Infected Americans Return From Coronavirus Cruise
Fourteen Americans tested positive for carrying the new coronavirus just as they began their return to the United States from Yokohama, Japan, where they had been trapped aboard the luxury cruise ship Diamond Princess in a quarantine that began February 3.
As of today, February 17, Japanese health officials have confirmed 454 cases of COVID-19 on the ship, including 99 cases reported since yesterday. The cluster is, by far, the largest of any COVID-19 flare ups outside of China, where the outbreak began and has caused the vast majority of infections and deaths.
The new cases in the returning Americans will nearly double the current number of COVID-19 cases in the US, bringing the total from the current 15 to 29.
Originally, no American cruise ship passengers infected with the new coronavirus were meant to leave Japan. When the US government announced plans on Saturday, February 15, to evacuate the roughly 400 Americans stuck on the cruise liner, it noted that sick passengers would stay in Japan for treatment.
But evacuation plans for over 300 other Americans were thrown into question as they disembarked the ship and made their way on buses to the airport where planes chartered by the US State Department awaited them. En route, US officials received the results of testing done two to three days earlier that determined that 14 of the evacuees were infected with the novel coronavirus. (Read more from “Infected Americans Return From Coronavirus Cruise” HERE)
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