TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The cruise liner that was quarantined off Yokohama, Japan, on Tuesday (Feb. 4) made a port of call in Taiwan just days after a passenger infected with the coronavirus disembarked and four days before 10 more were diagnosed with the potentially deadly virus.
The Diamond Princess, a liner belonging to California-based Princess Cruises, is currently on lockdown in waters off Yokohama's Daikoku Pier after it was discovered on Tuesday that a passenger had been diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus (2019-nCoV) after traveling aboard the vessel for one leg of its scheduled 14-day cruise, reported CNN.
The infected passenger was a Hong Kong man who had boarded in Yokohama on Jan. 20 and disembarked on Jan. 25 during a stop in the semiautonomous city, Princess Cruises said in a statement. While onboard, the man had developed a cough but did not report to the ship's medical facilities, and he was later diagnosed with coronavirus-induced pneumonia at a Hong Kong hospital on Feb. 1.
After the passenger disembarked, the ship went on to visit the Vietnamese destinations of Chan May and Halong Bay on Jan. 27 and 28, respectively, according to the ship's itinerary. The Diamond Princess then pulled into the northern Taiwan city of Keelung on Jan. 31, where it was scheduled to stop for about 10 hours.
The cruise liner reported there were 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew members on board. Half of the passengers were Japanese, and manifest data uploaded by passengers showed there to be as many as 470 Hongkongers onboard, according to Stand News. The 10 who have tested positive for the virus so far include three Japanese, three Hongkongers, two Australians, one Filipino, and one American.
All 10 of the confirmed cases have been hospitalized, and tests of the other passengers and crew are continuing cabin by cabin. The Diamond Princess will remain under quarantine in Yokohama for 14 days, and its next cruise, which had been scheduled to begin Tuesday, has been canceled.