[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] A Japanese woman who was disembarked from the cruise ship Diamond Princess after being assessed by the Japanese government as unlikely to have contracted the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) has tested positive for the virus.
Earlier, the Japanese government allowed approximately 970 passengers to disembark from the cruise ship between the 19th and 21st of this month without additional quarantine measures. However, with this woman testing positive for COVID-19, concerns have been raised about the possibility of further infections among those who disembarked from the Diamond Princess together.
On the 23rd, Japanese media including the Asahi Shimbun reported that a woman in her 60s residing in Tochigi Prefecture, who disembarked from the Diamond Princess docked at Yokohama Port on the 19th, tested positive for COVID-19 on the 22nd.
According to reports, this woman tested negative in a test conducted on the 14th of this month after a sample was collected, and she disembarked from the Diamond Princess on the 19th and returned home. The Japanese government allowed about 970 people who tested negative for COVID-19 and showed no symptoms such as fever to disembark between the 19th and 21st.
The Japanese government began cabin quarantine restricting passengers' movement inside the ship on the 5th of this month and allowed passengers who met certain conditions to disembark after completing the 14-day incubation period of COVID-19. Eighty-nine passengers who shared a room with infected individuals and were classified as close contacts disembarked separately on the 22nd and were housed at the Saitama Prefectural Tax College.
However, with confirmed infections among those who disembarked from the Diamond Princess, doubts are growing about whether the Japanese government's judgment that "there is no risk of additional infections onboard and it is safe to disembark" was appropriate.
In particular, the woman who tested positive after disembarking used public transportation to travel from Yokohama to Tochigi Prefecture, and then was driven from the station in Tochigi Prefecture to her home by a friend who came to pick her up, increasing the likelihood of additional infections.
Previously, some Australians who met the negative test and asymptomatic conditions and returned on the 20th tested positive immediately after returning, and among foreigners who returned via chartered or private flights, 25 have been identified as positive.
Separately, the Japanese government revealed gaps such as omitting virus tests when disembarking some passengers from the Diamond Princess. It was found that 23 people were allowed to disembark without undergoing virus testing.
When staff collected samples by visiting cabins, some passengers were out for walks and not in their rooms, and subsequent follow-up measures were not properly taken, resulting in them disembarking without being tested. Among those who missed testing, 19 were Japanese and 4 were foreigners; 3 of them were later tested and found to be negative.
Of the remaining 20, 17 have scheduled tests, but 3 are unreachable, raising concerns about the further spread of COVID-19 within Japan.
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