Some of the crew of the fishing boat "Etchizen Maru" who had to return to the port of Ushuaia because almost all of his crew had symptoms of coronavirus, traveled to the capital of Tierra del Fuego in a plane where an 80-year-old man was found to be infected. with the virus and that a few days later he died. It may be one of the reasons that reveals the mystery of why, after spending almost 30 days on the high seas, the crew was massively infected. The ship was due to return to the port on July 20, but the return took place on July 11 due to contagion.

 

For his part, Nelson Ledesma Chávez, one of the crew of the ship revealed that “I felt that I was dying, I assure you that the entire crew (57 crew) has coronavirus. Even the doctor on board was infected. ” The "Etchizen Maru" is a factory ship that is dedicated to fishing, especially hake. She usually spends more than a month on the high seas. "We got caught by a type of flu that was getting stronger," added Crónicas Fueguinas to the site.

 

 

"We are on the ship. We do the isolation in the ship, trying to cope with this. The situation is not the best, although we have the peace of mind of being ashore. At sea, things get complicated, ”said the sailor, who said that almost all the crew is from the province of Corrientes. At first, the contagion of the crew was a mystery. It is that before boarding the corresponding swabs had been made and all were negative. That is why it was strange that after a month on the high seas, they became infected.

 

The Echizen Maru, the b bow, the ship of mystery. All crew members with COVID 19 / AFP.

 

"He grabbed me on July 4. I was very bad. I felt that I was dying, everything was breaking inside me. The virus treats you very badly," said Chávez. The sailors are still isolated, some with very good recovery.

 

 

On the other hand, and so that there are more unknowns, the Prefecture of Ushuaia informed authorities of the Provincial Directorate of Ports that the fishing vessel did not have direct contact with other vessels during its 35-day journey through the area of ​​the Islas de los State. "The fishing vessel never approached or matched against a boat," they said from the federal force.

 

The minimum distance that came to be with three boats from the same company, also from Argentina, was four kilometers away. But also on Tuesday it was unofficially revealed that technical personnel from the Argentine Navy also reconstructed the trajectory of the "Echizen Maru" based on the geolocation information issued by the ship. With this, the speculations about an alleged contact with another vessel were completely ruled out.

 

Therefore, the strongest hypothesis that is handled so far and that may reveal the mystery is that some of the crew arrived in Ushuaia in the same plane as Máximo Ramón Cardozo, the 80-year-old man who a few days later died of covid- 19 at the regional hospital in the capital of Tierra del Fuego.

 

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