HUNDREDS OF PASSENGERS began leaving the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan today after the end of a much-criticised two-week quarantine that failed to stop the spread the coronavirus among passengers and crew.
Results were still pending for some passengers who had been tested for the coronavirus that has infected tens of thousands of people in China and more than 540 on the ship.
Some passengers said on Twitter they received health check forms asking if they had symptoms such as a headache, fever or coughing.
Passengers who tested negative and had no symptoms still had to have their body temperature checked before leaving.
Two Irish citizens have tested positive for the virus. The couple, who have dual citizenship with another EU country, were moved from the ship to a hospital in Japan where they are currently being treated.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney confirmed that six Irish citizens were on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
The Irish Embassy in Tokyo is in ongoing contact with the couple regarding their consular needs. The embassy is also in contact with those who remain in quarantine on the ship.
Japanese soldiers helped escort some passengers, including an elderly man in a wheelchair who wore a face mask and held a cane.
Some passengers apparently called taxis to get home. Others boarded buses to be transported to train stations.
Some people still in their ship cabins waved farewell from their balconies to those who’d already disembarked.
“I’m a bit concerned if I’m okay to get off the ship, but it was getting very difficult physically,” a 77-year-old man from Saitama, near Tokyo, who got off with his wife, told Kyodo News.
“For now, we just want to celebrate.”
About 500 passengers were expected to leave.
Japanese officials will spend several days evacuating some 2,000 others who were kept aboard the ship at the Yokohama port near Tokyo after one passenger who departed the Diamond Princess earlier in Hong Kong was found to have the virus.
The ship, which some experts have called a perfect virus incubator, has become the site of the most infections outside of China, where Covid-19 emerged late last year.
As of Tuesday, 542 cases have been identified among the original 3,711 people on the ship.
Even though Japanese officials insist the number of infected patients is levelling off, dozens of new cases on the ship continue to mount daily.
On Tuesday, 88 people tested positive – a day earlier 99 others were found to have been infected.
Crew members, who couldn’t be confined to their rooms over the last two weeks because they were working, are expected to stay on the ship.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga defended Japan’s handling of the quarantine.
“In the beginning, the United States expressed gratitude for the Japanese side. And there are many Americans who chose to stay on the ship,” Suga said.
Japanese health officials said the 14-day quarantine on the ship was adequate, noting all but one of more than 500 Japanese returnees from the epicentre of the virus in China who initially tested negative were found to be virus-free at the end of their 14-day quarantine.
Those officials also defended precautions taken on the ship.
Some 1,000 crew members were told to wear surgical masks, wash their hands, use disinfectant sprays and stop operations at restaurants, bars and other entertainment areas after 5 February, when the first group of 10 infections was reported and the start of the 14-day quarantine announced.
Passengers were instructed to stay in their cabins and not walk around or contact other passengers. Those in windowless cabins could go out on the deck for about an hour each day.
The quarantine was largely for passengers, since crew members kept sharing double rooms and continued to serve guests by delivering food, letters, towels and amenities, and entering passenger cabins for cleaning.
With reporting from Orla Dwyer
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