The outbreak of COVID-19, or Coronavirus, claimed the lives of two passengers who travelled on the cruise declared quarantine dwelling in Japan today, in the midst of controversy over the management of the authorities’ crisis and as the inq grows uietud by the virus in the country.
An 87-year-old man and an 84-year-old woman, both Japanese nationals with previous health complications, are the first two COVID-19 fatalities among the 621 Diamond Princess cruiser passengers so far infected with the virus, the virus reported today Japanese Ministry of Health in a statement.
The deaths have been known the day after the cruise’s quarantine period ended and several hundred passengers who had tested negative for the virus to return home.
On board the Diamond Princess there were about 3,700 passengers when their isolation was decreed last day 3, and just under two thousand of them are still on board waiting to know the results of their medical tests, so the total number of contagions can continue to grow i.e.
The controversial management of the cruise ship’s crisis has drawn criticism from Japanese experts and foreign agencies such as the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the first country to decide to evacuate its citizens from the ship earlier the end of quarantine.
One of the voices that has risen up against the Japanese authorities has been infectious disease specialist Kentaro Iwata, who called the health safety procedure applied during and after the quarantine, at a press conference held today by videoconference.
“They’ve had 3,700 people locked up over 14 days, so there was potential for the virus to spread. The control measures have to be very rigorous, very professional and very complete, but I didn’t see any of that,” said this professor at Kobe University Hospital who visited the ship during quarantine.
Iwata, who is in self-imposed isolation “so as not to spread the virus to others,” said authorities should re-quarantine all passengers leaving the ship even if they have not tested positive for the virus.
In fact, several of the countries that have repatriated their Diamond Princess citizens have decided to subject them to a new period of solitary confinement to ensure that they were not infected or did not carry the virus in incubation periods, including the United States and Canada, in addition to Hong Kong.
The Japanese executive, for his part, defended his measures as “the most appropriate,” Executive Minister Yoshihide Suga said today, who also noted that medical experts have been in charge of on-board infection control measures.
“It is true that this is the first time that we have a case like a ship with 3,700 people on board 56 countries. Every effort is being made to ensure people’s health and it is still too early to analyze what is being done,” Suga said.
Apart from the cruise cases, to date there have been more than 80 COVID-19 contagions and one death in several parts of Japanese territory, many of which have been directly connected to the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.
This places Japan among the most contagious countries in the new coronavirus – not counting the cruise – along with South Korea and Singapore, on the sidelines of China.
Growing concern about the spread of the virus has altered several mass events that were planned for upcoming dates, including the Tokyo Marathon, which will be held on March 1 only with the participation of some 200 elite athletes in 38,000 runners who were registered.
In addition, Emperor Naruhito’s public birthday greeting, which was scheduled for Sunday at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and was to be his first appearance of its kind since his accession to the throne on May 1, has been cancelled.
