Coronavirus Infections on Japan Cruise Ship Leap to 174
Coronavirus Infections on Japan Cruise Ship Leap to 174
(Bloomberg) -- Rising infection cases on board a quarantined cruise ship in Japan -- likely evidence passengers are spreading the virus to one another -- is raising concerns about their safety and sparking anger among the thousands still confined.
There are now 218 infections aboard Carnival Corp.’s Diamond Princess, the largest infection cluster outside China. The surging numbers are fueling concerns that rather than keeping passengers safe, the quarantine is allowing the virus to spread through the ship. There were 44 new cases announced Thursday, with 33 of those in their 80s, the health ministry said.
“The quarantine is working to keep the virus offshore -- it’s obvious the quarantine is not working on the ship,” said Stanley Deresinski, a Stanford University professor of infectious disease and a specialist at a hospital connected to the school. “With these infection rates, it’s very likely that there’s on-going transmission.”
Japan plans to start letting high-risk people who have tested negative for the virus off the ship from Friday and move them to accommodations approved by the government, which will still likely keep them isolated from the general public. Japan will give priority to people who are over 80, in cabins without windows or have underlying health problems, but it gave no number for how many will disembark.
“We have inhibited infections on board the ship, by disembarking those who test positive and taking them to medical facilities for treatment,” the health ministry said in a statement.
Lacking the capacity to test thousands of passengers and crew at once, Japan is struggling to cope with the crisis on the Diamond Princess, which has been quarantined since Feb. 5 in Yokohama, just 26 kilometers (16 miles) from central Tokyo. Experts say more testing needs to be done to protect those on board.
As of Thursday, about 3,500 people are being kept in quarantine on the cruise liner, about 200 of themaged over 80. The virus has killed more than 1,300 people since emerging in China’s Hubei province in December.
Some cruise passengers and their families -- who hail from the U.S., Australia and other countries as well as Japan -- have urged that they be allowed to disembark. The tentative end date for the quarantine has been set at Feb. 19. Passengers are being allowed out of their rooms, some of which have no windows, in small groups to exercise in the open air.
There’s growing concern that despite Carnival’s strict measures, the virus may be spreading through the vessel’s close quarters -- increasing the potential for passengers to contract it despite stopping it from reaching Japanese soil.
The infection of a quarantine official, announced Wednesday, has caused more disquiet. The worker wore gloves and a mask and disinfected his hands regularly when he spent a day collecting health questionnaires and taking people’s temperatures on the ship Feb. 3-4, according to the health ministry.
‘Find Everyone’
Deresinski and other medical experts recommend all on board are tested for the coronavirus, which would allow health authorities to separate those who are infected from those who are virus free. They say that if authorities can identify all those who tested positive, they can remove them or quarantine them on the ship, enforce a stricter quarantine and minimize the spread of the virus.
Already, five people taken to the hospital from the Diamond Princess, four infected with the virus and one suspected of infection, are in serious condition, the health ministry said.
Infections aboard the cruise ship form the overwhelming majority of cases detected in Japan, which have now reached a total of 247. Those infected on the ship are not officially a part of Japan’s tally.
“If you’re trying to control a transmission, you have to find everyone who can be producing or shedding the virus,” said Stephen Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York and a specialist in infectious diseases. “There’s research that shows people can be asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms and be infectious.”
Expanded Ban
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he planned to bolster testing capacity from the current 300 samples per day to 1,000 a day by Feb. 18. For the moment, Japan is focusing its scant testing resources on elderly passengers and those with underlying conditions, and sending those who are infected to hospitals in Tokyo and surrounding areas.
Some aboard have called lawyers who in turn have contacted John H. Hickey, a Miami, Florida-based lawyer who specializes in maritime law and cruise ships. He said the ship’s operator needs to do more for them and test all passengers, even if Japanese authorities can’t, as well as working with authorities to get both the sick and healthy off the ship as soon as possible.
Seeking to stem other sources of infection, Japan said that from Thursday it would ban entry of foreigners who have visited China’s Zhejiang province. This adds to an existing bar on those who have visited Hubei province, the epicenter of the infection, within the past 14 days.
A separate cruise ship that had been banned from entry to Japan and subsequently sailed the region for a week in search of a port, was finally accepted to berth at Sihanoukville in Cambodia, the operators said. The vessel, owned by Carnival and operated by Holland America Line, was also rejected by the Philippines, Thailand and Guam on virus fears. The cruise line has said there are no known or suspected cases of coronavirus on board.
Despite being taken off the Diamond Princess, 35-year-old Rebecca Frasure, from Oregon, remains frustrated. After being diagnosed with the virus, she was initially taken to a hospital in Tokyo and put in a room accessible only by a sealed plastic chamber, then moved to single quarters. She said her symptoms were gone, though she had no idea when she might be allowed to leave.
“The hospital staff are as much in the dark as I am,” she said. “No one can tell me how long I will be here or what needs to be done for me to be released.”
--With assistance from Hiroyuki Sekine and Jon Herskovitz.
To contact the reporters on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net;Emi Nobuhiro in Tokyo at enobuhiro@bloomberg.net;K. Oanh Ha in Hong Kong at oha3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, ;Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Karen Leigh
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