TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s government said it would quarantine a cruise ship that is set to dock in Yokohama on Monday after a Hong Kong man who sailed on it last month later tested positive for the coronavirus.
The 80-year-old man flew to Japan and boarded the ship, the Diamond Princess run by Carnival Japan Inc, in Yokohama on Jan 20 and disembarked on Jan. 25, NHK public broadcaster said.
He developed a cough the day before embarking but did not develop a fever until Jan. 30, a day before he was confirmed to have the virus in Hong Kong, NHK reported.
It was not immediately clear if any of the unknown number of passengers currently on the ship were aboard at the same time as the infected man, but Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference on Monday that Japanese authorities would quarantine the vessel based on the law.
Carnival Japan was not immediately available to comment.
Japan has 20 confirmed cases of the virus, all but three of them people who were in Wuhan, the central Chinese city in which it is believed to have originated, or from there.
Reporting by Takashi Umekawa; Editing by Alex Richardson
Source: Reuters.com
