2-3 minutesJapan’s
health minister apologized on Saturday after a woman who was allowed to
leave a coronavirus-infected cruise ship docked near Tokyo tested
positive for the virus.
The woman in her 60s disembarked the
Diamond Princess in Yokohama on Wednesday following a two-week
quarantine on board, but was found to be positive following another test
in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Health Minister Katsunobu
Kato told a news conference in Tokyo on Saturday evening that 23 people
who had disembarked on Wednesday and Thursday had not undergone tests
since before Feb. 5, and the ministry was trying to reach them for
retesting.
“We deeply apologize for the situation caused by our
oversight,” Kato said. “We will take all necessary measures, like double
checks, to prevent a recurrence.”
The cruise ship, owned by Carnival Corp (
CCL.N), and carrying some 3,700 passengers and crew, has been quarantined in Yokohama since Feb. 3.
Japan’s
government is facing growing questions about whether it is doing enough
to stop the spread of the coronavirus that originated in China and has
killed more than 2,400 as Tokyo prepares to host the 2020 Summer
Olympics in July.
The U.S. State Department raised its travel
advisory for Japan to Level 2 on its four-notch scale on Saturday
because of what it termed “sustained community spread.”
The
number of confirmed domestic cases grew to 132 after the health ministry
said on Saturday it had confirmed 27 new cases of the flu-like illness.
That is separate from the more than 600 cases from the Diamond
Princess, the biggest concentration of infections outside China.
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Among the new cases on Saturday was a boy under 10
years old in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, and also a teacher in
Chiba Prefecture east of Tokyo who had gone to school while she had
symptoms.
Children had been thought to possibly be less
vulnerable to the new virus, with far fewer reported infections in much
younger people.
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