Feb. 7 (UPI) — More than 600 people have now died in China from exposure to the coronavirus amid dozens of new cases worldwide, including dozens more from a cruise ship off the Japanese coast.
Princess Cruises’ Diamond Princess has been quarantined at the Yokohama Port since Monday. Officials said since its docking, the ship has produced a total of 61 passengers who have tested positive for the 2019-nCoV coronavirus. Forty-one are new cases.
Japan’s health ministry said those infected will be sent to infectious disease wards in Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures.
“Those who are transported include elderly people and foreign nationals, and it is necessary to take measures that take into account their physical conditions,” the ministry said in a statement.
Twenty-one Japanese nationals, eight Americans, five Canadians, five Australians, one Briton and one Argentinian comprise the new cases, Princess Cruises said.
“The Japanese Ministry of Health has confirmed this is the last batch to be tested and the quarantine end date will be Feb. 19, unless there are any other unforeseen developments,” the cruise company said in a statement.
The vessel had departed Yokohama Jan. 20 and was scheduled to return Monday, but docking was delayed 24 hours to allow health officials to examine passengers after a passenger who disembarked early in Hong Kong tested positive for the coronavirus.
The WHO said Friday 24 countries have at least one confirmed case. There are 31,100 cases in mainland China and 216 cases outside of China, officials said.
Most of the cases have connections to China, where health officials announced 73 new deaths on Friday — most in Hubei province, where the outbreak began.
China’s State Supervisory Committee announced it will send an anti-corruption investigation team to Wuhan following the death of Li Wenliang — an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital who died Friday. He was accused of spreading rumors about online during the early stages of the outbreak.
Li had messaged friends about patients coming into his hospital with an unusual new disease similar to SARS that had killed some 800 people in China and Hong Kong in the early 200s. For doing so, law enforcement forced him to sign a statement admitting to having committed a “misdemeanor” and promising not to commit further “unlawful acts.”
The State Supervisory Committee said the team with conduct “a comprehensive investigation on the relevant issues reported by the massas about Dr. Li Wenliang.”
Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai mourned the doctor’s death.
“He was a devoted doctor,” Cui said on Twitter. “we are so grateful to him for what he has done in our joint efforts fighting against 2019-nCoV.”