More Crewmembers To Leave Quarantined Cruise Ship
About 100 more crewmembers who tested negative for the new coronavirus will disembark from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship on Friday.
They are among the roughly 150 crewmembers who remain on board the ship docked at Yokohama Port, south of Tokyo. Many of them are non-Japanese nationals.
They will head for a government facility in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, after leaving the vessel.
That's where 91 crewmembers are staying after they left the ship on Thursday upon testing negative for the virus.
The crewmembers will stay there for two weeks, after which they will be retested. They will be allowed to leave if their results come back negative again.
Japan's health ministry said some crewmembers will not go to the facility but instead return home on chartered flights prepared by their governments or other means.
The ministry said the last group of crewmembers to remain on the ship will disembark in several days.
It added that the last remaining passenger disembarked on Thursday.
The cruise ship was carrying roughly 3,700 people. 705 were transferred to medical institutions in Japan after they were confirmed infected with the virus. More people also tested positive after leaving the ship and returning home.
