Coronavirus: 10 Hongkongers stranded on Diamond Princess cruise ship confirmed to have deadly bug as city’s total number of cases rises to 53
● Passengers are now receiving hospital treatment in Japan
● Hong Kong government earlier extended school closure and told civil servants to work from home for another week
Ten Hong Kong passengers stranded aboard a quarantined cruise ship docked off Japan’s coast have contracted the deadly coronavirus, the government revealed on Thursday, as the number of confirmed cases in the city rose to 53.
The passengers, among 218 cases of infection detected on the Diamond Princess liner carrying 3,700 travellers, were receiving hospital treatment in Japan.
While three more cases were confirmed in Hong Kong, doctors were preparing to discharge the city’s second patient to have recovered from the virus, which causes the pneumonia-like disease now called Covid-19.
A civil servant working at the government’s headquarters was suspected to have caught the virus, but tested negative in a preliminary check, sources told the Post.
In a further measure to guard against a wide community outbreak, the government announced that schools would remain closed until at least March 16. Civil servants would continue to work from home until February 23.
These developments came as China’s National Health Commission reported a surge of 15,152 new cases because of a change in the diagnostic criteria. The commission said 1,367 people in the country had died from Covid-19, with 254 new deaths reported on Wednesday.