Hundreds of Americans flown home from virus-infected cruise liner
Health Ministry rep in Japan plans for 15 Israeli passengers to come home this week
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, California/GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 300 American passengers on a cruise ship, including 14 who tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, were flown home to military bases in the United States after two weeks under quarantine off Japan.
The cruise liner Diamond Princess, which with more than 400 cases has by far the largest cluster outside China, has become the biggest test so far of other countries’ ability to contain an outbreak that has killed 1,770 people in China and five elsewhere.
A ground crew in anti-contamination suits met the chartered jet that touched down at Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, and passengers could be seen climbing down the stairs wearing face masks in the predawn mist. Another flight landed at Travis Air Force Base in California hours earlier.
All the passengers were taken into a two-week quarantine.
Although US officials had said passengers with coronavirus symptoms would not be repatriated, 14 passengers found at the last minute to have tested positive were permitted to board the planes. The US State Department said the infected passengers were kept in isolation on the flights.
The three Israelis from the cruise diagnosed with coronavirus remain hospitalized in good condition in an American hospital outside of Tokyo. The other 15 Israelis on the cruise ship are preparing to return home this week, according to the Health Ministry.
Health Ministry director-general Prof. Itamar Grotto and Israeli Ambassador to Japan Yaffa Ben-Ari met with Japanese health officials in Tokyo on Monday to discuss the evacuation of the Israelis from the ship.
Grotto told KAN he has not been able to meet with the Israelis or the medical teams supervising the quarantine due to exposure threats and language barriers with his Japanese counterparts.
The Japanese medical staff will not be releasing any contagious passengers into the custody of their home countries under any circumstances, he said.
“The moment that they are no longer contagious, then they will be able to be released,” Grotto said. “It’s possible that it could take a long time; it’s possible that it could take less. I don’t know all the details.
“They’ll start all of those checks tomorrow,” he said. “Anyone who tests negative [for the virus] can leave the ship, and then it will be my job to make sure they arrive safely [back home in Israel].”
Grotto said the Israelis quarantined aboard the cruise ship are due to leave for home on Wednesday.
According to a statement
from the Health Ministry, a plane has already been chartered by several private insurance companies to bring the Israelis back.
The passengers do not pose a threat to other passengers onboard the flight home or to the public once they arrive in Israel, Grotto said, adding that a quarantine will not be necessary for anyone returning from Japan, including himself.
Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, is currently preparing an isolation compound for the returning Israelis. Medical officials have claimed moving these passengers into a facility where there are patients with weakened immune systems could end up being a risky move. They said Israeli emergency rooms were not equipped to handle these cases effectively if an emergency situation should arise, such as an outbreak.
Across mainland China, officials said the total number of coronavirus cases rose by 2,048 to 70,548. That was slightly more new cases than were reported on Sunday but hundreds fewer than reported on Saturday.
Chinese authorities say the stabilization in the numbers is a sign that measures taken to halt the spread of the disease are having an effect.
However, epidemiologists say it is probably still too early to say how well the outbreak is being contained within China and its central Hubei province, where the virus first appeared. Official figures of new cases have leveled off in the past only to jump suddenly after changes in methodology.
“The real issue is whether we are seeing efficient community transmission outside of China, and at the present time we are not observing that,” Mike Ryan, head of World Health Organization’s emergencies program, said at a news conference in Geneva.
China has responded to the coronavirus by locking down Hubei’s provincial capital Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million people, and imposing restrictions in a number of other cities.
But the ruling Communist Party is also under pressure to prevent the economy from crashing and get people back to work.
China’s central bank cut the interest rate on its medium-term lending on Monday, which is expected to pave the way for a reduction in the benchmark loan prime rate on Thursday. Beijing has also announced plans for cuts in taxes and fees.
Even so, economists expect China’s economic growth to slow. On Monday, ratings agency Moody’s lowered its 2020 GDP growth forecast to 5.2%, making it likely China would miss a goal to double GDP over the decade to 2020.
Around half of all known cases of the virus outside China have been found aboard the Diamond Princess, which was ordered to stay under quarantine at the Port of Yokohama on February 3.
Several other countries have announced plans to follow the United States in bringing passengers home. Around half of the 3,700 passengers and crew are Japanese.
Matthew Smith, an American passenger who remained on the ship after refusing to board the voluntary repatriation flights, tweeted that staying behind was the “best decision ever.”
“US Gov’t said they would not put anyone on the planes who was symptomatic, and they ended up knowingly and intentionally putting on 14 people who actually have the virus,” he wrote.
Authorities around the world were also trying to track down passengers from another cruise liner, the Westerdam, which was turned away from ports across Southeast Asia for two weeks before docking in Cambodia on Thursday.
One American passenger who disembarked in Cambodia tested positive for the virus in Malaysia on Saturday.
Carnival Corp., which operates both cruise liners, said it was cooperating with authorities in trying to trace other passengers from the Westerdam. None of the other 1,454 passengers and 802 crew had reported any symptoms, it said.
Hundreds of passengers are still in Cambodia, either on the ship or in hotels.
Holly Rauen, a passenger from Fort Myers, Florida, said she and others will be tested by Cambodian authorities. “We have no idea when we get to get home,” she said.
Those who have returned home will be contacted by local health authorities, the company’s Holland America Line unit said.
Zachary Keyser contributed to this report. •