The quarantine on the Diamond Princess is over for the 350 or so Americans present on the cruise liner, blocked in Japan because of the coronavirus epidemic. 355 cases have already been observed there out of the 3711 people on board, passengers and crew members, who have not all been tested yet. The number of contaminations could therefore be much higher.
The quarantine of passengers for the Diamond Princess is expected to end on February 19, but given the worsening situation and given doubts about the effectiveness of the measures taken, several governments have decided to evacuate their nationals who appear to be healthy to put them back in quarantine for fourteen days, this time in their respective countries.
The evacuation of the Americans began overnight from Sunday to Monday. The latter took place on a dozen buses, before boarding one of the two planes specially chartered for the United States. Some passengers will stay at a military base in California, while others will be transported further to Texas.
Coaches filled with passengers for "Plane 1" have moved forward pic.twitter.com/m9q0npLHxi
- Matthew Smith (@mjswhitebread) February 16, 2020"The safety and well-being of our citizens is the top priority of the United States government," the US Embassy in Tokyo wrote in a letter posted on the Internet.
Hong Kong, Canada, Australia…
But the United States is not the only one worried about its nationals. The Hong Kong government has also said it wants to repatriate its 330 citizens present on the boat, "as soon as possible".
Canadian authorities have taken a similar initiative "due to the extraordinary circumstances faced by Diamond Princess passengers and to ease the burden on the Japanese health care system." Approximately 250 Canadians had embarked on this cruise.
As for the Australian media, they indicated that Canberra was also considering the option of evacuation.
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What about France? No information has yet filtered on a decision, but four Frenchmen had taken place aboard the Diamond Princess. And one of these cruise lines is infected with the virus.
