More than 350 people who were on board a quarantined cruise ship in
Japan have now been diagnosed with coronavirus, making it the place with the most Covid-19 infections outside of China.
On Sunday, Japan’s health minister Katsunobu Kato confirmed that another 70 people from the Diamond Princess cruise ship had tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases from the vessel to 355.
The cruise – which around 3,700 passengers and staff on board – has been quarantined in Yokohama since February 3, after a man who left the ship in Hong Kong was diagnosed with coronavirus.
Those who have diagnosed with the virus have been transferred to hospitals in Japan. No-one from the ship has died from Covid-19.
The
United States,
Canada and Hong Kong are sending aircraft to Japan to bring back their citizens on board the ship. The
US Embassy in Tokyo said passengers and crew on board the ship were at high risk of exposure to the virus and it recommended that its citizens get off and take one of the flights home.
“This is a rapidly evolving situation and we are taking additional steps to assist U.S. citizens,” it said.
The embassy said all passengers would be screened before being allowed to board the chartered flights and everyone would be quarantined for 14 days upon arrival back in the United States.
“No symptomatic or infected passengers will be allowed to board,” it said.
Clyde Smith, 80, who was evacuated from the ship to a Tokyo hospital after testing positive for the virus told Reuters on Sunday he had not been told if would be allowed on a U.S. evacuation plane.
Latest figures from
Beijing on Sunday showed 68,500 cases of the illness and 1,665 deaths, mostly in Hubei province.
Japan has had 53 cases of the coronavirus, apart from those on the ship, NHK reported, with one of only four deaths from the virus outside mainland
China in Japan.
In the
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