In a series of firsts, one patient was someone who had tested negative for the coronavirus but still contracted the disease and recovered on his own. Another was a police officer who was infected after attending a party on Tuesday with about 60 others who will also have to be quarantined.

Mainland China reported 394 new confirmed cases – the lowest daily tally since January 23 when the city at the epicentre of the outbreak, Wuhan, first went into lockdown – taking the total to 74,576 as of Thursday night. The death toll stood at 2,118.

As the Hong Kong government was scrambling to bring home residents still trapped on the Diamond Princess, Director of Immigration Erick Tsang Kwok-wai said Thursday’s evacuation had to be scrapped because the Japanese side wanted to give priority to Canada’s rescue operation.

Tsang said that Hong Kong had sought help from the Chinese embassy but that the Japanese side did not agree.

According to what he had learned from the Japanese side, he said, all testing would be completed and the remaining passengers who tested negative would be allowed to leave on Friday.

Tsang said they hoped to fly as many as 150 remaining Hongkongers back as early as 6pm on Friday, or no later than Saturday midnight. Four had left on their own.

There will be a third flight on Saturday if needed, he said, but those who were confirmed infected would have to remain behind, along with their close contacts.

Tsang said the Immigration Department was hoping that around 30 close contacts of confirmed cases would be allowed to return to Hong Kong to continue the remainder of their quarantine period.

A separate flight would be arranged as they were considered higher risk, and the necessary protection measures would be put in place for any cabin crew or government staff on board.

Some 65 of the 364 Hong Kong residents who boarded the cruise have been infected.

Undersecretary for security Sonny Au Chi-kwong said he had visited eight of the Hong Kong patients in two hospitals near Tokyo. Two of them were in an isolation ward in one hospital, and the other six in another hospital were in a stable condition, he said.

They have been given SIM cards and disinfectants, and the Immigration Department will also help to find Japanese interpreters.

A new controversy erupted on social media after a Hong Kong passenger who chose to remain in Japan after testing negative was seen eating and drinking in Shinjuku, one of Tokyo’s busiest areas.

Yardley Wong, who was released from the ship on Wednesday afternoon, was accused of endangering public health. She did not board the first chartered flight home in Thursday’s early morning evacuation.

Those who arrived on that flight boarded eight coaches that took them directly from the airport apron to Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan for another 14 days of quarantine.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection warned that passengers who had left the Diamond Princess were still at risk, so another round of quarantine was required.

“That they tested negative in Japan does not necessarily mean they will remain negative for another 14 days,” Chuang said.

Under quarantine, the returned passengers were asked to remain in the rooms assigned to them at all times, and given guidelines on hygiene and precautions. Food will be delivered to them, and those who break the rules will be subject to a HK$25,000 fine and six months in prison.

Returnee David Yeung Kun-wah, 70, was having difficulty adjusting to the new settings and complained about “totally unacceptable” conditions.

“I am not asking for a luxurious place, but it has to be at least clean,” he said. “Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor should come here and stay for a night to see for herself.”

The 150 sq ft room he was sharing with his wife was large enough but dusty, he said, and there was no toilet paper.

The main road leading to the newly built housing estate was blocked, while police officers in riot gear were patrolling the area near Fo Tan MTR station.

The estate was designated as a quarantine site for 269 people, although it could accommodate as many as 1,000 if needed.

Earlier this month, Lam announced a U-turn on her pledge that no new public housing estates would be used for quarantine purposes, and decided to use Chun Yeung Estate as a quarantine zone despite the fact that 4,000 out of the 4,846 flats there had been allocated to people on the waiting list.

A HK$6,000 government allowance offered to affected families as compensation was not enough to stop those waiting to move in from taking to the streets in protest, while some Fo Tan residents also objected to a quarantine centre in their backyard.

However, Lam stuck to her guns, pointing to the fact that three other quarantine sites were already full, and a fourth was filling up quickly.

Pro-establishment legislator Vincent Cheng Wing-shun, who was in Japan helping the Hongkongers, said he was worried about those who had been admitted to local hospitals.

In one case, Cheng said, a couple were sent to Nagoya city, but were then separated by authorities there.

“The husband is worried about where his wife went, and unsure about his own whereabouts. There are many cases like this, a total of some 50 cases,” he said.

He had the impression that the Japanese authorities were not handling infected cases properly.

“For the whole system, in these few days, I feel that they have not had a great sense of awareness of prevention, to handle the potential outbreak they would face,” he said.

The evacuation on late Wednesday night had also been chaotic as many did not know if they could leave the ship, according to some returnees. They blamed the Japanese authorities for being bureaucratic and some of them claimed the information was confusing and they had been kept in the dark about whether they were on the evacuation list.

Additional reporting by Zoe Low and Christopher Johnson in Japan