Hundreds leave virus-hit cruise liner amid criticism of Japan
At least 621 passengers have been infected, the biggest cluster outside China, writes Jack Mcgregor
HUNDREDS of passengers who tested negative for the new coronavirus have begun leaving a quarantined cruise ship in Japan amid heavy criticism over the country’s handling of the outbreak.
About 500 passengers have left the Diamond Princess cruise ship at the end of a two-week quarantine that failed to stop the spread of coronavirus among passengers and crew.
Authorities announced 79 more cases on the ship, docked in Japan, bringing the total to 621, the largest cluster of cases outside China.
Results were still pending for some other passengers and crew among the original 3,711 people on board.
Hundreds of American passengers were removed and placed in quarantine on Sunday. The UK said it hopes to fly 74 British nationals on the Diamond Princess back “later this week”.
A British couple on the ship, who had been giving updates to journalists via social media, were among those who tested positive for the virus.
Japan’s government has been questioned over its decision to keep people on the ship.
One Japanese health expert who visited the Diamond Princess at the port in Yokohama said the situation on board was “completely chaotic”, while US officials said moves to contain the virus “may not have been sufficient”.
The Diamond Princess is the site of the most infections outside of China, where the illness named Covid-19 emerged late last year.
Many foreign governments say they will not let passengers from the ship return unless they go through another quarantine period, so it was striking to see passengers disembark, get into taxis and disappear into Yokohama, where the ship is docked.
Japanese soldiers helped escort some passengers, including an elderly man in a wheelchair who wore a mask and held a cane. Some passengers got on buses to be transported to train stations.
Some people still in their cabins waved farewell from their balconies to those who had already been processed.
“I’m a bit concerned if I’m OK to get off the ship, but it was getting very difficult physically,” a 77-year-old man from Saitama, near Tokyo, who got off with his wife, told Kyodo News.
“For now, we just want to celebrate.” Those disembarking with negative virus tests have fulfilled the Japanese quarantine requirement and are free to walk out and go home on public transportation, health minister Katsunobu Kato said.
He said the plan was approved by experts at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
Passengers are only asked to watch their health carefully for a few days and notify local health authorities if they have any symptoms or worries, he said.
About 500 passengers who planned to leave yesterday had all left the ship by evening, and officials are to spend the next three days conducting the disembarkation of about 2,000 others.
The Diamond Princess was quarantined in Yokohama near Tokyo after one passenger who left the ship earlier in Hong Kong was found to have the virus. Even though Japanese officials insist the number of infected patients is levelling off, cases on the ship continue to mount daily. On Tuesday, 88 people tested positive, a day after 99 others were found to be infected.
Crew members, who could not be confined to their rooms because they were working, are to stay on the ship.
Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide
Authorities announced 79 more cases on the ship, docked in Japan, bringing the total to 621
Suga said a more controlled health watch for the crew members is starting now because they can be spread out and kept in isolation by using vacated passenger rooms.
He acknowledged that crew members were not in adequate quarantine until now, but said they took as many preventive measures as they could.
The ship’s operator, Princess Cruises, said in a statement that people who tested positive recently were still on the ship as they waited for transportation to hospitals.
The safety and transport logistics for moving hundreds of people will test Japanese officials. The United States evacuated more than 300 people at the weekend who are now in quarantine in the US for another 14 days.
South Korea earlier on Wednesday returned seven people from the cruise ship, placing the six South Koreans and one Japanese family member into quarantine. Other foreign passengers were to be picked up by chartered flights sent from Canada, Australia, Italy and Hong Kong.
Health officials say the 14-day quarantine on the ship was adequate, noting that all but one of more than 500 Japanese who earlier were flown back from the centre of the virus in China and initially tested negative were virusfree at the end of their quarantines.