Ten more on cruise ship near Japan test positive for coronavirus

Ten more people on a cruise ship off the Japanese coast have tested positive for the new coronavirus, local media said on Thursday (February 6), raising the number of infected cases detected on the boat to 20.

Japanese authorities have tested 273 people among the approximately 3,700 passengers and crew on the ship.

Japanese officials quarantined the cruise ship after a man who got off the boat last month in Hong Kong tested positive for the new strain.

Also read: At least 10 on Japan cruise ship have new coronavirus, says health minister

The passengers and crew on board the ship will be required to stay on the vessel for 14 days, Japan’s Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said, citing the medical consensus that the new virus has an incubation period of up to two weeks.

“We ask people on board to behave in a way to avoid infection while we continue the quarantine process,” Kato added.

The cruise operator said around half the passengers on board the ship are Japanese, with the rest from elsewhere, though there were no immediate details on their nationalities.

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In a statement, Carnival-owned Princess Cruises confirmed that the ship would be in quarantine for two weeks and said its planned eight-day round trip had been cancelled. The cruise ship had already been quarantined once, on Saturday at a port in Naha in Japan’s southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.

It said the ship would move further out to sea “to perform normal marine operations” including freshwater production, before returning close to Yokohama, where “food, provisions and other supplies will be brought on board.”

Two more Diamond Princess departures from Yokohama, scheduled for February 4 and 12, had now been cancelled, it added.

(With inputs from agencies)