One hundred and sixty Hong Kong residents on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship return to Hong Kong from Tokyo on Thursday morning on a flight chartered by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government. (PHOTO / INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT)
A second chartered flight will bring back more Hong Kong residents stranded on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan on Friday at the earliest, after the first group of 106 people landed in Hong Kong on Thursday morning.
All residents were cleared of the novel coronavirus by the Japanese government before disembarking the vessel, which has been in quarantine at the Japanese port of Yokohama for more than two weeks. They are now under a 14-day mandatory quarantine in Chun Yueng Estate as a precaution.
People under quarantine are not allowed to go out, and designated vehicles will be arranged for exceptional cases
Sophia Chan Siu-chee, secretary for food and health
Back home, Hong Kong confirmed two more infections and one likely confirmed case, bringing the total to a possible 69.
The Diamond Princess had been quarantined since Feb 3 with 634 people on board infected by the novel coronavirus, including 65 among 364 people from Hong Kong.
The 65 infected patients and more than 30 people who have been in close contact with them had to stay in Japan for treatment and medical observation, according to the Hong Kong government.
Meeting reporters, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said the body temperatures of all passengers had been checked before they boarded the plane and after they had disembarked.
They will be tested for the disease again after arriving at Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan, Chan said, adding only those who tested positive will be isolated. Chan stressed that the 14-day quarantine was necessary as the proliferation of the infection on the ship showed the transmission chain hadn’t been cut off.
Hong Kong passengers on board the Diamond Princess are sent to Chun Yeung Estate for quarantine by shuttle buses right after they arrived in the city on Thursday morning. (EDMOND TANG / CHINA DAILY)
Chan said medical staff would be on duty around the clock at the estate. People under quarantine are not allowed to go out, and designated vehicles will be arranged for exceptional cases, she said.
She also called on local residents not to panic as the quarantine center is located far from other residential buildings.
Also on Thursday, the Department of Health urged passengers who had shared buses with two infected patients on Feb 5 to contact the government.
The city’s 25th and 62nd patients, who did not know each other, entered Hong Kong from Macao on Feb 5.
They took the same 101X bus from downtown Macao to the checkpoints of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and then transferred to a shuttle bus to Hong Kong at 5 pm.
The two buses carried a total of about 40 passengers.
