Passengers on edge aboard quarantined cruise ship
Infections increasing in highest concentration outside China at 70
TOKYO— As the Diamond Princess cruise ship steamed back into port in Yokohama, Japan, Sunday morning after a night of quarantine at sea, passengers lucky enough to have windows and balconies could see fire trucks and 15 ambulances waiting for the ship.
It was an unnerving sign for the nearly 3,700 people who had been confined for six days on the ship, which has become host to the highest concentration of coronavirus cases outside China.
That afternoon, the captain announced over the intercom that six more people — five of them crew members — had tested positive for the virus. Eight others would be taken off the ship to be treated for unrelated medical conditions, the captain said.
“Now we will start counting ambulances and know that’s the number being removed,” said Sarah Arana, 52, a medical social worker from Paso Robles, Calif.
The six new coronavirus cases on the Diamond Princess brought the total to 70 since Japanese health authorities began testing people on the ship last week. New cases have been announced almost daily, and passengers have grown increasingly fearful that the quarantine — meant to protect people in Japan and contain the virus’s spread — could be putting them in jeopardy.
“I know that stress and anxiety compromise my immune system,” said Arana, who is on her first cruise. “My whole thing is just to stay calm because no matter what, I’m here. But every day it’s anxiety-provoking when we see the ambulances line up on the side of the ship.”
More than 2,600 passengers have been isolated in their cabins since the Japanese Health Ministry imposed the quarantine Monday, after discovering that a man who disembarked in Hong Kong on Jan. 25 had tested positive for the virus.More than 1,000 crew members are also quarantined on board, though they continue to provide services like meal deliveries.
“It’s sad to hear that there were another six cases,” said Tsutsui Masato, 70, a Japanese passenger who was on board with his wife. “I still don’t know how I should feel until we learn how the coronavirus is being transmitted.”
There were seven Canadians with confirmed cases of the coronavirus contracted aboard the cruise ship as of Saturday. In all, 285 Canadians were quarantined on two cruise ships off the coast of Japan and Hong Kong.
Some passengers said they could not understand why only a few hundred people on the 17-deck luxury ship had been tested for the virus — people who had had contact with the initial infected man or who have developed fevers.
“I do not now believe they are containing this epidemic by keeping us quarantined,” said Gay Courter, 75, an American novelist and avid cruisegoer who was isolated in a cabin with her husband, Philip Courter. “Something is wrong with the plan.” With much still unknown about the new virus and how it is transmitted, Gay Courter, who once set a murder mystery on a cruise ship, said that even though the crew was working hard to protect passengers, there was no way of knowing if they were safe.
“Nobody can tell us for certain,” she said. “There’s no scientific evidence this is not being spread through food handlers or the people delivering the food, even in rubber gloves.”
Passengers have been speculating that the virus could be transmitted through the ship’s air ventilation system.
A spokesperson for Princess Cruises said the ship was equipped with a filtration system “that meets the standards and is comparable to those found in land-based hotels, resorts and casinos.”
Late Sunday night, Princess sent a letter to all passengers on board saying it would fully refund the costs of the cruise, including air travel and hotels, and that passengers would get a voucher for another cruise at a later date.
Given that passengers had expected to disembark last Tuesday, many with chronic health conditions like diabetes have been running low on medications. On Sunday, Health Minister Kato Katsunobu said in a television interview that medical supplies had been delivered to the ship for about 100 such people and that more would arrive later in the day for an additional 500.