I am by far no expert on this topic at all; nevertheless, I think that it may not have been the best idea to release hundreds of passengers from a ship infected with Coronavirus. I understand that the passengers that were released had no symptoms of the virus, but they were quarantined on a ship that had hundreds of other people that did show symptoms. They could have easily been infected with the virus. We also do not know how long it has been since they were last tested. The uninfected passengers could have gone multiple days being exposed to the virus after testing negative. This could change the results of their test. I am glad that the uninfected passengers could be released from their quarantine on the ship; however, was it really the right decision to let them go back into the world without being retested?
3
These enormous cruise ships are an abomination for many document ecological reasons. I personally hope that their role in spreading this pandemic will eventually lead to their failure as a continued industry.
4
So is the U.S. testing all passengers coming to the U.S. from Japan? Seems like they should be. They could have been infected anywhere while in Japan based on this news.
4
I would not trust the declining number that China had reported. Anything coming from China is never to be trusted.
4
Japanese Abe Govt had prioritized revenue from Chinese travelers and consideration to Chinese Govt than citizen's health and safety.
Until a few days before,Such Govt of host country of Olympics 2020 had restricted range of Corona virus inspection with considering influence to tourism and Olympics.
It is only "person who came from Wuhan" and "person who spent hours with person who came from Wuhan".
This policy had increased many latent patients in Japanese society.
Even people who feel subjective symptom could not inspect that they are Corona virus carrier or not by Abe Govt's policy.
it delayed treatment and had caused first victim.
therefore,"official" number of Corona virus patients in Japan is understated.
Countermeasures of Abe Govt of Japan against Corona virus are still haphazard and sloppy and insufficient and too late.
Japanese Abe Govt repeat that "Japanese Govt's action is proper" despite many infected persons,they never admit defects.
They are like Chinese authorities.
3
Japanese Abe Govt increased foreign travelers but had lacked enough preparations against infection disease.
They spend immense tax and political resource to buy costly military equipment,on the other hand,they had reduced budget of staff about countermeasure against infection disease.
Japanese conceit prime minister and arrogant chief cabinet secretary repeat that "our behavior is always proper".
Japanese health minister and ministry still try to make risk or spread of infection show small.
They prioritize to defend the face of prime minister than health of people,could not change policy about Corona virus,and had increased latent infected people.
Japanese Abe Govt who want autocratic power have repeated failure like China.
Japan became second epicenter of Corona virus clearly.
Even "official" number of domestic patients except cruise ship passenger in Japan is largest next to China.
Japanese Abe Govt don't say clearly what they can or cannot,what is possible or impossible.
They still repeat "proper" about everything of their behavior to Corona virus But Canada,US,South Korea,Hong Kong,Australia have re-quarantined passengers more 14 days in their countries.
it show that Japan's countermeasure is not enough.
2
Japan does “... not have a government agency that specializes in disease control”, but they have a Vice-health Minister?
Sounds like a contradiction.
5
@Andrew Babij - a very good point. Japan has a full Ministry of Health as well as National Institute of Infectious Diseases (and many other specialized institutions), who have an army of health and other specialists, many of them have been involved in the response. The problem is, many media outlets including NYT (and "experts" commenting here too) are disproportionately drawing on a youtube post that went viral and had misinformation or exageration and other media, without going to the source or scientific data available. For instance, NID already released detailed epidemiological data on which they based their decision to release people from the cruise. Or explanation from the coordinator of the response to the DP cruise (who happened to be an epidemiologist) have not been referred to at all, fuelling panic and misperception.
5
It is difficult to know what to think about this disease. No cases in Africa despite 1 million Chinese Belt & Road and other workers. Virtually no cases in India. Only two known cases in Iran both of whom died whereas a mortality rate of 2% suggests another 100 or so are undiagnosed. Really odd
2
Japan has proven the Cruise ship had been a good incubator for the virus which had infected 1/3 of passengers and crews. In addition, there are many none symptomatic flu carrier will be spread around the world for additional round of new infection.
2
We have been on four fabulous cruises on Regents.
I was ill on every cruise at some time on all of them.
Just being close to folks, and having our butler ill and he
gave me his cold or flu...I will never ever do a cruise again.
Ever ever again.
2
This is an international failure to prevent the spread of this illness. The passengers on this ship should have been quarantined effectively off the ship from the get go. Now, after the failed quarantine they should not be released to spread this dangerous disease. They should now be put in an effective quarantine. I fear this will be be seen as the most significant failure to stop the spread of this disease.
4
I have just read the transcript from a Japanese infection control specialist who barely managed to get on that ship (they kept finding excuses not to let him aboard) before being kicked off again.
The conditions he found were horrendous in that there was no quarantine whatsoever, no separation between the sick and the healthy, no precautions taken with surface virus transmission as items were passed around, masks and gloves rendered useless due to improper procedure, crew itself sick with fever, and the medical staff was no better protected.
The specialist, who had worked with diseases like Ebola without fear because he knew what safety measures to take, was terrified during this brief inspection
due to the total chaos on board, and is now self-quarantining himself in case he has picked up the virus.
4
Huge mistake the Japanese government are making. With the infections clearly occurring during the “quarantine” period, and early stage infections not being picked up by tests, this is a huge blunder by Japan. Thankfully most countries are imposing their own more stringent and tightly controlled quarantine arrangements. Japan however will be hit especially hard, considering the effect Covid-19 is having on the elderly. Very sad.
4
This situation revealed that Japan's Abe government cannot consider about worst case. besides,they often deceive society or world to make situation show optimistic and to conceal lack of their ability.
They dominate bureaucrats including judges or prosecutors through personnel affair, this self-righteous government's failure is directly linked to lost of whole country.
but present Abe government never take responsibility whatever they cause.
They have learned nothing from failure of themselves or Chinese authorities,and exploits social unrest to try to build autocratic authority.
It destroy independence between administration and judicature,and can build autocratic situation that person of government and ruling party are never arrested and never punished whatever they do anything.
China, and Japan,
overconfident regime who cling to strengthen authority worsen situation.
2
My initial question is why did individuals choose to leave on this cruise when they were aware of the global situation already evident?
If anything good can come of this is that it serves as a wake-up call for all nations to have a plan. With the right conditions and/or nefarious intentions, it could be so much worse.
I was born in Yokohama, spending the first 20 years of my life there. so I am more than a little astonished as the laxity of quarantine. It was not always thus. I remember well the case of a Canadian cruise ship quarantined and not allowed to dock (it stayed just inside Tokyo Harbor for almost a month) when a passenger aboard contracted Cholera and died. To my knowledge not a single passenger or crew member was allowed to leave the ship the entire time. Because the dead passenger was buried at sea, no swimming in the sea was also permitted the entire time.
4
I went on my first cruise ever this past summer and loved it. I've been on a few others since then (Caribbean and Panama Canal) and was excited to do more. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Time to try something else.
2
If you want to get deathly ill, take a cruise especially with Princess Cruise Lines. My mother and I took a cruise to Hawaii from San Francisco on Princess and we paid hundreds of dollars for extra insurance. We both came down with bacterial infections, norovirus and ended up in the hospital. The infection spread to my appendix and it had to be removed with emergency surgery. In the hospital the nurse told me they get people from the cruise ships all the time. The cherry on top was when the cruise insurance refused to pay the bills we received on board and were supposed to be covered. Never again.
8
Unfortunately this has been very badly mishandled and allowing hundreds of potentially infected people to scatter, was a grave error. Given that Dr. Fauci and other experts have concluded the entire ship was a hot spot as bad as Wuhan, means that containment is now probably lost. If it was not already. If China has actually contained the epidemic there, highly improbable, but if so, then soon they will be closing their borders to prevent it coming back.
6
I thought the way a quarantine should work is that everybody gets to leave when everybody on board was virus free for at least 14 days. With the virus apparently raging freely thru the ship it would seem that every day of the past 14 there was a dozen or two new cases. I’m also not sure why everyone wasn’t taken off the ship and quarantined in separate rooms. Group quarantine, with all support from untrained ship crew seems a total mistake.
