A fourth person has died in Japan after becoming ill aboard a cruise ship stricken by COVID-19, local media reported yesterday, as the government unveiled a new policy to tackle the outbreak.
Nearly 700 people on board the Diamond Princess, which spent two weeks quarantined off Japan, have tested positive for the virus.
Four people who were hospitalized after being taken off the ship have died, the latest a man in his 80s, local media reported.
The Yomiuri Shimbun said the man had tested positive for the virus and died of pneumonia.
Three others, all Japanese, have so far died after becoming sick on the ship.
Two were confirmed to have the virus, while the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare declined to comment on the diagnosis of the third.
Japan has come under increasing pressure over its handling of the ship, particularly after it emerged that some passengers allowed to disembark after testing negative were subsequently diagnosed with the virus.
Some of the disembarking passengers were not even tested during the quarantine period, the ministry has said.
Several health officials working on the ship have contracted the virus, but authorities have defended a policy of not uniformly testing those working on the boat.
“We are aware of the risks of them getting infected when they take off a mask or gloves, so we will have thorough measures to prevent infections under these circumstances,” Japanese Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Katsunobu Kato said, adding that no change in policy was planned.
Many nations have evacuated their citizens from the ship, with 450 Filipinos due to be flown home yesterday on two chartered flights.
Another 81 who have tested positive for the virus are to stay in Japan.
As the situation on the ship has come under scrutiny, infections have spiked inside Japan, with 156 cases, including one death.
“As we see patients whose infection routes are not clear in several regions in Japan, now is a crucial phase to prevent the spread of infection from happening on a huge scale,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.
“It is important that we contain the spread in Japan by slowing the speed of the increase of new patients as much as possible,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a Cabinet meeting on the outbreak. “To this end, we shall thoroughly strengthen measures against patient clusters.”
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
RSS