All passengers, crew members get off virus-struck cruise ship

March 2, 2020

Tokyo--All 3,711 passengers and crew members of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined for the new coronavirus at an eastern Japan port, have disembarked from the vessel, the Japanese health ministry said Sunday.

On the day, the last group of some 130 crew members got off the British-flagged ship after testing negative for the COVID-19 virus. The disembarkation of Diamond Princess crew members started on Thursday. Passengers have already left the ship.

Of the 130 crew members, some 70 Indonesians returned home aboard a chartered plane, while about 60 people were transported to National Tax College in the city of Wako, Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, and will stay there for 14 days for their health conditions to be monitored.

The 60 crew members will undergo tests for the virus after the end of the health-monitoring period. Non-Japanese crew members will be allowed to leave Japan if they test negative.

According to the ministry, the cruise ship will be disinfected, and the operator of the vessel will then send staff workers to maintain its minimum necessary functions.

Japanese state minister of health Gaku Hashimoto, health ministry officials and quarantine officers who boarded the cruise ship during the quarantine procedures have tested negative for the new coronavirus.

The Diamond Princess, which left the port of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, eastern Japan, on Jan. 20, was quarantined when it arrived in the southernmost Japan prefecture of Okinawa on Feb. 1.

But the quarantine clearance was invalidated due to the discovery that a man who got off the ship in Hong Kong on Jan. 25 had the virus. The ship has been quarantined again since it arrived back in Yokohama on Feb. 3.

At the time of its return to Yokohama, 2,666 passengers, including 1,281 Japanese, and 1,045 crew members were on the cruise ship. Of them, 705 people have been found infected with the virus. Jiji Press