10
It appears most western media rely on limited information on the situation in Japan, taking one YouTube post that went viral at face value. The person who criticized the handling of the Diamond Princess is indeed an infection specialist, but is also someone who tends to exaggerate things, had grunts for not being asked to be part of the control team, and spent only two hours on the ship and was asked to leave as he was confusing people offering his opinions that was not his role. There have been quite strong argument against the post (some facts but not realistic and others factual mistakes such as the situation is not dealt by experts.) The government, including another infection specialist in charge of the control acknowledge that the measures were not perfect, however, pointed out that perfect control is not possible in the midst of emergency with almost 4000 people on board and the need to deal with the situation in the given set up, against a virus we do not fully understand yet. The post was removed by the owner as was acknowledged in his own press conference.
3
I live in Yokosuka, not too far from Yokohama, and am appalled at the fact infectious disease experts haven't been handling this dangerous situation. To let people off the ship after testing them several days before is insane. However, this isn't surprising to me, having lived and worked in this country for more than three years now. As was stated in the article, there are many examples of Japan's poor handling of natural disasters. I had a glimpse of that after experiencing several typhoons. I'm heading back to the States in the Spring. It can't happen soon enough. I just hope I can stay free of Coronavirus before I leave.
12
We have now had people from this ship taken to an infectious disease hospital in San Antonio, 24 hours or so, after they arrived at Lackland AF Base.
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/State-Coronavirus-evacuees-from-Lackland-15068385.php
I long for the days of real leadership and people who put science first.
22
I always learn new facts when I read the NYT comments section! But how disappointing to read that Japanese bureaucrats were in charge of the Diamond Princess cruise ship's "quarantine" of COVID-19 patients rather than medical experts. Even accepting that diseases spread quickly in a ship's confined quarters e.g. the norovirus diarrhoea, it is alarming that appropriate medical expertise was not employed in this instance. Also where was the British and US owners/managers' input into the management of this issue and duty of care to their passengers?
Australians that have been evacuated by our government from Wuhan and the ship have had to undergo a further 14 days quarantine period in either an off-shore detention facility or an unused miners village on the mainland before being allowed to return home. The result is positive cases in Australia are under 15.
It just shows that even a seemingly sophisticated and highly developed nation such as Japan is hamstrung by its culture (bureaucratic pre-eminence) rather than edified by science.
28
So we know that asymptomatic people can transmit the virus. This means that all these people leaving the ship are potential carriers of the virus and may in turn transmit the virus to anyone they come in contact with. How would you like to be on a plane across the Pacific with one of these people?
What hasn’t been answered: how effective are the tests? Will the tests catch an asymptomatic carrier? Are the tests easy to accurately administer?
16
The tests can detect asymptomatic carriers, provided their viral load is high enough to be detected. This is why some tests have been negative initially and subsequent tests have been positive for the virus.
We do not know how effective the testing kits are. I’m sure there is a baseline number that the manufacturers have shared with agency’s like the CDC but that information has not been shared with the general public. That baseline number also hasn’t had time to be independently verified under real world conditions.
7
We have a novel virus that spreads easily and can be asymptomatic. "Novel" means theoretically no one can escape becoming ill.
Of course quarantine needed to restart every time a new infection was identified. Add to that, having a crew in close living quarters preparing and serving food was a ridiculous recipe for failure, since they would naturally be more likely to become ill and infect more passengers.
There was never any perfect way to handle this. Getting people separated into smaller groups and having each group serve as its own quarantine group would have allowed at least a proportion of those on board to be properly vetted and released. Between this and the boat that docked in Cambodia I suspect the time for shutting the barn door is long past.
In a situation like this, quarantine really serves to protect those not already exposed. I'd expect that the best we can really hope for globally is to slow the rate of infection so as not to overwhelm medical facilities - that's the only way to reduce fatalities.
20
I've been on a half dozen cruises or so and never been sick on one, though I can tell you that it would be hideous to be confined to one of the tiny rooms for even one day. It's obviously a risk, but there's also a risk of getting sick riding in planes, trains, or buses, but you don't hear about those because you're off the plane, train, or bus before you've properly incubated your newly acquired infection. Then there's school, work or going to the store. Thankfully, if you acquire the corona virus in any of those venues, you won't be tortured onboard a ship at least.
5
Why were they let out?
8
The people on the ship have been living in a disease incubator that could not have been designed better to support continuous contagion. Some people who walked off the ship will be infected. Living on a cruise ship is in no way a quarantine where people are effectively separated from each other for a period of time.
13
The handling of this situation by the Japanese bureaucracy confirms to me that former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn made the right decision to extract himself from systemic incompetence.
13
It's almost like the goal of keeping everyone prisoner on that cruise ship in Japan, was to wait until all of them were sick. They couldn't have planned it better, anyway. Somebody must have finally realized the utter futility of confining a large group of people together, while a new virus spreads....There are many reasons to avoid cruise ships, and this is just one more.
16
Based on my own experience living in Japan and having observed their bureaucrats operating, I can say they are very bad at improvising when circumstances demand it. What we have observed here seems to confirm that mindset and approach as has been stated by others, including experts outside officialdom. We can only hope the consequences of this will not be severe.
13
I'm puzzled why Japan didn't find facilities to take the passengers off the cruise ship and quarantine them at the outset. Asking cruise ship crews, which consist to some extent of barely literate workers from world's poorest nations, to care for passengers without spreading the virus is nuts. They are one of the most advanced nations on Earth, and keep their cities immaculate compared to ours, but it seems like they whiffed on how to handle these passengers.
30
Given that there is no aspect of Japanese life is free of bureaucratic interference, and that most bureaucrats graduate from the departments of law at select, elite universities and go directly into the ministries without specialist training, knowledge, or experience, it's not surprising at all that they are responsible for creating what was essentially a disease incubator. Their primary concern was to limit the spread of disease to the Tokyo region, home to 30-odd million people - which they managed to do. Thus passengers were quarantined in place largely without regard to their individual or collective welfare, while protocols that should have been followed to stop the spread of the disease to those on shore were flouted out of ignorance.
9
If the goal was to safeguard the Japanese populous from exposure to the contagion, how can we possibly understand releasing hundreds of exposed people into their country? While much is not yet understood about covid-19, one doesn’t have to be an experienced epidemiologist to understand that the Diamond Princess quarantine failed. Japan has put the health of its people and the people of the world at risk.
I feel like there must be some way to understand this.
12
Who is responsible for the health and well being of the passengers legally? Is it the US government, the boat owner, or the Japanese government? The Japanese epidemiologist who entered the ship yesterday or the day before claimed that it was very poorly handled inside -that it wasn't clear where was a safe space and where infected passengers had been and he said therefore he was terrified to be there. But who has control over that situation? Is it the Japanese or the owner or the US. My wife is Japanese and I live in Japan. I was ready to put the blame on the Japanese but she suggested that Abe is weak these days and also has poor communication with the US government via Trump and thus things did not get done correctly. Is this more evidence of the impairment of US relations with its allies and further is the situation inside the ship the responsibility of the ship owner or the Japanese government or the US government legally? My guess is that Trump more or less ignored the situation after closing the borders to visitors arriving from China (which I applaud). My guess is that if Obama had been president the situation would have been far more organized and the outcomes better.
14
Most folks are worried of the cases we know, like the ones on the cruise ship. But what about the thousands who left Wuhan or other infected places via other modes before the lockdown?
I think the horse has bolted and its no use closing the barn door now. The best you can hope for is that you don't catch the bug this year and get a vaccine shot for next.
12
I cannot help but ask the previous commenters, those who I am assuming are reacting out of fear for their own health and would prefer that infected and uninfected passengers alike remain in this unsanitary, arguably dehumanizing environment, why does your life, your comfort and privilege matter more than others'? Does contracting or becoming exposed to a disease render a person less than human? Should said people be punished and exiled? Historically, many people, including those suffering from leprosy, HIV, and AIDS have been treated with less humanity than the Japanese government has so graciously been willing to extend to these coronavirus victims, not villains.
