Illness kills sixth person from ‘Diamond Princess’

The coronavirus death toll aboard a quarantined cruise ship near Tokyo increased to six on Friday after a British man who had been on the vessel died from the illness, Japan’s health ministry said.

The man, whose age was not immediately disclosed, is the first British person to die from COVID-19, the pneumonia-like disease caused by the newly discovered virus.

The Diamond Princess cruise ship was under a twoweek quarantine this month at Yokohoma (inset) after an 80-year-old passenger tested positive for the illness.

But the decision to confine nearly 4,000 passengers and crew members inside the vessel proved disastrous, as hundreds of people became infected.

The ship, operated by California-based Princess Cruise Lines, quickly became the largest infection hub outside mainland China. Several countries, including the U.S., were forced to send charter planes to Japan to rescue their citizens and provide proper medical care.

Several Americans who were on the ship called the quarantine “a failed experiment” and compared the experience to “an episode of the ‘Twilight Zone.’ ”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday confirmed another coronavirus case among Americans evacuated from the Diamond Princess, bringing the number of infected evacuees in this country to 44. In addition, 15 other people have been diagnosed with the virus in the U.S., including a California woman who had not recently traveled to China and had no apparent contact with anyone who did.

The cruise line said that all passengers have already disembarked, but hundreds of crew members were still awaiting charter flights on Thursday.

Japan has confirmed nearly 1,000 coronavirus cases and about a dozen deaths, including the six Diamond Princess passengers. It’s the highest number of cases for any country besides China — where the latest figures were around 80,000 cases, with nearly 3,000 deaths.

Japanese authorities are struggling to contain the outbreak, while reassuring the public that the country is prepared to host the 2020 Summer Olympics in just five months.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week asked schools throughout the country to close until the end of March to contain the spread of the disease.