Around 100 more passengers disembark coronavirus-stricken Japan cruise ship
Around 100 more passengers were allowed to disembark from the coronavirus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship on Saturday as Japan’s health minister apologized after 23 others were allowed to leave without being properly tested.
The 100 passengers who left on Saturday had been in close contact with infected people on board, local media said.
They included the last group of Japanese passengers to leave the ship while some foreign passengers were still waiting on board for chartered aircraft to be sent by their governments. Around 970 passengers disembarked earlier this week.
Television footage showed a driver in a white protective suit at the wheel of a bus with the curtains drawn so that passengers could not be identified.
They will be quarantined for two weeks near Tokyo, officials said.
At a news conference on Saturday, Health minister Katsunobu Kato apologized that 23 passengers had been allowed to disembark from the ship without undergoing all the required tests.
“We deeply regret that our operational mistake caused the situation,” Kato said, adding that the passengers would be tested again.
With the latest disembarkation, a 14-day quarantine is expected to start for more than 1,000 crew still on board as many of them did not undergo isolation because they were needed to keep the ship running.
They were preparing food and delivering meals to cabins, leading some critics to charge they were inadvertently spreading the virus throughout the ship, which has seen more than 600 cases of the potentially deadly COVID-19 disease.
Kato defended Japan’s on-board quarantine, telling a TV program Saturday there was no medical facility large enough to admit more than 3,000 people at once.
Speaking at the news conference, Kato said six Australian passengers tested positive after leaving Japan.
Kato also confirmed that a Japanese hospital on Saturday used the anti-influenza medication Avigan, also known as Favipiravir, to treat a patient infected with the virus.
Earlier in the day, Kato said the government would push for the use of such medicines if they were confirmed to be effective.
Outside the Diamond Princess, Japan has seen 105 cases of the new coronavirus.
-
Two coronavirus Japan cruise ship passengers die due to infection: Media
Two elderly coronavirus patients from a quarantined cruise ship off Japan have died, media reports said on Thursday, citing a government source.A man ... World News -
Virus-hit cruise ship passengers disembark in Japan after two-week quarantine
Passengers on the virus-hit cruise ship moored near Tokyo began disembarking on Wednesday, television footage showed, after a controversial two-week ... World News -
13 US evacuees from coronavirus-hit Japan cruise ship being treated in Nebraska
Thirteen US citizens deemed “high risk” for the deadly new coronavirus are being treated at a federally designated facility in the ... World News