Japan minister apologises after woman who leaves ship tests positive for virus
24 February, 2020
Japan's health minister apologised on Saturday (Feb 22) after a woman who was allowed to leave a coronavirus-infected cruise ship docked near Tokyo tested positive for the virus.
The girl in her 60s disembarked the Diamond Princess in Yokohama on Wednesday carrying out a two-week quarantine on board, but was found to maintain positivity following another test in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told a news conference in Tokyo on Saturday evening that 23 people who had disembarked on Wednesday and Thursday hadn't undergone tests since before Feb. 5, and the ministry was trying to reach them for retesting.
"We deeply apologise for the situation caused by our oversight," Kato said. "We will take all necessary measures, like double checks, to prevent a recurrence."
The cruise liner, owned by Carnival Corp, and carrying some 3,700 passengers and crew, has been quarantined in Yokohama since Feb 3.
Japan's government is facing growing questions about whether it's doing enough to avoid the spread of the coronavirus that started in China and has killed more than 2,400 as Tokyo prepares to host the 2020 Summer Olympics in July.
The US STATE DEPT. raised its travel advisory for Japan to Level 2 on its four-notch scale on Saturday as a result of what it termed "sustained community spread."
The amount of confirmed domestic cases grew to 132 following the health ministry said on Saturday it had confirmed 27 new cases of the flu-like illness.
That is separate from the a lot more than 600 cases from the Diamond Princess, the biggest concentration of infections outside China.
Among the new cases on Saturday was a boy under 10 years old in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, in addition to a teacher in Chiba Prefecture east of Tokyo who had opted to school while she had symptoms.
Children had been thought to possibly be less susceptible to the brand new virus, with far fewer reported infections in much younger people.
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