March 2021 has been full of reminders of the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. “The Last Cruise” trailer invokes one of the earliest indicators that something was about the change — the Diamond Princess Curse ship.
The HBO documentary follows one of the earliest COVID outbreaks outside of China. Using footage shot by passengers and the crew, “The Last Cruise” chronicles the moment in time where a cruise ship when from a simple vacation to a fully-fledged nightmare.
Take a look at the official summary for “The Last Cruise” below:
The quarantined Diamond Princess floating in a Japanese harbor became a global spectacle – a faraway symbol of the new virus and its potential to upend any sense of normalcy. Otherworldly scenes – scientists in hazmat suits, passengers in face masks and cleaning teams spraying disinfectant on empty shipboard buffets — packed the nightly news. Passengers were quarantined in their staterooms for weeks while the number of cases on board skyrocketed. The ship would ultimately account for the first citizens of Argentina, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, and New Zealand to test positive for COVID-19.
While the Diamond Princess was in quarantine, U.S. government scientists studied what was transpiring on board. Despite their findings that the virus was likely airborne and that asymptomatic people contributed to the spread, it would be more than one month before the CDC advised the use of masks and more than two months — and one million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States — before the CDC advised testing asymptomatic people who had been exposed to the virus.
The documentary directed and produced by Hannah Olson (“Baby God“); produced by Shane Boris (“The Edge of Democracy“), and Joe Beshenkovsky (“Belushi“). “The Last Cruise” premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Tuesday, March 30. Take a look at the trailer below.
