Almost All Passengers Leave Virus-Hit Cruise Ship

February 22, 2020

Tokyo- Almost all symptomless passengers who tested negative for the new coronavirus have left by Friday the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which has been quarantined for the virus at the port of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, eastern Japan.

On Friday, 253 passengers got off the British-flagged ship. Over the three days from Wednesday, a total of 970 passengers, including aged people, disembarked. Of them, 443 passengers left the ship on Wednesday, and 274 on Thursday.

Some 100 passengers who had close contact with infected people are set to leave the ship on Saturday and will be sent to facilities prepared by the Japanese government.

They will be quarantined for 14 days from the day when they were separated from infected people. During the health-monitoring period, these people will need to stay at their rooms at the facilities.

According to sources including the health ministry, about 1,300 people, also including some 1,000 crew members and around 200 non-Japanese people waiting to be carried home aboard flights chartered by their governments, were believed to be on the Diamond Princess as of Friday.

The number of non-Japanese passengers evacuated by charter planes stood at 759 as of the same day. It remains to be seen when the crew members can disembark from the ship.

The ministry urged the 970 passengers who left the ship between Wednesday and Friday to check their health, including body temperature, every day and refrain from nonessential outings over 14 days.

Of all passengers and crew members, 634 have been confirmed to have the new coronavirus, which originated in China, as of Friday, with 33 of them, including 17 Japanese nationals, in serious condition. A man and a woman in their 80s, both Japanese and infected with the virus, died on Thursday.

The Diamond Princess left Yokohama on Jan. 20. It came to light on Feb. 1 that a man who got off the ship in Hong Kong on Jan. 25 had been infected with the virus.

On Feb. 5, two days after the cruise ship returned to Yokohama, 10 people on the ship were found to be infected with the virus.

The ministry asked passengers to stay in their cabins to prevent further infection while announcing plans to carry out virus tests on all passengers and allow those testing negative to disembark starting Wednesday. Jiji Press