


Japanese officials say they have wrangled nearly two dozen passengers mistakenly released from the Diamond Princess cruise in what was the latest blunder from the ship’s coronavirus quarantine, according to reports.
The country’s health ministry said it has found 23 passengers who disembarked despite not undergoing tests required to leave the locked-down vessel in Yokohama, CNN reported.
The passengers in question received negative results before the 14-day quarantine, but they were required to undergo a second test for clearance to leave, the report said. At least three of those passengers have tested negative since departing the cruise.
“We are deeply sorry. We will thoroughly make sure that this kind of mistake does not happen again,” health minister Katsunobu Kato said, according to the Japan Times.
More than 690 passengers and crew members from the vessel have fallen sick — with at least 18 Americans, one Japanese and several Australians testing positive after disembarking and returning home.
Japan said Monday that two health officials who assisted with the onboard efforts to contain the deadly virus have also contracted the illness themselves, the Agence Frances-Presse reported.
A quarantine officer in his 50s and a health ministry official in his 40s were both hospitalized for the virus after being sent individually to assist on the vessel, the outlet reported.
Meanwhile, Japanese health officials have acknowledged that the quarantine on the ship was “not perfect.”
“The ship was not designed to be a hospital. The ship was a ship,” said Shigeru Omi, a public health expert who heads the Japan Community Health Care Organization. “Of course isolation was not ideal as would be expected from a hospital, so in my view although the isolation was somehow effective, to a large extent it was not perfect.”
With Post wires