2
I have compassion for those who might be exposed or infected by the coronavirus.
As perspective, however, many of those evacuated have arrived here in San Antonio at Lackland AFB,
I note that many local politicians and citizens seem to have more fear and anxiety about this “caravan” of travelers arriving by air than any putative caravan crossing the Rio Grande. These “visitors” to Lackland are potential carriers of disease who are being released from “custody” without assurance they are benign to the rest of the population.
And those who have such fear note that a wall won’t protect us from those with diseases at the AFB.
7
This was the wrong decision. It will come back to haunt them!
8
Let me clarify something, Diamond Princess’ port of registry is London and the owner is Carnival Corporation & plc of Doral, Florida. This means the ship operates under British law at sea and the management is American.
The ship was in Japanese water on Feb 4th when 10 passengers was diagnosed with COVID-19 and the ship was put into quarantine in Yokohama.
If you want to play the blame game as so many people are doing, the management is American and they did not handle the quarantine correctly as evidenced.
19
@AmateurHistorian
Somewhat reminiscent of the another ship (whose home port was Liverpool) not being handled correctly in 1912.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."
2
The Princess Line should rename the Diamond Princess the "Petri Princess."
8
Most tragedies throughout history started with human laziness & stupidity.
This is the start if the next great tragedy.
17
The summer olympics in Japan are doomed!
10
Having the crew remain on the ship, to disinfect the ship, is absolute abuse of mostly poor people.
41
How many times have we heard of illnesses on cruise ships? It's an ideal breeding ground with thousands on one ship. I'm reminded of the TV show "The Love Boat". I'll bet it was on A.B.C.
5
I dont know if its safe to let them go, but it's definitely right. These people arent prisoners. To expose them to a closed ventilation system is to almost guarantee that they all will become infected. If more quarantine were needed, they should be sent to a hospital for observation. Contrast this with the outrage against public officials who wanted to restrict the travel of people exposed to Ebola, a far more lethal and infectious illness. Oh, but cruise passengers are privileged westerners, so that makes detention ok.
5
I understand that Japan does have people with the expertise to manage the problem.
And I am shocked that they didn't use it in this case to manage the passengers during the the quarantine. Essentially, they didn't create a quarantine. You do not release a quarantine when there is evidence of active illness on a ship.
7
Japan should have built a large quarantine facility starting on day one of this ship's docking. Then move everyone to individual quarantine facilities on land where they cannot interact with anyone but the people that were in their own ship cabin from the beginning. Then wait 14 days and test everyone and release the negatives. These folks could have gotten infected in the 3 days between testing and release. Japan should feel shame at their approach to this. The home countries should refuse to accept these people into anything other than another 14 days of quarantine.
10
I guess Japan cannot afford to create quarantine facilities off ship.
Maybe Japan does not want to spend the money. But they will sell far fewer Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Subaru cars to countries that experience epidemics. Maybe Japan should wise up.
1
The worst isn't over with yet. Cruise ships aren't the best places if people get diseases that can spread easy. Nor are Airplanes. Time will tell how bad this is going to get. Though people got to leave, I'd not have let them into the general population just yet.
6
In all likelihood, Japan has already a self-sustained spread of the virus. Chances are, it is going to go around the planet, only matter of time.
8
As a physician, I am appalled at Japan’s decision. The virus has up to a two week incubation period, so anyone aboard the ship could have contracted the virus very recently, not tested positive yet, and be released to roam. That person could easily spread the virus far and wide. Just wait and see...
36
Beyond the specifics of this article, the circumstances require
"all hands on deck". What causes me worry is a worldwide
contagion toward autocracy. If we close out diversified
thinking to solve the problem the World will suffer.
Create and coordinate international brainstorming sessions
regardless of politics.
2
Stop the doom and gloom. One month of “The End Is Nigh” headlines and two months since outbreak and what we have, 1000 infected outside of mainland China and 8 deaths.
The overreaction outside Hubei have caused more harm than good. Case in point, remember the cruise ship that was under quarantine in Italy but eventually let everyone go after giving the all clear? What made you think a 2-days quarantine and checking a single couple is good enough for all clear? Well, you aren’t worrying about it until I bring it up.
And notice how this is tied into American and European’s dislike of the Olympics. Athens, Beijing, London, Sochi, Rio, and PyeongChang all have overwhelmingly negative coverage leading to the game.
1
Unbelievable. Even I or pretty much anyone could do a better job organizing this! If entire families are dying, including young healthy doctors, this is a huge disaster. How could they be so sloppy?! What modern country doesn’t have a health department. Unbelievable.
13
Trust the Japanese government and business bureaucracy to manage this threat as well as they managed Fukushima. Well, actually. Don’t!
11
Well, isn’t that something?
So now the American woman who refused to leave the ship because she did not want to fly home on that “cold” military plane can go home on the First Class United plane she prefers.....
You would think she would want to get out of there no matter “class” of plane.
18
As stated previously, no nations is adequately prepared for a pandemic and all war game scenarios result in failed containments as political leadership focuses on individual civil rights rather than the existential pandemic threat to national security. Containment always fails as does quarentine. Japan just stabbed itself in the neck by releasing so many asymptomatic carriers into the home islands. The US is always incredibly naive and foolish in regard to how it is handling quarentines of 100s of people. The absence of clinical symptoms is not necessarily proof that the individuals are not contagious.
17
In addition to the tragic health consequences for people impacted by the incompetent approach of Japanese authorities to this crisis, it has the very real possibility of derailing their ability to host a successful summer Olympics. Perhaps that will finally get them to stop depending on bureaucrats and let experts take charge. For one thing, Japan needs to establish a disease control agency now.
10
Eigh... the Great Sneeze Forward is going to make its way around the world because we refuse to quarantine, isolate, and stop the flow of human traffic. It could have been simply isolated but that would have forced the Chinese government to admit they had a problem. The FACT that we are exporting the potentially ill back in to gen pop, is the best vector for the Kung Flu.
4
Pretty serious stuff. I am wondering how many people had the virus and returned home before it was identified as such figuring they only had a cold.
7
I Admire Japan and its people in so many ways. Really. But in this most unfortunate episode this great nation looks like some Standup Comedian, who realizes its own most miserable performance over a full two week on a very visible stage and then - in total Panik- starts to insult its audiance. It looks like some form of political Seppuku on TV. Should predictions come true and the virus spread from this ship further into Tokyo, Japan and the World...PM Shinzo Abe might have to resign.
5
As a Tokyo resident this is a scary situation. News interviewed a Japanese couple who left the ship and returned to Kyoto. They said that they don’t want to be a burden on society and would do two weeks self-quarantine at home. That is great news.
Then on Twitter an American on board the Diamond Princess says he is leaving the ship today and will spend the next two weeks exploring Tokyo.
All we can do is be careful of washing our hands, try not to touch our face, and try to eat healthful foods to help our immune system.
15
As an infectious diseases physician I must add my recommendation to that already made by my colleages; let the Carnival Cruise Line, the Holland-American Line, and their sister cruise ship lines, which own over 50% of the world's cruise ships, re-name their palatial ships. What about the "Coronavirus", the "Norovirus", the "COVID-19", the "Wuhan", etc? And let us not forget the most clever name of all: the "Asymptomatic Princess".
With these new names, I believe the cruise industry will gain a new sense of adventure, perhaps in the sense of Russian Roulette.
20
What seems to be missing from this article is a statement by of the protocol recommended by experts where passengers have the virus. contracted. If the experts differ, the article should compare and contrast how they differ. Then the experts' recommendations should be contrasted with what is actually happening onboard the cruise ship under consideration. Absent the establishment of a benchmark by experts, we are are left to mere conjecture and speculation as whether the procedures actually being followed are proper or harmful.
3
One of the things I am curious about is statements that I believe were made by reps of the cruise line earlier in the Diamond Princess quarantine to the effect that W.H.O. protocols were being followed. Really? What were they? Does WHO agree its protocols were followed?
4
Safe? Obviously not. We will now see a significant spread of the disease well beyond what we've seen so far. This includes South East Asia, Japan and the United States. It's a good thing that mortality is limited to 2%.
