Passengers begin leaving after ship's virus quarantine ends – The Manila Times

Hundreds of passengers began leaving the Diamond Princess cruise ship Wednesday after the end of a much-criticized, two-week quarantine that failed to stop the spread of a new virus among passengers and crew.

Japanese soldiers helped escort some passengers, including an elderly man in a wheelchair who wore a face mask and held a cane. Some passengers apparently called taxis to get home; others got on buses to be transported to train stations. Some people still in their ship cabins waved farewell from their balconies to those who’d already disembarked.

About 500 passengers were expected to leave Wednesday, and Japanese officials will spend several days staging the high-stakes evacuation of about 2,000 others who were kept aboard the ship at the Yokohama port near Tokyo after one passenger who departed the Diamond Princess earlier in Hong Kong was found to have the virus.

Crew members, who couldn’t be confined to their rooms over the last two weeks because they were working, are expected to stay on the ship. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga defended Japan’s handling of the quarantine: “In the beginning, the United States expressed gratitude for the Japanese side. And there are many Americans who chose to stay on the ship,” Suga said.

An unidentified passenger is surrounded by the media after he disembarked from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020, in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Passengers tested negative for COVID-19 started disembarking Wednesday.

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