COVID Confirmed In 46 Americans On The Quarantined Diamond Princess

[niman]

There are 46 Americans on the ship who have tested positive for the virus. The infected American have not been allowed to board the chartered flights.    

U.S. authorities announced on Saturday they would offer the 380 Americans on board the option to leave the ship and fly home where they will face another 14-day isolation period. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8009967/Americans-leave-quarantined-Japan-ship-virus-cases-hit-355.html

[niman]

Americans have left a quarantined coronavirus cruise ship in Japan and have boarded chartered flights home to the United States after the number of new cases diagnosed on the vessel jumped to 355.

The evacuations from the Diamond Princess started on Sunday, or early Monday local time, after the cruise ship was placed in a 14-day quarantine in early February after a former passenger tested positive for the virus.

There are 46 Americans on the ship who have tested positive for the virus. The infected American have not been allowed to board the chartered flights.    

U.S. authorities announced on Saturday they would offer the 380 Americans on board the option to leave the ship and fly home where they will face another 14-day isolation period. 

The Japanese defense ministry said about 300 of them left on buses to take them to Tokyo's Haneda Airport. Passengers wearing masks could later be seen waving through the windows of buses parked near the ship. 

Americans who opted to leave were brought off the ship in groups, passing through a makeshift passport control but undergoing no health checks. 

An American passenger on board, Sarah Arana, said the passengers boarded buses driven by personnel in head-to-toe protective suits and were told that the more than a dozen vehicles would travel in a convoy.

'I am happy and ready to go,' Arana told AFP before leaving the ship. 'We need a proper quarantine, this was not it.'

Arana, a 52-year-old medical social worker, said the U.S. government should have intervened 'much sooner, at the beginning'.

 

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Matthew Smith (above) and his wife, Katherine Codekas, of California, are two of an estimated 380 American nationals on board a cruise ship that has been docked in a Japanese port for almost the last two weeks

'This was too much for Japan and they shouldn't have had to bear the burden,' she said. 'The people of Japan did not deserve this. I am full of gratitude.'

Other Americans on board, however, have declined the evacuation, despite being warned they will still have to wait two weeks and test negative for the virus before being allowed back to the United States.

'My health is fine. And my two-week quarantine is almost over. Why would I want to be put on a bus and a plane with other people they think may be infected when I have spent nearly two weeks isolated from those people?' Matt Smith, an American lawyer on the ship with his wife, tweeted. 

He described a fellow American passenger standing on her balcony chanting 'USA, USA' as buses arrived to collect them.

'Of course, in contravention of the rules of quarantine, she's not wearing a face mask and she's talking with a passenger on the adjacent balcony... And you wanted me to get on a bus with her?' 

He said American officials in hazmat suits and face masks had visited his room to check if he would disembark but he said he wanted to stay. 

 

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US citizens wave from a bus as they leave the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked at Daikoku Pier Cruise

 

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American citizens wave from a bus as they arrive at Haneda airport after leaving the cruise ship

 

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Buses believed to carry the U.S. passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess, where dozens of passengers were tested positive for coronavirus, are parked next to an airplane in Yokohama

 

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A man enters an airplane prepared for the U.S. passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess, where dozens of passengers were tested positive for coronavirus

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation that those showing symptoms will not be able to get on the evacuation plane.

'If people on the plane start to develop symptoms, they'll be segregated within the plane,' Fauci said, adding that the additional 14-day quarantine is because of the 'degree of transmissibility on that cruise ship is essentially akin to being in a hot spot'. 

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said Washington was evacuating the Americans because the passengers and crew members on board the Diamond Princess were at a high risk of exposure to the virus. 

The Americans will be flown to Travis Air Force Base in California, with some continuing to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. 

After arriving in the U.S., all of the passengers will need to go through another 14 days of quarantine - meaning they will have been under quarantine for a total of nearly four weeks. 

'We are glad to be going home,' Cheryl Molesky told NHK TV in Japan. 'It's just a little bit disappointing that we'll have to go through quarantine again, and we will probably not be as comfortable as the Diamond Princess, possibly.'

'The biggest challenge has been the uncertainty.'

Molesky also said she was getting concerned about the rising number of patients on the ship.

'It's a little bit scary with the numbers going up of the people being taken off the ship for the (virus), so I think its time to go. I think its time to cut our losses and take off,' she said.

Japan on Sunday announced another 70 infections on the Diamond Princess, raising the ship's total number of cases to 355.  

Among them are an elderly couple from Canada - Diane, 73, and Bernard Menard, 75. At the moment they are confined to their cabin but will be transported by ambulance to a military hospital to be kept in isolation. 

 

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Passengers could be seen on the ship after the number of new cases diagnosed on the vessel jumped to 355.

 

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Passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, who are quarantined due to fear of the new COVID-19 coronavirus, walk on the deck of the ferry docked at the Daikaku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama port

 

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Diamond Princess officials could be seen on board the ship just before the evacuation of the American passengers began

 

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A passenger with his belongings was spotted on board the ship before the evacuation of American passengers

 

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Japan Self-Defense Forces walk past the Diamond Princess cruise ship just prior to the evacuations starting

 

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Late Sunday and into the early hours of Monday, Americans who opted to leave were brought off the ship in groups, passing through a makeshift passport control but undergoing no health checks

Asked how they felt about the additional 14-day quarantine in the United States, Cheryl Molesky sighed, and her husband said: 'If we have to go through that, we will go through that.'

Some American passengers aboard the ship said they would pass up the opportunity to take a flight to the U.S. because of the additional quarantine. There also was concern about being on a long flight with other passengers who may be infected or in an incubation period.

Everyone will get a checkup before being allowed on the chartered flight, and those who show symptoms of sickness will not be permitted to board the plane, according to the embassy. American passengers who have already tested positive for the virus will not be among those evacuated on the flights. 

Japan has not been able to test all those on board due to limited supplies of testing kits, facilities and manpower, which are also needed by authorities tracking the spread of the virus on land.

But the health ministry said that passengers older than 70 are being examined and those testing negative and in good health will be allowed to leave the ship from Wednesday.

Tests on younger passengers were expected to start on Sunday and healthy people will be allowed to disembark after Wednesday.