Two Japan Evacuees Get Coronavirus After First Testing Negative

(Bloomberg) -- Two Japanese men who were evacuated from Wuhan late last month have tested positive for the novel coronavirus after initially being cleared of the deadly disease, the health ministry said.

The cases bring total infections in Japan to 28, excluding 135 on a cruise ship under quarantine in Yokohama. Both men had tested negative on Jan. 30 after they returned from the Chinese city on a government-chartered flight.

One of the men, who is in his 40s, was staying at his home in Saitama prefecture when he developed a fever on Feb. 8 and tested positive on Feb. 10, a Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare official said at a briefing in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Japan’s government began repatriating citizens from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, in late January but faced criticism for allowing some evacuees to go home rather than undergo strict quarantine.

The other man, in his 50s, was staying at a hotel in Chiba prefecture. He got a fever on Feb. 7 and was confirmed to have the virus three days later.

The number of coronavirus infections among those aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship has nearly doubled, with 65 more cases confirmed by the ministry on Monday.

To contact the reporters on this story: Yoshiaki Nohara in Tokyo at ynohara1@bloomberg.net;Yuki Furukawa in Tokyo at yfurukawa13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kazunori Takada at ktakada17@bloomberg.net, Jeff Sutherland

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