Coronavirus: Fear of global outbreak mounts as passengers start leaving the quarantined cruise ship
- With passengers aboard hailing from more than 50 nations, the end of the quarantine raises worries the vessel could become the source of a fresh wave of global infections
- All passengers are scheduled to leave the Diamond Princess cruise by Friday
Japan started to let passengers leave a cruise ship placed under quarantine despite criticism it hadn’t done enough to prevent the new coronavirus spreading from the vessel that has the most infections of any place in the world outside China.
On Wednesday, about 500 passengers who were cleared began stepping off the ship that has been in quarantine at the port of Yokohama. All passengers are scheduled to leave the Diamond Princess cruise by Friday, ending a weeks-long period that saw the deadly disease infect about one in seven people aboard the luxury ship.
A slow and steady stream of people clutching travel bags walked off the ship, many of whom waved to surgical mask-wearing passengers perched on ship balconies, video images on Japanese television showed. Many were taken to public transportation hubs in Yokohama, told to keep a close eye on their health and get in touch with authorities if they get sick.
While this may mean a return to normal lives for many of the passengers disembarking, hundreds of foreigners who leave the ship will be subject to another 14 days of quarantine once they return home, such as the 200 people Australia plans to fly out on a charter flight. A charter flight from Canada was due on Friday and one for Hong Kong was set to come in the next day, the cruise company said.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risks were ongoing and Japan’s measures “may not have been sufficient to prevent transmission among individuals on the ship.” It put in place travel restrictions on the passengers and crew on the vessel, adding “there may be additional confirmed cases of Covid-19 among the remaining passengers on board the Diamond Princess.”
Of the 3,700 passengers and crew on the Princess Cruises vessel when it went into quarantine two weeks ago, 542 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus as of Tuesday. Yardley Wong was one of the passengers who disembarked Wednesday and gave her thanks to the crew and captain for their care “during the epic crisis.”
Aboard the Diamond Princess, passengers were trading messages on private group chats about the testing process and were worried that not everyone was tested this week before they were cleared to leave, raising concerns as passengers make their way home.
Kent Frasure, a 42-year-old passenger, said he was last tested for coronavirus Feb. 8 as authorities evacuated his wife off the ship after she became infected. “My fear is that one or more passengers have the virus undetected and that will come out in the next few days or week from now and they’ll want to re-quarantine all of us. It may become a never-ending saga.”
Global worry
Top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga defended his country’s response, telling reporters Wednesday that Japan did all that was possible to protect the health of those aboard the cruise. He refrained from commenting on the restrictions put in place in other countries.
With people aboard hailing from more than 50 nations, the end of the quarantine raises worries the vessel could become the source of a fresh wave of global infections. The number of people infected worldwide rose above 75,000, with almost all of the infections being in China.
“It’s entirely possible to get tested, be negative and get on an airplane and be positive once you land,” said Keiji Fukuda, the director of the School of Public Health at Hong Kong University and a former World Health Organization (WHO) official who has led responses to outbreaks. “That’s just how infections work.”
Even though people test negative or are not symptomatic, it’s safest to assume some of those people could be infected, he said, adding it’s prudent for countries to quarantine passengers. “It’s providing a high level of safety for the place they’re being brought back to.”
Those who have tested positive on the ship have been taken to area hospitals, while people who tested negative but were in a room with someone infected are set for more checks and perhaps another two weeks of quarantine at a medical facility.
Many aboard grew nervous as new infections were announced almost daily, coming with a cavalcade of ambulances arriving at the dock to take the infected off to hospitals. Foreign nationals who have contracted the virus are set to stay in Japan for treatment.
The ongoing risks became apparent after the US evacuated more than 300 of its nationals over the weekend and received notice during the process that 14 passengers, who had been tested 2-3 days earlier, had contracted the virus.
A specialist on infectious diseases on Japan’s expert panel for virus measures said Tokyo’s decision to start letting people off the ship was reasonable.
“We have to decide certain criteria. If we try to have zero risk, people have to be under quarantine for 40-50 days,” Hitoshi Oshitani, a professor of virology at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, told reporters, adding when there are already existing clusters of infection, it’s impossible to eliminate the risk entirely.
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First Published:19 Feb 2020, 05:11 PM IST
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