Fear of global contagion looms as 300 Americans flown home

Washington, February 17

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Over 300 US citizens aboard a coronavirus-hit cruise ship, quarantined in Japan’s Yokohoma port, were flown home on Monday, reports said.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday that 105 people died of the virus on Sunday while 2,048 new cases of infection have been confirmed, taking the total number of COVID-19 infected cases to 70,548, the state run Xinhua news agency reported. The death toll has reached over 1,700.

The flights took off from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport early on Monday, and one plane has landed at a US Air Force air base in California, and the other plane was due to land in Texas, the BBC reported.

All the over 300 passengers will undergo 14-days quarantine, apart from the time they have spent on aboard, it quoted US officials as saying.

There were some 400 Americans among the 3,700 passengers and crew on board the Diamond Princess, which has been in quarantine since February 3. The action came after a male passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong was found to have the virus.

At least 40 US citizens aboard found to be infected will be treated in Japan, US officials said.

“They are not going to go anywhere. They’re going to be in hospitals in Japan,” Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS news.

“The reason for that is the degree of transmissibility on that cruise ship is essentially akin to being in a hot spot,” he said. Also 14 of the repatriated Americans were reported during transit to have tested positive for the virus and were being kept separate from other passengers, officials said.

Japanese officials on Monday said there were 99 new cases of infections on board, including a Russian woman, bringing the total to 454 confirmed cases — the largest cluster of cases outside China.

Japanese authorities had decided to keep the ship isolated until this Wednesday as a preventive measure, although last week they allowed older passengers with health complications to leave, provided they tested negative for the virus.

All of them are in public facilities in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, where they are in quarantine, while 355 people infected with Coronavirus have been transferred to medical centres. — IANS

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