Two cruise ships, one docked at the Japanese port of Yokohama and another at Sihanoukville in Cambodia, with thousands of passengers on board, are serving as an example of the still high degree of ignorance about Covid-19 disease (caused by the coronavirus 2019-nCov) and evidencing the possible inefficiency of some quarantines used to combat its expansion. The first has gone from 1 to 454 infections in almost two weeks, becoming the most serious focus outside of China. Meanwhile, the ignorance of the origin of the only infected of the second triggers alerts about a possible incubation period higher than the estimated and also requires to locate hundreds of people with whom it has been in contact.
The Diamond Princess, moored in the port of Yokohama when it took more than 3,700 people from more than 50 countries on board since February 3, on Monday recorded its record number of infections in one day: 99 new confirmed. The Japanese authorities decided to put it in quarantine for two weeks after a traveler who was injured in Hong Kong was diagnosed with Covid-19 on February 1.
Since then, about a third of people undergoing a test (454 of 1,219, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health) have tested positive, a frantic pace that can still increase. "The spread of the virus has entered a new phase," said Health Minister Katsunobu Kato. In principle, the isolation of the ship was thought to protect the Japanese population from further spread of the virus. After weeks of progressive increase in the number of infections, some countries have begun to evacuate their passengers.
The United States was the first on Sunday, offering a voluntary evacuation in which more than 300 people participated. Already after the landing, 14 tested positive for the coronavirus test, and were isolated on the return flight, so that all passengers must remain in quarantine for another two weeks in the United States. Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia will also proceed to evacuate their nationals and residents, as long as they have no symptoms. Upon arrival in your country you will have to spend a quarantine of 14 days. On the 19th, the quarantine should be concluded for all passengers, with the possibility that it will be extended for those who have been in contact with the last infected.
The decision to retain passengers on cruise ships has been criticized by some scientists, for the risk of contagion that it entails for the occupants of the ship, especially for the crew, who have continued to perform their tasks. "We have to make sure that we focus on containing the virus, and not the people, and that we find the right balance between the health of the general population and that of quarantined people," said Sylvie Brand, director of the Infectious emergency preparedness area of the World Health Organization (WHO). "There are still many unknowns about this virus ... Every hour and every day we learn something new," he said.
The possibility that the incubation period is longer than 14 days, in line with a study prepared by Chinese hospitals and universities that indicate that it can last up to 24 days, would also call into question the effectiveness of the two-week quarantines stipulated in some cases. This is suggested by the mystery about the origin of the contagion of a Westerdam passenger , a cruise ship with 2,257 people on board, including five Spaniards, who docked in Cambodia last week, disembarking half of the passage. The affected, 83-year-old American, tested positive on Saturday, after a thermal scanner detected a fever when she landed in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) on Friday, where she made a stopover to the United States. The affected had not shown any symptoms during the fifteen days that the ship spent on the high seas, nor the other passengers or the crew.
At the moment there are two hypotheses: the first one, that the affected one was already infected before the trip and had a long incubation period, or that she was infected on board, indicating that there would be at least one other contagion coming from the cruise.
His case has triggered a crisis of international ramifications: the cruise operator tries to locate more than a thousand people who landed next to the patient. It is believed that hundreds have returned to their countries, and many others continue in Cambodia, including four Spaniards, according to Europa Press. Another 233 passengers - among them another Spaniard, the fifth - and 747 crew members remain on the ship, still anchored in the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville, waiting to be examined. The woman flew with 144 other Westerdam passengers , of which 137 returned to their countries on Sunday when they showed no symptoms of the disease. The rest, including the woman and her husband, who have tested negative, are being evaluated in Kuala Lumpur.
WHO rules out that it is a “pandemic”
The cases of the new coronavirus in China rose again this Monday slightly, after three days of progressive declines, and on Sunday they reached 2,048, according to the National Health Commission of the second world economy. In total, 1,870 people in China have died from the pathogen, and another five in other countries. Up to 70,644 people have been infected.
Despite the "high risk of (the Covid-19 epidemic) expanding further," the executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Health Emergencies, Michael Ryan, ruled out this Monday at a press conference in Geneva is a "pandemic", because there is still no "high-level community transmission outside of China. That case is still not happening, ”he said.
For his part, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the general director of the organization - who declared the international alert in January - stressed that there are still many unknown factors of the disease and urged the international community to “not waste the window of opportunity to fight it We don't know how much longer it will be open, ”he warned.
