Japan Quarantines Cruise Ship Carrying 3,500 People Over 2019-nCoV

Japan on Tuesday has quarantined a cruise ship carrying 3,500 people and was testing passengers for the 2019 novel coronavirus.

This, after a passenger who departed in Hongkong was tested positive for the 2019 novel coronavirus.

Japan
Photo from Kim Kyung-Hoon, Reuters/file

As seen in television footage, several quarantine officers on Monday evening entered the Diamond Princess cruise ship at the port of Yokohama in order to check the health of all 2,500 passengers and 1,000 crew members. This, after an 80-year-old passenger who landed in Hongkong on January 25 was tested positive for the 2019 novel coronavirus.

Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s top government spokesman, said on Monday that the Japanese authorities will quarantine the vessel, which arrived at Yokohama Bay a day earlier than originally planned.

A woman, who was sailing with her mother on the said ship, on Tuesday told TBS that all passengers aboard “were asked to stay in their rooms to wait for virus tests.” She added that the passengers, including her, had been waiting inside their rooms since Monday and had no word of when they would be tested as of early Tuesday.

A passenger told Kyodo News agency that passengers were told their departure from the area would be delayed by 24 hours after the cruise ship arrived in Yokohama on Monday evening.

On Saturday, the cruise ship has already been quarantined once at a port in Naja in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa in Japan. Yet, a second quarantine was organized after a man, who landed in Hongkong, was found to be infected by the 2019 novel coronavirus.

Yoshihide Suga also said that a total of eight foreigners have been barred from entering Japan.

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