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State Department will evacuate Americans from cruise ship, first death confirmed in Europe

Story Highlights
  • China’s National Health Commission reported an additional 143 deaths nationwide, as well as 2,641 new confirmed cases as of Feb. 14. That brings the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 66,492, and number of total deaths at 1,523, the authority said.
  • A Chinese tourist has died of the virus in France, confirming the first coronavirus fatality in Europe.
  • The U.S. State Department will evacuate its citizens and their families who are onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Japan that has been quarantined for almost two weeks.
  • White House trade advisor Peter Navarro told Fox Business Network on Friday night Eastern time that testing and production of a coronavirus drug could start as soon as late February.

Americans infected with coronavirus cannot leave a planned charter flight to evacuate U.S. citizens stranded on a cruise ship quarantined in Japan, officials said Saturday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Saturday that it would evacuate all U.S. citizens who are asked to leave the quarantined ship, the Diamond Princess, and fly to Japan on planes chartered by the U.S. State Department. A plane arranged by the US State Department will land in Japan on February 16 and take an unspecified number of Americans to a hospital, where they will be quarantined for at least two weeks, according to US officials. The US plans to move Americans from the cruise ships stranded off Japan to a quarantine centre in Tokyo.

The US Embassy in Tokyo has informed Princess Cruises that it will provide a chartered aircraft to return Diamond Princess passengers currently quarantined to the United States. American personnel, guests and crew who had to beg in quarantine, the State Department said.

Passengers planning to travel on cruise ships should contact their cruise line or company directly for more information, the State Department said. The US government’s decision to evacuate cruise ship passengers in recent weeks relied on advice from the US Coast Guard and other federal agencies, not the advice of the cruise industry, she said, but information from other countries such as Japan and South Korea and recommendations from international health authorities.

On February 8, 2020, it is recommended that all Americans remain on board in their cabins on the cruise ship for their own protection. Cruise ship passengers will have to undergo a 14-day quarantine at a military facility, meaning they will be quarantined for nearly four weeks in total, according to the State Department. If they are housed in the US, they will also have to endure 14 days of quarantine in military facilities, meaning that they will remain in quarantine for almost three weeks in total. Cruise ships must then undergo a 13-day quarantine period and 15 days in medical facilities for the duration of their stay in the ship’s port of entry. cruises, and they can also go through 14-day quarantine in military facilities, i.e. they will be quarantined for the entire stay under 14 weeks and placed in health facilities in US countries of origin, i.e. they are in bogs or in hospitals and nursing homes.

Bob Dixon, who is currently on the cruise ship, said he was not happy when he heard he had to leave the Diamond Princess after learning he was in quarantine in the United States. American citizens, and they will also undergo 14-day quarantine in America upon their return. 

They will also be quarantined in the US for 14 days if the coronavirus returns to the US, according to a State Department statement.

For the departing Americans, the evacuation shortens the 14-day quarantine that began on February 5 aboard the cruise ship. It is a short moment for them, but it is still the same for them as for all the other passengers and crew members on the ship, the State Department statement said. As the Americans had left the United States, the evacuations interrupted a 14-day quarantine that began on the cruise ship on February 5, only to be quarantined again. Without them in it, they cut it short: The evacuation shortened the 13-year-old girl’s 14-day quarantine, which began on January 28 on a cruise ship, by 14 to 15 days. 

In the United States, 15 cases have been reported, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and there are more than 1,000 cases in Europe and the Middle East. In Thessaloniki, Greece, 15 cases of Zika virus were reported on a cruise ship on January 28 and on a plane on February 5.

The Americans are the second largest passenger contingent on the Diamond and Princess cruise ships after the Japanese. Americans are among the passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that became a hotspot for the new coronavirus COVID-19 in early February. 

According to the New York Department of Health, 44 Americans on the cruise ship tested positive for the coronavirus and were taken to hospitals in Japan. The 46 Americans who tested positive for the cruise ship are expected to remain in the country to treat the virus, which has killed an estimated 1.65 people and infected more than 70,000 worldwide, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition, city authorities asked patients with mild symptoms not to travel to a local hospital in Lackland for treatment if one of the evacuees from cruise ships docking in Japan tested positive for the virus – a request that was ignored.

A cruise ship carrying at least 21 passengers infected will dock in California on Monday. The Diamond Princess will set sail on 20 January and anchor at Yokohama Harbour on 3 February 2020. Japanese authorities quarantined the Princess after a passenger who left the cruise ship from Hong Kong tested positive for the coronavirus. 

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