5
I am going to Japan for the Olympics - which I have been attending for several years.
I think, I will still go to Japan for the Olympics but simply avoid Tokyo and the crowds.
There is a lot to do and see in Japan. The NYT had carried a story about Fukushima advertising it as a tourist destination.
Having been to Chernobyl - with nuclear contamination - hard to believe Wuhan virus will thrive in Fukushima.
Might be the safest place to go during the Olympics.
As an aside, I have never liked cruises - the last one to Antarctica - a 21 day cruise - made me decide - never again on a cruise.
Wuhan virus and these stories has hit the final nail in that coffin.
7
@Neil
This will look very different by the summer... I fear.
3
Infections will probably increase through June, but the hot weather after that is expected to end the problem in time for the Olympics.
2
@Bruce Thomson Except the virus seems to be doing OK in Singapore, which is pretty hot right now. Hoping for a seasonal slowdown, but there are no guarantees that will happen.
8
What's the worst that could happen with turning a blind eye? Just ask China. Good luck Japan!
13
Successfully managing new and extraordinarily challenging situations such as Coronavirus on a cruise ship - i.e. amped up crisis management - requires strong leadership, technical experts and some smart creative thinkers who have the ear of the leader & who the technical experts know are as valuable as they to devising an optimal solution.
3
Given the high rate of transmission in such a tightly controlled environment as Diamond Princess, we might just accept the fact that COVID-19 will become endemic. Even if the staff of the ship didn't take highest level of precautions when distributing meals, they were clearly more vigilant than ordinary food servers in regions that are heavily impacted by the virus. With any luck, the virus will maintain its relatively light lethality until a vaccine gets developed. It seems totally unrealistic to keep millions of people in quarantine for an indefinite period of time.
In the meantime, the Chinese authorities should use all their might to make sure that wet markets will never spread another novel virus.
8
Did the Japanese make a mistake?
The Japan Times English newspaper reports:
"The evacuation began Wednesday of a cruise ship quarantined after an outbreak of new coronavirus COVID-19, with several hundred passengers who had tested negative being allowed to leave the ship.
About 500 individuals, most of them elderly, disembarked from the Diamond Princess on Wednesday. Many of them took chartered buses provided by the city to Yokohama Station, while others hailed taxis or were collected by family members."
" At the Diet, policymakers continued to debate whether the quarantine should have been lifted and if passengers should have been isolated after they disembarked."
During a Lower House Budget Committee meeting Wednesday, opposition party members criticized the health ministry for lifting the quarantine even as cases of infection continue to be reported aboard the ship almost every day.
Kazunori Yamanoi, an opposition party member, questioned whether passengers should be allowed to return home, go shopping and go about with their lives. “If any of those 500 individuals are infected, we won’t be able to contain it,”
19
First: This is about class! With the Cruise Ship Company being forced to maintain responsibility for something they couldn't handle. So the rich passengers were confined — the poor crew were made to keep WORKING! Circulating around the ship and interacting with each other and the passengers!
But at the beginning if the ship was the isolation site then BOTH passengers and crew should have been confined with a haz-mat equipped team from off the ship delivering food and medicine.
Better still everyone on the ship should have been taken off the ship and quarantined immediately upon arrival in a place similar to the places in California where the Wuhan evacuees were kept, large, spacious, comfortable, isolated and observed by professionals.
Second it's about the OLYMPICS! Japanese bureaucrats wanted to keep the number of infected in Japan in the low double digits so they refused to allow anyone of the ship and in every press conference kept insisting that the ships numbers be kept separate from the Japanese numbers. They made decisions based on appearances and technicalities and not science or medical practice!
They kept headlines world wide on this ship and have now unleashed infected tourists to travel through the Tokyo transportation hubs. The results are obvious. They incubated the virus and then turned it loose.
No one will want to travel to the Olympics now because of the way these foreign travelers were treated by the Japanese government.
13
@Arthur
Based on the apparent characteristics of this epidemic (symptomless contagion, questionable testing accuracy, long latency periods, etc), this is going to become pandemic and then endemic very soon... if it isn't already. If things can be kept under control during the next few months, then maybe we will dodge the bullet but I fear that, by July, we will be in the thick of a very challenging situation around the world and the Olympics will be out of the question.
10
Not looking good for Tokyo Olympic that’s coming up in a few months
7
There have been outbreaks of migratory communicable illnesses before -- SARS, Ebola... This is no one's first rodeo, as they say.
I'm incredulous that the W.H.O. (who look like nothing more than a bunch of ineffective bureaucrats) doesn't publish and disseminate protocols for situations like this. Right now, every country is developing its own guidelines, often on the fly. There's no uniformity of action, which can only end badly.
Infectious disease experts should take the lead on communicating best practices. I recall the C.D.C.'s dogged work during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Though their Director spoke recently, I know from a cousin who used to work there that a lot of high-caliber personnel left during an era of de-funding. This is the logical result -- a global health emergency, and no one in charge.
21
Yep. The CDC has been gutted of almost anyone decent. It’s a disaster there. This is like SARS and measles had a love child. Highly contagious with a high death toll (think 1 in 50)
12
With the deaths in Iran and the dispersal of passengers from the cruise ship fiascos in Japan and Cambodia, it is quite possible that COVID-19 is already circulating in the populations here and in Europe, or is about to. With that in mind, five days ago the CDC announced a surveillance program for COVID-19. In five cities (LA, SF, Seattle, Chicago and NY), any patients with respiratory disease who tested negative for flu (officially at near-epidemic levels) would now be tested for this coronavirus. Surely some results for that surveillance should now be available. Will they be publicized? In the face of a possible pandemic, will information be shared with the public or kept from us to avoid causing panic? Are there any restrictions now applying on the NYT and other media that were triggered by this public health event? I assume such restrictions would be unconstitutional but I know that, as in the case of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, free speech has some limits to protect public health.
16
Remember how the Japanese Government mishandled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011? Does that give you a lot of confidence in their ability to safely and competently handle the quarantine of this deadly virus?
All too often, the Japanese Government has shown itself to be more intent on saving face than in saving lives . . .
14
I have family living in Japan and I am distressed to see that the authorities have seemingly opened the floodgates releasing these cruise ship passengers.
Just a few people with infections can quite literally start an epidemic where there was none.
I fear for my family but I fear for all the folks in Japan. I have been to Japan twice and observed how clean the country is and really thought it would be a leader in the coronavirus fight.
Extremely disappointed, to say the least.
Wish my daughter and family would come back to the states until this virus is in hand on the continent of Asia. I don't care if I seem overzealous. I am worried.
7
Along with everything else stated here about the obvious insane decision to let people off without further quarantine...I keep coming back to the 14 days that everyone seems to be in agreement upon as the right amount of time in a more general manner. Is it? Do we know this for certain? Is this merely an educated guess as so much is? If so, many more warnings need to be in place for those getting off quarantine and possibly longer quarantines. This virus is a monster, one we must do everything in our powers to keep at bay. The WHO should be offering up stringent wise guidelines to everyone, say cruise ship owners and governments, and yet, so much is lacking in good advice it seems. Everyone is more concerned about the economy, about China, about sowing panic....Let us please keep public health - the desire to keep people worldwide from getting very sick and dying - at the front of all decision making. Everything else is secondary.
14
Are you watching this drama unfold, Stephen King? This would make a great fiction novel, a real horror story. Getting stuck on a cruise ship is bad enough, but this is stranger than life.
4
@Mike C.
Stephen King already wrote the quintessential plague novel: The Stand. It's a page turner. As a thirteen year old, I pretty much locked myself in a bathroom one weekend and read all 800 pages. Thank you Mr. King!
It's about time for NY Times to get ready to compare the COVID-19 to the H1N1 outbreak, trace the development, how governments deal differently with the spread, the fatality, etc. Already several reputable news outlets are doing it. Let's shine the light on how governments around the world should be prepared to deal with the next one.
9
We already know China hasn't learned anything, not even from SARS which also started in a live animal market and was mishandled from the get go.
