Coronavirus: 10 passengers stuck on Diamond Princess cruise ship infected, raising Japan tally to 35

At least 10 people on board a cruise liner docked in the Japanese port of Yokohama have tested positive for the coronavirus, Japan’s health minister said on Wednesday, a figure that could rise as medical screening of thousands of patients and crew continued.

The 10 confirmed infections on the Diamond Princess raised Japan’s tally of cases to 35. The confirmed cases were in their 50s to 80s. Three are Japanese, three are Chinese and two are Australian. There is also one American and one Filipino.

Separately, public broadcaster NHK said an additional two people had tested positive in Japan. One was a man in his 40s who was visiting Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, from Wuhan. The other was a man in his 20s who lives in Kyoto. He had not been to China but had contacts with Chinese tourists as he worked in hospitality industry, NHK said.

The confirmed cases on board the Diamond Princess were among 31 results from 273 people tested so far, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told a news conference. He said all the 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew members on board the ship will be quarantined for up to 14 days under Japanese law.

“We ask people on board to behave in a way to avoid infection while we continue the quarantine process,” Kato said.

Health screening began on Tuesday for everyone on board the cruise liner after an 80-year-old Hong Kong passenger who travelled on the vessel in January tested positive for the coronavirus.

Health officials were testing people who had shown symptoms such as fevers or those who had been in close contact with such people, public broadcaster NHK reported. A health ministry official said not everyone would be tested with PCR (polymerase chain reaction) kits because it was too time-consuming and deemed unnecessary.

Passengers took to social media to detail their predicament, posting photos of officials in masks and gowns conducting health checks, room service meals and empty corridors and decks.

British passenger David Abel said passengers were confined to their cabins on Wednesday morning, with staff delivering food room-by-room.

“The challenging situation for me is that I’m an insulin dependent diabetic,” Abel said in a video taken in his cabin and posted to his Facebook page, adding that regular and timed food intake was a key part of managing his condition. “We don’t have a choice in what we can eat, the announcement recently was that they’re starting on the bottom deck and working their way up – I’m on the ninth deck.”

A 43-year-old Hong Kong resident on the ship with six family members said they had been given coffee and water, but no food, by lunchtime on Wednesday. They were hungry but had snacks of their own, he said.

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“I am not looking forward to the range of emotions in the next two weeks,” he said from his family’s windowless room, declining to be named. “Will deal as they come.”

One Japanese man in his 70s told public broadcaster NHK that stricter quarantine measures came into force on Wednesday.

“Until yesterday, we were able to spend time in common spaces and do things like play ping-pong. But from this morning, we have not been allowed to go out of our rooms,” said the man, who declined to be identified.

“I tried to go to a restaurant this morning for breakfast but I was told: ‘Please eat in your room.’ So I have been waiting for room service. But it hasn’t arrived yet.”

Carnival Japan, the local unit of the British-American cruise operator, said in a statement the ship would be in quarantine for two weeks and that its planned eight-day round trip had been cancelled.

It said the ship would move further out to sea “to perform normal marine operations”, including freshwater production, before returning close to Yokohama, “where food, provisions and other supplies will be brought on board”. Two more Diamond Princess departures from Yokohama, scheduled for February 4 and 12, had now been cancelled, it added.

In Hong Kong, more than 1,800 passengers were confined to another cruise ship, the World Dream, after three people on board tested positive for the coronavirus. Authorities said it was not clear how long those aboard the World Dream would be confined to the ship, operated by Dream Cruises, which docked in Hong Kong after Taiwan’s southern port of Kaohsiung denied it entry on Tuesday.

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Also on Tuesday, Japan expanded the scope of its screening for the virus generally after some people who had not met criteria for testing were later found to be infected.

Opposition parties and some experts have criticised the government for responding too slowly to the risks following the outbreak of the coronavirus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. So far, the epidemic that has claimed some 490 lives in mainland China.

Chinese nationals make up 30 per cent of all tourists travelling to Japan and nearly 40 per cent of the total amount foreign visitors spent last year, according to an industry survey.

There have been several incidents of apparent person-to-person transmission in Japan, including a tour guide and bus driver who contracted the virus after coming into contact with visitors from Wuhan. Neither had visited China in recent months.

On Saturday, Japan began refusing entry to foreigners who have been in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, in the past 14 days as well as people with passports issued in Hubei.

Suga said that as of February 3, eight foreigners had been barred from entering Japan.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a parliamentary panel the government would be flexible about expanding areas in China from which visitors would be banned, depending on trends in China.

Some countries, including the United States, Singapore and Australia, have denied entry to all foreign nationals travelling from China.

Additional reporting by Kyodo, Agence France-Presse