Our view: Evacuate Americans from the coronavirus cruise

Here’s a dark quiz of the day: Outside of China, where is the largest outbreak of the coronavirus that has infected more than 45,000 people and killed more than 1,100?

Hint: It’s not a country.

It’s the cruise ship Diamond Princess, quarantined in Yokohama, Japan, with more than 400 Americans aboard. The number of passengers infected with the virus has increased to 174, at least 20 of them U. S. citizens.

Ambulances keep pulling up to the dock to take victims away for hospitalization. And the Japanese government, with the blessing of the U. S. State Department, has elected to have the remaining passengers wait out an estimated incubation period of another week before they can disembark.

“We are in a desperate, desperate stage,” passenger Milena Basso pleaded to Fox News. “We’re American citizens; we just want to get home.”

Here’s an idea: How about the U. S. government make that happen?

We know it can. After all, the State Department chartered five aircraft to evacuate 800 U. S. citizens from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, charging each of them $ 1,000 for a seat. Those who elected to come home were confined and monitored at U. S. military installations. The first 195 who arrived were released Tuesday after a 14- day quarantine. None are showing symptoms.

Why not offer the Americans aboard the Diamond Princess the same deal?

A State Department spokesman told us Tuesday that, after consulting with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the department decided the safest plan was the Japanese government’s protocol for requiring passengers to “shelter in place.”

So they stay in their cabins, many in a state of high anxiety. Those without balconies are allowed 90 minutes a day on deck as long as they remain a meter away from each other. And, as we went to press on Wednesday, this was to continue until Feb. 19, the anticipated end of the quarantine.

Problem is, the new disease has been unpredictable. In the six weeks since it emerged, it has proved particularly dangerous for older victims. That’s precisely the demographic aboard the Diamond Princess, where 80% of the 2,666 passengers are 60 and older. The Japanese are considering evacuating some of the most elderly.

In the meantime, the Japanese and U. S. governments are effectively gambling with the health of all the passengers who haven’t fallen ill. It’s possible that the crew, which lives and works in close quarters, could be spreading the virus among themselves and to others.

“Passengers likely are at some risk of acquiring coronavirus infection while remaining on the cruise ship from the staff or from their fellow passengers,” says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Medical officials at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told The Washington Post that the quarantine is unethical. Senior scholar Amesh Adalja said passengers were being held in “a shooting gallery for the virus.”

There is a prudent step here for the State Department. Offer the Americans aboard a chance to come home. Now.

CARL COURT/ GETTY IMAGES Diamond Princess ship in Yokohama, Japan.