7
It makes very little difference what anyone does. It seems that it is quite contagious, and thus it is unlikely to be stopped. However, there is actually no evidence that it is any more deadly than a typical influenza. At this moment people are a bit hyper aware of the deaths but totally lost on just how many people have contracted it. It is my contention that the numbers of ill are way higher in China because most people there would not seek a doctors help. They would ride it out like most generally healthy people do with a flu. If I catch it I will take some tylenol and drink lots of liquids, and maybe be cognizant of whether I develop any breathing/lung issues, and if so, at that point would seek medical attention. Just like any old generally healthy person should.
1
You apparently haven’t seen the videos of Chinese crowding into hospitals demanding treatment and completely overwhelming the system.
7
@Chris It seems like many people could be treated, if the virus spreads slowly. But given recent updates indicating that this virus may spread more like influenza than SARS, the concern is that it will spread way too quickly. If the estimates are that anywhere from 15%-20% develop serious disease, hospitals will be overwhelmed. So I'm guessing even if it does become a pandemic, anything that can help slow the spread, at all, would be helpful to allow hospitals to move through patients. And of course, hoping for treatments to be found soon.
3
My father passed away in the hospital during the sars epidemic. Not directly from the virus but from the isolation. No visits were allowed. Unforseen casualty! He lost the will to live.
8
@Gerhard Gruetzmacher
My sympathies.
5
Besides Japan, I'm also shocked by the lack of authority and action by WHO. If the WHO is not ready and capable of taking charge and methodically organizing activities in a situation like this, then it speaks to a failure of one of its core missions as a world governing body. When the crises is over (one can only hope), lessons should be learned and changes should be made asap.
28
On a serious note; in the matter of so many testing positive but are asymptomatic, are we fully certain of the test? I don't wish to interject a lack of confidence, but perhaps the protocols and science should be peer reviewed extensively in light of the extraordinary circumstances this disease is presenting.
More specifically about the cruise ships; I'm reminded of the scene in the movie "Jaws" in which the marketing minded mayor of Amity Island roams the beach trying to assure the sunbathers it's safe to go back in the water.
10
@PATRICK
Scientists have strong confidence in the test itself. There were some reagent problems in US batches but the science behind a properly packaged kit is solid. The issue that's been dogging scientists is the question of when to test. Mutlitple tests are required to catch that time when viral load is sufficient to be picked up by the test. An early test may sample when viral load is below the threshold of detection. Multiple tests are necessary part of the protocal.
It's not one and done by any means. Who can say if any of the folks tested over the weekend are really clear given continual spread in the ship? This is a failed quarrantine but Japan doesn't want to hold them any longer under such conditions. I hope they all end up in a proper quarrantine but who is in charge of this? It would be laughable is it was not so serious.
14
Two questions I don't see much on. First I see all kinds of cruise ads on tv and social media. Is anyone at all booking now and are all the people with refundable trips on cruises canceling? Second are people cancelling reservations for the Tokyo Olympics yet or were the reservations all nonrefundable?
7
@wayne griswald Last week, someone called us folks who abhor cruises "holier-than-thous." He promised to attend his Antarctic cruise without fail. The way the industry works, they comp people with future trips and a refund. They'll need to dig deep, but they're likely to spend one billion in comps and advertising instead of one billion in more doctors, medical staff, and disaster response teams. In sum, they don't care.
9
Quite simply the Japanese government is making a bet that the virus detection procedure has a 0% false negative rate. Not being an epidemiologist I cannot judge how good a bet that is, but it is a daring one for a virus that was unknown to the medical community about two months ago. It is apparent that the quarantine procedures aboard ship were a shambles. This seems to be the real purpose of releasing ostensibly virus-free persons to roam the country. Keeping them on board no longer was protecting them.
7
@ReallyAFrancophile
They're making a bet that they can contain this at home and nobody will really call them out too much lest they lose the all important face. They simply reached the point where face lost via quarantine was estimated to be worse than that lost via infections.
Sick people and the rest of the world, well that's someone else's problem now.
2
My simple thoughts, the olympics are now at risk, tragic
4
Japan is clearly following China's initial response; "not our problem".
5
I read about one woman who self quarantined and it was like wow how amazing she is! Is it really that hard for people to understand the situation, quarantine themselves and protect others?
23
Are the Japanese just giving up on containment? The Germans found that 2 of 114 people that initially screened negative later tested positive for the virus and their samples tested as infectious in caco cell assay. So they were without symptoms and were infectious. Very worrisome that there is reportedly community transmission ongoing in Japan before this news. It is very unlikely that the released passengers have zero infectious people in the group.
17
Did anybody become critically ill or die of Covid-19 on any of the luxury liners?
1
@Joel H As by now there are 28 passengers of the Diamond Princess serious/ critically ill:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
6
Cruise ships are closed floating temporary housing where the same air circulates unless you are on the open decks. Whose fault is it that there were passengers who were allowed in with Corona infection to spread it to other passengers? Once inside a cruise ship whose fault is it to contain the infection from spreading to uninfected passengers? How long is an infected person exposing others to the infection? How meaningful is a 2 -week quarantine in a closed environment? Not much if within a 2-week period uninfected persons are continually infected.
So what is my answer to loaded question about Japan letting passengers walk free after a 2-week quarantine. Japan was confronted by a very complex situation. Thankfully it did a humanitarian step that allowed the cruise ship to stay docked in its port and allowed those not infected to leave the ship knowing that they could be positive in the future. Freedom to walk free from a ship with Corona virus infected passengers was certainly risky but with so many unknowns they did the right thing and any one faulting the Japanese authorities don't have valid reasons to be critical of a situation they are not in a position to judge.
CDC experts from ATL are expressing alarm over the protocols on the ship. My question to CDC is are you going to evacuate the 621 confirmed cases of which 12 persons could die and treat them optimally in hospitals? Can the CDC say for sure that those who walked free may or may not be carrying the virus?
20
Unless the passengers are Americans, it is not the CDC’s problem
7
Anything related to the virus is the CDC’s problem, even half a world away. To protect us, the CDC has an interest in what happens in Japan, or any other hotspot.
36
It would have been better to take the passengers off for quarantine elsewhere. Probably the quarantine authorities were unwilling to sign off on letting them disembark.
10
I don't envy the people quarantined, the crew members, or the officials in charge of containing the virus. One need only look at all the differing opinions and perspectives of the experts to realize that a universally agreed upon protocol doesn't exist. Obviously an amateur here, but the ship just seemed like a worsening situation. I wish they could have removed them from the start to an isolated military base. Get them out of that environment and provide support in a more controlled location with trained staff and a sterile (if that's possible) start. The news about the virus is scary...I think a lot of us are just waiting for confirmation it has jumped.
83
@Scott There is an island south of Yokohama with a dock and an airport. I was on Japan's side to keep it off their shores, but silly me for trusting that they had a handle on the situation. Oshima would have been a better bet, but even the derelict island of Hashima sounds a lot better now.
10
@Scott I believe your amateur instincts are exactly correct.
2
Is that safe? Simple math provides the answer. No. The initial outbreak started with a very small number of people infected with a virus that (according to the best, current intelligence) originated with a species of bat, spread to a transfer host - possibly a pangolin - and then on to humans. If the early diagnosis had been acted upon properly we would not be currently talking about thousands dead, many more sick, and hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses.
At every step along the way a combination of perceived short-term interests and stupidity blocked a prudent response. Keeping thousands of people cooped up in a confined area such as cruise ships and then letting them wander away (as in Cambodia and, now, Japan) is an expression of that insanity.
Why weren't these populations broken up into much smaller, manageable quarantine units where the risk of spreading the infection within the quarantined group was reduced to something close to zero? Keeping them on the cruise ships has been crazy. Letting them now wander off is even crazier.
Merely because the incubation period is two weeks that doesn't prevent someone who has spent the last two weeks on the Diamond Princess from having acquired the infection yesterday, showing no symptoms today, and spreading the disease in two weeks time as they now move without restrictions among unprotected populations.
