Even as cleared passengers disembark, quarantine conditions trouble experts
About 500 passengers who tested negative for the novel coronavirus left their quarantined cruise ship in Japan on Wednesday.
But the announcement that a further 79 people on board the Diamond Princess had that day been confirmed with the virus cast a shadow over the departure of their cleared fellow holidaymakers.
The large number of new infections reported has fueled concerns among experts over a possible breach of public safety protocols on board.
In a three-day operation, the first group of hundreds of passengers began disembarking from the stricken ship on Wednesday morning after the end of a 14-day quarantine which had failed to stop the onboard spreading of the virus.
That day, the report of the 79 new infections, by NHK, brought the total number of infections on the ship to 621. The ship had set sail with 3,711 passengers and crew members on board.
A day earlier, 88 people were confirmed as having the virus, including a doctor. Among the 621 people, 68 of them didn't show symptoms such as fever.
"Those getting off the ship in Japan with negative virus tests have fulfilled the Japanese quarantine requirement and are free to walk out and go home on public transportation," Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said on Wednesday.
Kato said the decision to allow the cleared passengers to leave was approved by experts at Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
The passengers have been told to monitor their health over the coming days and to notify health authorities if they have any symptoms or worries.
"I'm a bit concerned if I'm OK to get off the ship, but it was getting very difficult physically," a 77-year-old man from Saitama prefecture told Kyodo News. "For now, we just want to celebrate." The man left the ship with his wife.
Additional quarantine
Unlike with the conditions set in Japan, some countries that have arranged charter flights to take their nationals home will require most of them to have an additional two-week quarantine.
"The first charter plane had been arranged by the central government together with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government. It will take off around 1:45 am on Thursday morning to Hong Kong," said Zhan Kongchao, consul-general at the Chinese embassy in Tokyo.
Zhan said all Chinese citizens, including those from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, will be allowed to take the flights if they register.
An official from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Tokyo told China Daily that its officials could not board the cruise ship. However, through the cruise operator, they have been delivering medicine and daily necessities to Hong Kong residents in need and they will continue to advise the requirements of these passengers to the cruise operator and doctors.
There are more than 330 Chinese on the Diamond Princess. As of Wednesday, 11 from Hong Kong and one each from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan have tested positive for the virus.
With the first group of cleared passengers leaving the ship, many experts have questioned the effectiveness of the quarantine measures on the ship.
They fear that the ship could become the source of a fresh wave of global infections because its passengers come from more than 50 countries.
In a video posted to YouTube on Tuesday, Kentaro Iwata, a professor at the infectious diseases division of Japan's Kobe University who had got on board, said the situation on the boat is "completely chaotic".
"It was completely inadequate in terms of the infection control," Iwata said, adding that those in charge had failed to separate the infected from the healthy because "there was no way to tell where the virus was".
