Photo/Illutration A bus carrying passengers from the Diamond Princess leaves Yokohama Port on Feb. 19. (The Asahi Shimbun)

Uninfected passengers began disembarking from the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess on Feb. 19 after two weeks of confined life.

Only passengers who had tested negative and showed no symptoms of infection, such as fever or coughs, were allowed to leave the ship, where more than 600 passengers and crew members have fallen ill with the novel coronavirus.

It is suspected that the infection spread within the vessel even after the government started requiring passengers to remain in their cabins on Feb. 5. One Japanese expert who entered the ship on Feb. 18 has pointed out that no effective measures to prevent the spread of the virus were taken.

It is vital to swiftly identify the causes of the mass infection and the routes of transmission so that more effective measures to contain the epidemic can be taken. The information should be shared with the rest of the world.

People who have disembarked need special mental and physical care. It should be ensured that their health will be checked regularly and any problem, if found, will be handled properly.

This is crucial for allaying the anxiety of the former passengers and people around them.

The government has repeatedly flip-flopped on how to deal with the situation. Initially, it planned to allow passengers showing no symptoms to leave the ship. After cases of infection were found during the quarantine immediately after the ship entered Yokohama Port, however, the government changed the plan and required passengers to stay aboard.

As new cases were found almost daily, some passengers had to be rushed to hospitals as their chronic health problems worsened. The government then began allowing elderly passengers to disembark on Feb. 14.

Some factors hampered the government’s efforts to cope with the treacherous situation, including insufficient capacity of the virus testing system. But some experts questioned the wisdom of keeping all passengers on the ship, including people in good health showing no symptoms and those who had tested negative for the virus.

It is possible that the government’s adherence to the policy of banning all people suspected to be infected from entering the nation may have backfired and caused the situation to deteriorate.

There are also issues to be raised regarding daily life support to people on board, such as supplying regular medications and providing important information to passengers and crew members. These issues should also be scrutinized.

Besides Japanese nationals, passengers and crew members from 55 countries and areas were on board when the cruise ship arrived in Yokohama Port. It is difficult to claim that the measures taken by the Japanese government are considered as effective by these countries.

The United States has used two chartered flights to evacuate American passengers and bring them back home but required them to undergo a two-week quarantine at U.S. military bases.

That means the U.S. government has not bought the health ministry’s claim that no new cases of infection had been occurred in the ship since Feb. 5.

Clarifying what exactly happened within the ship is crucial for ensuring more coordinated and effective responses by countries.

Another big issue that has been highlighted by the cruise ship debacle is the lack of established international rules concerning how to deal with large ships with many actual and potential virus patients on board.

Another cruise ship had to sail around the sea without knowing where to go for more than a week as it was turned away by countries such as Japan, the Philippines and Thailand until Cambodia accepted it. The World Health Organization has criticized the nations’ decisions to refuse the ship as risk assessment not based on scientific grounds.

It is clearly necessary to establish solid and clear international rules concerning quarantines, treatment and cost-sharing issues related to virus epidemics.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 20

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