Metro Atlanta residents will be among the hundreds of Americans evacuated from a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship in Japan on Sunday, health officials said.
Passengers and crew members aboard the Diamond Princess have been quarantined in Yokohama for more than a week after an outbreak of coronavirus infections on the ship.
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Officials quarantined the roughly 3,700 people after a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus. Since then, more than 200 new cases have been reported on the ship.
About 400 people aboard the vessel are American, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.
“To fulfill our responsibilities to U.S. citizens, as well as to reduce the burden on the Japanese health care system, the U.S. government recommends that U.S. citizens disembark and return to the United States for further monitoring,” the CDC said.
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Those returning on the state-chartered flights will be subject to an additional 14-day quarantine at two U.S. air bases: Travis Air Force Base in California and Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
Not all of the Americans stranded overseas will be allowed to return home, however.
Passengers showing symptoms of the virus must remain in Japan for medical care, health officials said. At least 40 infected Americans have already been taken off the ship for treatment, according to The New York Times.
Among them are Atlanta residents Renee and Clyde Smith, who will likely remain at a Tokyo hospital as they recover, their son said Saturday.
Macon attorney David Smith said his 80-year-old parents remain in good spirits despite being confined to their hospital room.
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“I’ve been talking to them every night. They’re doing very well,” Smith said. “They say the people at the hospital are treating them like royalty.”
Clyde Smith was diagnosed with pneumonia when he first arrived at the hospital. He is doing better now, and neither he nor Renee are showing any more symptoms, their son said.
Their grandsons Saywer and Gavin Smith, who are both in their 20s, have not caught the virus and are expected to board one of Sunday’s flights back to the U.S.
David Smith said they are excited about getting out of their small room on the cruise ship, but understand they will remain quarantined for at least two more weeks.
Nearly 200 Georgia residents are being “isolated” in their homes after returning from recent trips to China.
Georgia authorities are avoiding using the word quarantine, saying instead that people are being isolated in their homes for 14 days, the illness’ incubation period.
The broader coronavirus outbreak started in December in Wuhan, an industrial city of 11 million people in central China. Since then, the number of diagnoses has exploded.
The vast majority of cases of coronavirus, which was officially named COVID-19, are in China.
China reported 2,641 new cases in the 24 hours through midnight Friday, raising its total to more than 66,000, The Associated Press reported. Mainland China's death toll rose to more than 1,500.
Europe also reported its first death from the virus on Saturday after an 80-year-old tourist from China’s Hubei province died in France. The man was initially hospitalized Jan. 25 with a lung infection, authorities said.
