"The Diamond Princess is a treasure including exceptional delights to discover". Pools, casinos and a bird's eye view of the South China Sea, the brochure extolling the advantages of this liner was enough to make the 2,666 tourists of 56 nationalities dream of reaching Tokyo, via Vietnam, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, last month.
On site, in the midst of a coronavirus epidemic, the stay planned from January 20 to February 4, however, quickly turned into a fiasco. Or even a nightmare, for some of the infected and hospitalized passengers. They are now 621 occupants of this 288 m long monster, which carried 3711, to have tested positive for the very aggressive Covid-19. This virus which has killed more than 2,000 people worldwide in three months.
Poorly conducted tests, facilitated spread, aborted quarantine ... the management of the epidemic on the boat by the Japanese government has been widely criticized in recent days. Could such a camera debacle have been avoided? While the first quarantine period ended on Wednesday and passengers have joined the continent, Le Parisien retraces the itinerary of this disastrous cruise.
January 25, 2020. An 80-year-old passenger who boarded the Diamond Princess five days earlier disembarks in Hong Kong. Let's call him patient 0 of this cruise. While he did not report symptoms once on the boat, ensures the operator of the Carnival Japan cruise, he was diagnosed with coronavirus on February 1. It was the beginning of the disaster on the ocean liner.
We are at the end of January and the virus still presents multiple unknowns. The appreciation of its speed of propagation is only at its beginnings: the Chinese city of Wuhan, epicenter of Covid-19, has just been placed in quarantine and there are then only 41 deaths.
February 1st. After several days spent at sea, with stops in Vietnam and Taiwan, it is decided by the Japanese authorities, who have just learned of the contamination of the disembarked passenger, that the Diamond Princess will not dock. It is placed in quarantine in Naha, port and capital of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
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Cruise lines don't know it yet, but it may already be too late to stem the epidemic on board. "We believe that the majority of infections occurred before the date on which quarantine measures began," said Shigeru Omi, former regional chief of the World Health Organization, this week.
February 4. The ship must this time dock in Tokyo to complete the cruise, but it is again isolated offshore, in Yokohama Bay, while an inventory of the epidemic is carried out. Eight tourists are already showing symptoms. However, only three groups of passengers (273 people) will be tested: those who have symptoms, those who have stopped over in Hong Kong, like patient 0, as well as those who have been in contact with him.
February 5. The first test results have been received: there are 10 infected, including a member of the crew. The boat can only approach the port for its supplies and exfiltrate its sick passengers so that they are hospitalized.
The rules of quarantine observed on the boat are strict: tourists must stay in their cabins, except for short trips on the bridge, but also avoid contact between them within a meter and wear masks.
The cabin crew continue to share the same spaces and only wear simple gloves and a mask when delivering meals and essentials to cruise passengers. The end of the quarantine is estimated at February 19. These 14 days of confinement correspond to the maximum incubation period of the virus.
February 7. 61 cases have been reported. Faced with this frightening speed of spread, the authorities decide to extend their tests to other categories: vulnerable people, as well as those who have been in contact with the new sick. The ship is finally docked at Yokohama.
February 10 . As the test results arrive, the number of patients explodes. There are 135. The quai d'Orsay announces the presence of four French on the boat.
Several testimonies, notably on Twitter, already point to breaches of the confinement rules, while time is getting longer and longer on board. Tourists are seen without masks, or moving regularly on the deck ... More and more passengers are asking to be disembarked, fearing to contract the virus on the spot.
February 13. The number of patients has doubled again, they are now 218, including an officer responsible for managing quarantine, a French tourist and 10 people in serious condition. Only 710 tests were carried out, representing 20% of the passengers. To justify such a low figure, the government says it lacks test kits. If he wants to keep it for the rest of the Japanese population, he can only test 300 passengers per day.
February 16. 355 people are sick and only 1219 occupants have been tested. The boat is gradually emptying: the Japanese authorities have decided to evacuate elderly passengers, with fragile health, even if they are not sick. Several states, including the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia and Hong Kong, believe that the containment measures are not radical enough and have announced that they will repatriate their nationals stranded on the boat.
February 17. 454 people are infected. 300 Americans, including 14 sick, evacuated the liner and returned to the United States for further isolation.
February 19. 621 people, or one sixth of the passengers, were diagnosed with the virus (including two of the four French). All the occupants of the boat were finally able to be tested since the day before. The balance sheet could worsen further.
Crucial day on board: the first tourists to observe 14 days of quarantine are out and are now free to move. Only those who have received a negative test for the virus and have not had close contact with an infected person are concerned. Or 500 people to evacuate over three days.
Many critics emerge on this decision, while the results of analyzes carried out on several hundred passengers are not yet known. During the day, 79 new infections were made public. How can we be sure that the freed passengers have not been in contact with these new patients? "We have all been tested at some point, but the virus continues to spread on the boat, so there is no point in it," protested a seventy-year-old, just arrived, from the Japan Times.
In addition, an infectious disease expert who got into the Diamond Princess on Tuesday described a "chaotic situation". “This vessel is totally unsuitable for controlling the spread of infections. There is no distinction between green (considered healthy) and red (potentially infected) zones, ”he told AFP. How far will the epidemic develop on this boat, which has become the bane of the Japanese authorities?
Coronavirus: Doctor denounces "chaos" aboard the Diamond Princess