning of April 5.
It took at least a week of lobbying from the union movement and local MPs before all crew were tested, with around 300 crew members testing positive in total over the month.
On Thursday, during the final hours of repatriation operations led by NSW Police, 11 more crew members who had tested positive to COVID-19 were taken off the ship for more testing and time in quarantine.
The day before, 21 people still sick with the virus were transported in ambulances to medical facilities in Sydney.
Police said a total of 542 crew members had been escorted from the ship to be repatriated to countries including Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Ireland, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States of America.
With about 500 crew on board - all who are well, according to Carnival Australia - the ship will now head to Manila, in the Philippines. A NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into the debacle is continuing.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
