ONLINE
\nTokyo
\nThe first hundreds of passengers who tested negative for the new coronavirus have begun leaving a ship moored off Japan, after 14 days of quarantine.
\nAt least 542 passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess have been infected by the Covid-19 virus – the biggest cluster outside mainland China. Passengers have described the difficult quarantine situation on the vessel.
\nSeveral nations are evacuating their citizens from the ship as infections continue to rise.
\nOn Sunday the US removed hundreds of its citizens from the ship and placed them in quarantine. The UK said it hopes to fly 74 British nationals on the Diamond Princess back \u201clater this week\u201d.
\nA British couple on the ship – who had been giving regular updates to journalists and via social media – confirmed on Wednesday that they had tested positive for the virus.
\nThe US, Canada, Australia and the UK will place all those released from the ship in another 14 days quarantine when they return home.
\nCovid-19 has now claimed 2,004 lives in China, according to the latest Chinese data released on Wednesday.
\nThere have been 74,185 confirmed infections recorded in mainland China and about 700 cases in other countries.
\nHong Kong on Wednesday said a 70-year-old man with underlying illnesses became the territory\u2019s second fatality. France, Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan have each had one death attributed to the virus.
\nAbout 500 people who tested negative and who are not showing any symptoms are expected to disembark the Diamond Princess at the port in Yokohama on Wednesday, with more leaving in coming days.
\nThe ship was carrying 3,700 people in total.
\nThe released passengers made their way onto waiting coaches or into taxis, reports the BBC\u2019s Laura Bicker, who is at the port in Yokohama.
\nThey will be allowed to return to life as normal, but will be contacted over a period of several days to check on their health, Japan\u2019s health ministry said.
\nThose who tested negative but had shared cabins with infected people will have to remain on board for additional quarantine.
\nThe passengers come from more than 50 countries, raising concerns the ship could become the source of a fresh wave of global infections, our correspondent says.
\nHow did the ship end up in quarantine?
\nThe cruise ship was put in quarantine in Japan\u2019s port of Yokohama in early February after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was found to have the virus.
\nPassengers were initially isolated in their cabins and later allowed to sporadically go out on deck.
\nDespite the quarantine measures, day by day the number of infected people grew rapidly.
\nThe latest figures show that at least 542 passengers have tested positive in total and have been taken to nearby hospitals.
\nSeveral countries and territories have separately started evacuating their citizensfrom the ship or plan to do so in the coming days.
\nAre measures taken on the ship enough?
\nSeveral experts have questioned the effectiveness of the quarantine measures on the Diamond Princess.
\nKentaro Iwata, professor at the infectious diseases division of Japan\u2019s Kobe University, described the situation on board as \u201ccompletely chaotic\u201d, in a video posted to YouTube on Tuesday.
\n\u201cIt was completely inadequate in terms of the infection control\u201d he said after visiting the ship, adding that the measures had failed to separate the infected from the healthy.
\nThe expert said he was more afraid of catching the virus on board than he had been working in the field in Africa during the Ebola epidemic and in China during the Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak.
\nUS health officials also questioned the effectiveness of the measures takenduring quarantine.
\n\u201c[The quarantine measures] may not have been sufficient to prevent transmission among individuals on the ship,\u201d the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned.
\n\u201cThe rate of new infections on board, especially among those without symptoms, represents an ongoing risk,\u201d it said in a statement, adding that travel restrictions had been imposed on \u201call passengers and crew\u201d preventing them from entering the US.
\nJapanese officials have defended their approach, saying that the majority of infections likely occurred before the quarantine period.
\nSouth Korea, which reported 15 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, said it would ban entry to any foreign passengers of the Diamond Princess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ONLINE Tokyo The first hundreds of passengers who tested negative for the new coronavirus have begun leaving a ship moored off Japan, after 14 days of quarantine. At least 542 passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess have been infected by the Covid-19 virus – the biggest cluster outside mainland China. Passengers have described the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n