How hard is that to figure out? People are now paying for this idiocy with their lives.
248
@Rex nailed it. It’s been painful to watch. These cruise ships are just floating incubators. Every port expecting one should have had a fast plan to get everyone off and into proper quarantine. Ludicrous. And now we will surely see outbreaks the world over traced back to these ships.
27
@Rex
Japanese bureaucrats are well known for shunning the advice of experts, meticulously drawing up complicated plans without their input, and then expecting others to follow them blindly, ticking off the boxes as they go. To them, the map is the territory, and they are the cartographers. How could they be wrong?
13
Hmm...
On a ship that had ONE infected passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong over two weeks ago, nearly one in six people are now known to be infected. All of them presumably being exposed directly and indirectly over the past two weeks, from that one initial person.
And now Japan has somehow determined it's safe to turn loose thousands of people who could've been infected at any point over the past two weeks but are yet to show signs of the virus' presence. Those people will be on buses, trains, and planes as well as in stores and restaurants and if even ONE caries the disease, they have the potential to expand the infected population exponentially among the public they come in contact with. After all, this entire cruise's mess started with just that one person.
I try not to be an alarmist, but geez. This just seems like it could be unleashing a disaster on the world that will be far more widespread than it is currently. Astonishing!
185
@David please note that we don't know that the one passenger who disembarked over two weeks ago was the source of the infection. That passenger may very well have caught it from someone else onboard the ship.
14
@SRS Well, OK. But it still likely started with one person and it doesn't really matter who. This entire shipboard explosion of infection started that person, whoever it was.
And now it will take only ONE of the thousands being set loose, if that one has the virus, to infect untold numbers additional, unsuspecting people, my point above.
31
@David Yes, I agree that it was not a good move by Japan.
15
I, too, am an infectious diseases physician, and the description in the article convinces me that not only were the workers on the ship disseminating the virus, the so-called experts were doing the same. It sounds like a completely chaotic horror show.
There are strict protocols for donning and doffing protective gear. Done incorrectly, it is easy to self-contaminate. And it seems that the ship's staff were not in fully protective gear anyway, which would include, full body suit, booties, face protection, and head protection. In addition, it seems from a just-published paper that asymptomatic individuals are capable of spreading infection. The end of this virus is nowhere in sight, in my opinion.
455
@ BA
Your last 2 sentences are extremely alarming.
As a Biology teacher once said (to me due to my incompetence in dissecting a frog and telling others the "proper method")..."Blind leading the Blind"...
For being smart, we sure don't act it.
8
So much has shocked me. The first was when I heard they were quarantined on a ship when no one knows if it could travel through ventilation systems or even through the doorways since they don’t have negative pressure rooms. Then that the crew were still working and preparing the food! I had imagined a cooler dropped to each room every few days by an experienced heath care worker in a hazmat suit. In this article I should not be shocked to learn the crew will be doing the medical grade cleaning of the ship!
7
I live in Japan, not far from Yokohama, and am very afraid. I bring this up to my leadership and feel I am not taken seriously. The lack of communication where I work is alarming, too.
12
This seems short-sighted of the Japanese and reflects a potential lack of understanding about how viruses, quarantines, and incubation periods work.
The biggest issue: The virus seems to be spreading on the cruise ship. As such, there could be people who were infected *less than* 14 days ago who haven't developed the infection yet. There could also be people who have it but are asymptomatic but still contagious.
The reality: A true quarantine can't really happen on a cruise ship. The passengers need to be isolated from the general population and also from each other -- no shared air, and serious thought to not spreading disease when delivering food and other necessities from room to room.
254
@Rose I think your suggestion that the Japanese are what, not educated enough? Not smart enough? to understand how "viruses, quarantines, and incubation periods work" is reductive, patronizing and is not based in evidence. In fact, Japan outperforms the United States in all international science education metrics. The article itself suggested a compelling reason for the policy breakdown here - an overly systematized, bureaucratic government.
“It’s illustrative of a larger problem with crisis management in complex bureaucratic organizations...
The lack of a coordinated response in which genuine experts are responsible for decision making is problematic,” he said,” because what happens instead is that you have political functionaries who are placed in roles of authority beyond their competency...”
Mr. Cleveland said that Japan had been handed an extremely difficult and fast-moving situation when the cruise ship arrived.
“Japan is sometimes a victim of its own competence,” he said. “Everything works and it’s a highly structured, functional society in every respect, and then when things go off the rails, they think that normal everyday processes are going to be sufficient.”
16
@Holly Cho : Your own excerpt from the story highlights the exact problem I'm writing about:
"The lack of a coordinated response in which genuine experts are responsible for decision making is problematic,” he said,” because what happens instead is that you have political functionaries who are placed in roles of authority beyond their competency...”
These "political functionaries" do *not* have the necessary expertise in epidemiology and infectious disease. They are, instead, making decisions that seem politically expedient. That is why they are making decisions that don't make scientific sense.
It's not a problem that is confined to the Japanese, by any means. It just happens to be their mistake this time. Any who lives in the U.S. is well aware that much of our current government is not making rational, grounded-in-science decisions about many things ...
99
@Holly Cho It's not that the Japanese aren't educated. Obviously they are, but being educated in one sphere doesn't mean you're educated in another. The people making the most important decisions aren't qualified to make those decisions in this particular crisis.
74
Wouldn’t it have been better to quarantine the passengers separately, rather than together on a ship? Expensive, but considering the stakes, it seems worth it.
16
There is no one at the helm in America and apparently in Japan who is attempting to stop this utter horrific incompetence and its deadly consequences.
Where are the adults who are supposed "leaders" in our world?
Every person who walked off that ship needs to immediately be tracked down, quarantined and interrogated as to where they've been, who they were with and so forth since they walked off that ship!!
14
@Tom Paine Too late now. Contact tracing is now futile since they were allowed to freely disperse.
5
You'd think that the way to do a quarantine would be that none leaves the ship until no new cases have been reported for the full incubation duration (14 days).
Harsh, but if you're doing a quarantine it is worse to do it halfway since you end up not controlling the infection but still impose significant hardship on the quarantined.
12
@JU The problem is everyone is in danger of getting sick on the ship because of a leaky quarantine.
Better: get passengers off the ship and into real quarantines.
8
The Diamond Princess has been an incubating Petrie dish for the coronavirus for the last 14 days, and Japanese officials are solely responsible for 620 of the 621 confirmed infections on board the ship. If my recollection serves me correctly, a single passenger with the virus was removed from the ship two weeks ago and since then 620 other cases have developed.
To make matters exponentially worse, those same officials are now releasing 443 people from the ship based on the results of tests which may or may not be definitive at the moment.
I am appalled by the utter stupidity and recklessness of those officials, who represent a country I once thought to be unquestionably sophisticated and of sound judgment.
40
@Cordelia Most of us probably grew up ignorant about tsunamis, except for folks in the Pacific NW. Well, Japan has the benefit a thousand years of recorded history and they still put far too many nuclear power plants on the /Pacific/ side of their islands, from whence come the tsunami waves. Despite that and the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, they still got caught sleeping at the wheel in 2011. Now we have this additional example of their incompetence. They fooled us and the world that they could handle this situation.
What we have here is institutionalized incompetence from the WHO? all the back to the CCP. I'm spelling it with a question mark going forward.
9
@Cordelia we actually have definitive evidence from published work in the NEJM that those released passengers are virtually certain to include infectious people. See "Evidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Returning Travelers from Wuhan, China" where they report that 2 of 114 people with no symptoms later tested positive and infectious.
6
@Cordelia -- Yes, they acted just as ignorant as Cambodia whose autocratic leader did not want to offend the Chinese who spend plenty of money in his country.
2
" Japan declared on Wednesday that 443 people had satisfied the terms of a two-week quarantine and let them walk free."
The coronavirus infection should be taken seriously and these 443 people should be kept on quarantine for an additional two weeks in a facility in Japan before being released.
The coronavirus is spreading at an alarming rate in China much more quickly than the SARS. Dr. W.Ian Lipkin known as a "master virus hunter" who helped fight the SARS outbreak in an interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN was saying that the coronavirus is highly transmissible than the flu virus or SARS.
