Italy intends to evacuate quickly, probably during the coming week, its nationals who are in quarantine off the coast of Japan on board a liner where 355 cases of the new coronavirus have been reported.
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“ I think this week will be decisive. As you know, the United States is in the process of evacuating its nationals who were on board the ship. We will be next, "said Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio on Sunday.
" The head of Italian civil protection will meet tomorrow for a round table to decide how to get the 35 or so Italian citizens on board the ship, " he added.
In quarantine since February 5
The Diamond Princess had been placed in quarantine on February 5 with its 3711 passengers and crew members for 14 days after a positive test on a cruise ship landed in Hong Kong. As of Sunday, 355 people were declared infected and hospitalized.
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Faced with the worsening of the situation and given doubts about the effectiveness of the measures taken, several countries have decided to evacuate their nationals who appear to be healthy and place them for fourteen days in quarantine in their respective countries.
" We will recover them with an Air Force Boeing and we will bring them back to Italy where they will follow the health protocol decided by the Ministry of Health, " added Mr. Di Maio.
It is the same protocol as in other countries, with a quarantine of 14 days in a military city of Rome for people without symptoms and in a hospital specializing in infectious diseases for others.
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