YOKOHAMA.- In the early hours of the night, the captain’s voice was heard through the intercom: a passenger who had disembarked from the cruise ship nine days earlier had tested positive for a new coronavirus that was spreading through China at full speed. While the passengers were quite disturbed, it was the last night of their luxurious two-week cruise aboard the Diamond Princess, so the party continued, as the ship approached the Japanese port of Yokohama.
The passengers ate beef tenderloin, watched a show from one of the 700 seats in the auditorium and filled the bars and dance floors until late at night. In total, it took more than 72 hours for Japanese authorities to impose quarantine since they learned of the confirmed case linked to the ship.
The delay of the Japanese government, improvisation and inefficient containment measures during the two weeks of the period of isolation would contribute to turning the Diamond Princess into a floating epidemiological catastrophe.
Passengers with fever were left in their cabins for days without being tested for the virus. Health officials and even some doctors worked on board without full protective uniform. Sick crewmen shared a cabin with healthy colleagues who continued to perform duties on the ship, undermining the effectiveness of quarantine.
With 634 infected and two dead, the cruise represents the highest concentration of coronavirus cases outside of China, which earned it its own category in data compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Now that the quarantine is over and almost all the passengers have left, the concern is that they start spreading the virus on the mainland. Since the end of the quarantine, Japanese authorities allowed some 1,000 passengers who tested negative for the virus to leave freely, but experts fear that some of them will develop symptoms later.
In the early hours of February 2, even before the ship docked at Yokohama, the Hong Kong authorities informed the Japanese Ministry of Health about that first infected passenger. But just past 23 that night, when the shows on board ended, passengers were advised not to leave their cabins. When the ship docked, the doctors they boarded went door to door to see if they had a fever, cough, and to do some of them. On board people continued to socialize, mixing in the rows of the dining room, sharing ladles, salt and pepper shakers on the tables.
The passengers assumed that their departure would be delayed one day, or something like that. On the morning of the next day, February 5, the captain spoke again on the intercom and told them that the Japanese Ministry of Health had confirmed 10 cases of coronavirus aboard the cruise.
Many were already on their way to the dining room for breakfast, but the captain told them that they should return immediately to their cabins, where they would remain isolated for the next 14 days. Caught there, the 2666 passengers now had time to remember each of the interpersonal encounters that could have put them in contact with the virus in the days before the ship was closed. And every day new cases appeared: first 10, then another 10 and then a peak of 41.
The most desperate thing for the passengers was the feeling that they were reprinted. Hours passed since the Ministry of Health leaked the data of the new infections to the media until passengers on board were notified.
On the second day, health authorities began to allow those housed in cabins without windows to take turns on deck to ventilate. Only on the third day the passengers were informed that they should keep two meters away from each other.
Analysis
At first, health authorities did not analyze all passengers for the virus, arguing for lack of resources. Instead, they focused on high-risk individuals: those who had had direct contact with the originally infected passenger, and then passed on to older adults and people with symptoms.
Some found it difficult to get medical attention, even after they began to show symptoms of the disease. Carol Montgomery, 67, from San Clemente, Calif., Called the infirmary to let her know she had a fever and wanted to have her tested. They told him that it depended on the Ministry of Health, and that there were no test kits on board. Her husband, John, called the US embassy in Tokyo and tried to convince an official that everyone should be analyzed. “I feel under the microscope,” said Montgomery. “We are the guinea pigs of an experiment.”
During all that time, the crew worked piecework, in shifts of up to 13 hours. The 1045 crew had to remain in their positions despite the increasing risk; 85 were infected. “The emotional, physical and psychological stress we are suffering is really terrible,” said a woman from the kitchen staff, who contracted the virus.
As the cases of contagion were increasing, the boredom of the passengers became fear. In private Facebook groups, they expressed their desperation to leave, and their families viralized the hashtag #getthemoffthatboat (“get them off that ship”). They questioned the effectiveness of quarantine and warned that the virus could pass from cabin to cabin through the ventilation system.
A week and a half later, the United States decided to evacuate its citizens on board, but it proved problematic. When the 328 American passengers and crew were on their way to Tokyo airport, officials learned through the health authorities that 14 of them were infected. Finally, they decided to evacuate them all the same. They put the infected in the back and divided the plane with plastic and duct tape.
Other countries did the same, by evacuating quarantined citizens in charter planes. However, many passengers simply had to get off the ship alone in Yokohama at the end of the quarantine, including a large number of Japanese, representing half of all passengers on board.
Translation by Jaime Arrambide
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