The lab test for COVID-19 is also new. There are deep concerns laboratory tests are incorrectly telling people they are free of the coronavirus. Stories in several countries suggest people are having up to six negative results before finally being diagnosed
A study in the Journal of Radiology ( Radiological Society of North America) published recently showed five out of 167 patients tested negative for the disease by the lab tests despite lung scans showing they were ill. They then tested positive for the virus at a later date. What more can be done? CT scans,? they are expensive with radiation hazards.
We know very little about COVID-19 because it's so new. This means COVID-19 is something of a wild card in terms of how far it will spread and how many deaths it will cause. This illness should be taken seriously.
14
So, what would you do with thousands of folks who are mostly foreigners, likely to get infected if not already infected, and will inundate your medical system with little or no compensation?
Declare them "safe" and send them on their way out of your country.
5
@Laura
Indeed. But don't keep them for two weeks so they can dramatically increase the infected population.
Japan should have been demanding that other countries evacuate their people ASAP and also telling people on that ship to put the pressure on their home countries to get this done.
Maybe they were, and everyone refused to pick up their citizens.
4
My question is to NYT? You reported about China in great detail and its missteps, and why you did not report about Japan and its missteps in this virus containment with same rigor. Japan needs to account for its mistakes.
13
@mitraji ummm. They just did. And they have previously.
4
Based on the German experience published the New England Journal of Medicine this is clearly not safe. Approximately 10 of them will test positive using a 2 week quarantine period in a high risk exposure conditions such as those existing on that cruise ship. Of course, these are tangential interpretations of limited data available.
7
Looks like, due to these choices, Japan will be the next big outbreak center. Are they willing to take the same economy-crushing steps at containment that Wuhan is?
Every day, a new list of delayed test results will come back (like happened with the US evacuees), and they'll realize a new bunch of 20-50 per day of the released cruise passengers thought healthy were actually infected within the last few days, then scramble to try to find who've they've infected since riding the subway home.
15
Why does it take special expertise to understand that you aren’t cleared of suspicion of carrying a virus until you have been isolated from exposure to it for longer than the incubation period?
People on the cruise ship could have been exposed yesterday. And judging from the report from the doctor in this article, they probably were. And now they go about their business, touching fruit at the grocery store, sneezing in line at the bank...
35
I fear the real reason is we are not being told the whole story . An infectious viral outbreak is difficult to control no matter what . People will disobey or break quarantine protocols either thru ignorance or a sense of self preservation . We will see more cases here in the U.S. and around the world , just a matter of time .
10
I am glad that people won’t be trapped on the ship, with more and more getting sick, soon. But why does the CDC still say our US cases are 15? Surely with 14 Diamond Princess cases added on, the number should have gone up to 29? And I heard on the radio last night there was at least 1 more. But I don’t see any news of this? Also, some articles indicated the tests sent to states might be flawed and had to be returned? Are reporters asking the CDC questions about all this?
7
@Vsf The CDC announced a few days ago they would consider those individuals to remain as part of the "cruise ship count" and not part of the US count. An effort to make us all feel better, I assume? It doesn't reflect reality.
9
The Japanese government doesn’t have an agency that deals with infectious diseases?
I have been reading that they have cases popping up with no connection to China and now all these cruise ship passengers are walking their streets. This does not bode well for the rest of the world. Wish they would have moved that ship back to China and they could have quarantined everyone there. There may be no Olympics this year.
Please Carnival do the world a favor: Give refunds and cancel cruises. Disinfect and park those boats for the time being.
12
@BT They will absolutely go bankrupt if they do that.
Seems to me that the Japanese government ran a calculation and decided that the on-going PR nightmare of a "disease ship" parked in Yokohama Harbor was worse than the fallout from sending potentially infectious individuals back to their home countries... They want that ship and the media attention gone.
7
Well-intentioned mistakes are still mistakes. The fact is that quarantines are hard to execute... people get antsy, and foreign governments breathe down your neck about their citizens. Biological agents do not forgive. We may be seeing the beginning of a massive and out-of-control worldwide pandemic.
10
I wish there was some kind of international treaty that said that if the WHO determined something to be a pandemic, they would get called in to manage the whole process. This DIY method from country to country isn’t working.
18
I am surprised Japan has no disease control agency. How can that be in the modern world? I believe Japan prides itself on having an orderly homogeneous society but that is no defense against biological "weapons" such as this coronavirus.
It is good that other countries are requiring the DP passengers to undergo quarantine before entry but there also should have been a quarantine upon disembarkation. I listened to Mr (Dr?) Iwata's account of the minimal to no infection control procedures aboard the Diamond Princess and I now understand why the disease spread so widely among the passengers, crew, and Japanese authorities. Holland America has a chief medical officer, Dr Grant Tarling, who had to know what went on aboard DP was wrong. Why didn't he speak up?
12
You left out the part about the ship cutting the passengers out of the internet. The TVs worked. The crew was using cell phones; but the passengers were told the internet is "down". Friends of a friend were on the ship.
12
Although China's response to the coronavirus was drastic, I strongly prefer an overcautious response to Japan's disorganized quarantine. The only people the Japanese government seemed to be caring about were its citizens not on-board the cruise ship.
1
I thought of Japan as a highly competent nation, yet their handling of this crises was so unbelievably inept that my perception has dramatically changed. Telling the passengers out of quarantine that they're now safe to take public transportation???? Truly, truly shocked at Japan's complete lack of even common sense.
25
????
I'm looking to Trump to take necessary actions. It's great to have someone in the WH not beholden to making other countries feel good.
1
Has he even mentioned this crisis and offered any leadership?
2
@David H. Then why hasn't he?
Clearly, this is insane.
We know this is a crafty highly contagious virus that is without doubt about to spread some more from letting people, and their stuff, just waltz off the ship. There have been many who test negative a few times and then test positive. What are the Japanese thinking and where is the WHO with some clear & stringent guidelines??
15
The way the Japanese handles the coronavirus spread on the cruise ship is very concerning. What happens there is unbelievable and alarming! All the countries should shut off the air travel out of Japan immediately, as they are doing to China, to stop the virus from spreading further and becoming a true global pandemic. The US government, please, do it NOW to protect us in the US.
4
At the risk of angering others in the Infectious Disease world. This is, not to sound unscientific, but absolutely stupid. This is what happens when politics and politicians run science. That ship is Petri dish. You have to show no new infections within a quarantine period for it to be effective. If not you assume continued transmission. This virus is going to start spreading worldwide, by mid April we will see what policies like this and Cambodia have caused. Prime ministers are not Infectious Disease experts. None should be politically appointed. The WHO and CDC are broken. Who is the adult in the room???
13
Thought we had figured out a quarter of a century ago that cruise ships are not good quarantine locations. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(96)91137-X/fulltext
5
Sounds like they are ready for Tokyo Olympic
5
@JDC Are people cancelling yet? I think it is interesting they will only let elite athletes compete in the Tokyo marathon. Elite athletes can't get the virus.
Based on the skyrocketing infection rate on the ship, it is reasonable to assume that perhaps ~25% of the 443 released passengers could be carriers.
14
I lived in rural Japan years ago. I was impressed by how orderly and compliant everyone was. Everybody followed the rules. It was amazing but also excessive.
The problem for the Japanese comes when a situation arises which requires innovation. I was appalled, for example, by the trash on the beaches. When I asked a local teacher why they weren't educating the kids to keep the beaches cleaner, the teacher looked offended:
"That's not my job," he said.
25
I would like to see a graphic showing the cabins/areas where passengers became ill and tested positive. There could be a lot to learn about transmission from this ship.
also have any of the ill been transferred to ICU care as seen in China? I don’t recall reading that any passengers required that kind of response.
clearly the ship was an incubator but it may be less virulent than Wuhan. It’s scary but too early to judge the true impact of how this situation was handled.
