Three of the five Macau passengers onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is stranded in Yokohama, have returned to Macau and are now under monitored quarantine at a Health Bureau facility in Coloane.
Two of them were repatriated on the second charter flight arranged by the Hong Kong government, which arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday morning. This was made possible through an agreement made between the Special Administrative Regions, enabling Macau residents on the ship to be evacuated as well.
The two evacuated on the Hong Kong charter flight were taken straight from the airport in Hong Kong back to Macau via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. Medical staff conducted checks on them and found no respiratory symptoms. The third Macau resident took a commercial flight to Hong Kong before returning to Macau.
The remaining two Macau residents onboard the cruise ship were also repatriated, the Macao Government Tourism Office confirmed. It was believed they are residents of both Hong Kong and Macau, and have decided to stay in Hong Kong, sources indicated earlier.
So far, the Hong Kong government has chartered three flights to evacuate passengers from Hong Kong, with the third arriving yesterday morning.
The plane arrived at around 6 a.m. on Sunday with five passengers from Hong Kong onboard, an official from the Hong Kong government’s Security Bureau said yesterday.
According to the latest figures, over 100 Hong Kong residents on the ship are still in Japan, including 68 who tested positive for Covid-19, 32 close contacts and dozens of non-close contacts.
Those who tested positive are being treated at a hospital in Japan. Close contacts will be brought back later if they test negative and are fit to travel by plane, said the Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health, Sophia Chan.
A total of 208 Hong Kong residents who were on the ship have returned on chartered flights or other flights. All of them have been sent to a quarantine center in the New Territories for 14 days.
Among them was a nine-year-old child who developed mild fever on Friday was sent to hospital and tested negative for the virus. A 68-year-old man was sent to hospital on Saturday after developing a fever, according to Chan.
Before the evacuation operation by the Hong Kong government, there were 364 Hong Kong residents on board the quarantined ship altogether.
The Diamond Princess, initially carrying around 2,600 passengers and 1,100 crew members from more than 50 countries and regions, has been quarantined in Yokohama Port south of Tokyo since February 5 after a Covid-19 outbreak occurred on the ship.
A passenger who got off the Diamond Princess after completing the cruise ship’s quarantine this past week tested positive for the new virus Saturday, becoming the first known case of infection among those released at the end of the ship’s containment period, Japanese officials said.
Despite strong doubts raised from inside and outside the country, Japanese health ministry officials have insisted that any passengers who completed the 14-day quarantine, tested negative for the virus and showed no symptoms had nearly zero risk of becoming a virus patient.
Some experts and former passengers have criticized the quarantine, saying anti-infection measures were inadequate. The U.S., Australia and other governments that evacuated their citizens from the ship are requiring them an additional two-week quarantine.
Japan’s health minister, Katsunobu Kato, said on Saturday that 23 passengers had been released from the Diamond Princess at the end of the quarantine without being tested for the virus due to procedural mistakes, another sign of sloppiness in the quarantine of the ship.
He said the 23 were tested before the quarantine began Feb. 5, but were allowed to leave the ship on Wednesday and Thursday without being tested again. Three of them have since tested negative, and most of the others have agreed to be tested, he said.
Kato said officials have tracked all 23 passengers down and asked them to self-quarantine at home for 14 days.
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