8
One of the passengers had died and 16 are in intensive care. The time to death with this virus is 10-18 days, so I would expect to see more of the passengers die
8
@Dr.E
Perhaps that's why they let everyone go. Keeping people on the ship while everyone started dying is a recipe for an uprising.
1
@Dr.E
Worldometer shows one death in Japan unrelated to the cruise ship. This article provides details.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200213_50/
Is there another source of stats confirming the cruise ship death?
So today Japan let cruise passengers from Coronavirus cruise ship Diamond Princess walk free in Yolohama? How safe is that? We don't have any idea yet how safe we are from the novel Covid-19 virus here in the US. No point worrying about something we can't control! We're far more worried about the uncontrolled virus of our dangerous presidency in coming months.
31
Trump is a pandemic unto himself
4
The mistakes were made Day 1: no matter where they had to be moved, the passengers should have been taken off the ship immediately. A cruise ship is not a quarantine environment, not matter what you call it. The fact that hundreds on the ship have become infected was totally predictable.
It's hard to imagine the effects if this were a super-deadly virus like Ebola instead of Coronavirus.
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I can only assume the Japanese didn't want to, or didn't know how to, quarantine 3700 people on land.
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@ellienyc
You are 100% correct. The Japanese only know how to quarantine 3700 people at sea. As you assumed, they have no idea how to quarantine 3700 people on land, but are most eager to learn.
@ellienyc
They should have insisted two weeks ago that countries take their citizens off the ship ASAP and fly them home and quarantine them in their home countries if they couldn't handle 3700 people on land.
1
I'm going to accuse the United States of a political gamesmanship too. The Trump administration is deeply afraid American citizens to dying on a cruise ship in Japan. The passengers might die anyway. However, you can't control the narrative of their death from a quarantined ship somewhere across the world. Bringing the passengers home was almost certainly the wrong decision. However, the Trump administration doesn't want bad optics during an election season. In all likelihood, we are all less safe as a result.
This virus is going to spread. However, the quicker it spreads, the more people will die. The idea is to limit the spread as much as humanly possible. Beginning with Cambodia, world leaders have apparently thrown in the towel. The US and Japan are right there on the same list.
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@Andy
From the tone of the comments, guess that the best thing to do would have been to move the ship to deep waters and scuttled it with all on board. No way the virus could have spread and all the alarmed commenters could sleep easy about the possibility of the virus spreading. As to the poor folks on board, just too bad but Americans will feel better.
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@Andy No, bringing the people home was the right thing. The US has a lot of resources that other countries don't have to handle this situation, the military facilities, the excellent Public Health Service, and an army of academics who are eager and willing to study this.
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"443 people had satisfied the terms of a two-week quarantine and let them walk free."
This is a very bad decision and does not make sense. To be on the safer side these 443 people should be on quarantine for another two weeks in a Japanese facility before they are discharged to the outside world.
The Infectious disease specialist from Kobe University had visited the ship and he was describing the conditions in the ship as " completely chaotic". He was afraid that he himself might contract the coronavirus while on the ship.
Experts have expressed alarm over the quarantine protocols in the ship.
The Infectious disease specialist from Australia does not believe that things are being controlled completely and that these passengers should be put in another two weeks quarantine
Many countries who have their citizens on this ship are not confident that the shipboard quarantine worked, and that more people could later test positive.
The number of confirmed infections on the ship has reached 621 on Wednesday and 79 new cases have been added.
In my opinion, the Japanese government is making a rash decision, these people are not safe enough to ride public transport and go home to their families without going through another quarantine.
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I can only assume the US isn't the only country that is not allowing its citizens from this ship to return until they have spent at least 14 days in Japan or elsewhere.
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The passengers should have been allowed to disembark immediately and moved to a quarantine facility in their country. Given enough time, everyone on the ship would have gotten sick. That didn’t seem to occur to anyone in authority.
Now passengers are being released who could very well be carrying the virus. I would not want to be anywhere near them, on a city street - or on an airplane where the interior air is recirculated.
This was a huge mistake by the Japanese. I fear we will be seeing the deadly results in the weeks to come.
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Too many of us on this planet now? Pandemic nature will decide.
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Another indication this event has exposed global and national infrastructures as a Potemkin Village is that every article written and published on this topic has raised more questions than they have answered.
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I hope the cruise ship owners are prepared for lawsuits.
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...and empty ships.
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@HeyJoe Realistically is anyone booking a cruise now? Even the Alaska and Caribbean cruises might have people from Asia abroad.
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I will forget about going there for the Olympics now. Big mistake on the part of Japan. Imagine going to the Olympics and getting this bug!!
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"The country does not have a government agency that specializes in disease control."
...nor do we thanks to Republican budget cuts.
"Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response"
'As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.'
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/
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People are commenting without really knowing or understanding all the facts. There’s more to this than simply on/off.
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All things considered, it is really hard not to see this development as stupid and dangerous.
China is locking up millions, Japan is apparently lax towards a bunch on the luxurious cruise which is a totally obvious breeding ground for covid-19. What were they thinking?
Fortunately, internationally, the 'freed' people will have to be quarantined again.
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The irony of it all is that the one country in Asia that will probably remained unscathed by the virus will be North Korea.
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@Jim V
Doubtful that North Korea would fess up if coronavirus came calling.
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@Jim V I would not count on that. The border with China seems more or less porous and North Koreans are unhealthy. NK is also quite corrupt.
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Is it safe?
Yes, if no pandemic develops and this is all just another mild flu.
No, if a pandemic develops (many millions around the world catch it, some millions need hospitalization, and ~5% of those die).
The trouble is, we can't yet predict which way this will go and therefore it's a reckless move by Japan, Cambodia, and even the US for helping to spread the potential carriers.
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Nothing about this was safe. While it was reported on, the media seemed oddly reserved with respect to expressing concern until now. Even as the number of infected increased daily on that ship, the world seems to shrug. All the focus was on China bashing and highlighting every potential Chinese misstep. I fear that everyone has become so eager to see enemies fail that we are not learning from one another. I fear that there is not enough collaboration. But my greatest fear is that misplaced pride might result in not following a successful approach because an enemy or rival did it first.
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@Pigsy The focus was on the origin of the virus. It doesn't matter what country it came from, it matters that information from doctors and scientists are taken seriously. Whoever threatens and silences them deserves nothing but contempt.
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@Pigsy
"...the media seemed oddly reserved with respect to expressing concern until now."
which is a reflection how completely overwhelmed our global and national infrastructure is and how ill prepared we are to cope with events such as these.
the media takes its cues from governmental agencies...we are all on our own.
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The stupidity of the bureaucrats is matched only by the courage of the health care workers, like Kentaro Iwata.
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@Norman
The Japanese bureaucrats have failed and ramifications are still spreading. The key reason behind that failure lies in the Japanese disease of worshipping UN agencies. WHO, UNESCO or UNICEF all have an absolute approval in Japan. WHO, especially the current DG, has been suspected for his political ambitions as he has been trying to exclude Taiwan from all WHO activities as demanded by China. That suspicion was present in Japan, but WHO card was strong enough to override that. Price to be paid now is cancellation or postponement of Tokyo 2020.
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China: *Seals off cities.
Rest of the world: this is gross overreaction.
Japan: *Lets people off the boat after two week quarantine.
Rest of the world: this is reckless.
There's just no satisfying some people.
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@benThe media has been very quiet about the recklessness of how the situation on that ship was handled until now. Remember the entertainers traveling from cabin to cabin? Yes, it was reported but not one expert quoted as expressing concern about it. I cringed reading it though. Meanwhile, it seems that any action by the Chinese was instantly criticized by a boatload of experts who were, however, oddly quiet when it came to suggesting better alternatives.
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It wasnt a 2 week quarantine since clearly there was exposure on the ship. I think we would all be fine with a true 2 week quarantine.
I must say that the Japanese have a terrible record of dealing with emergencies such as this! Allowing bureaucrats rather than medical professionals to organize the quarantine on that ship and thereby spread the virus among the passengers the way they did is an outrage. When the Japanese doctor boarded the ship and was so horrified by the conditions on board, saying that nothing was organized properly to contain the spread of the virus among the passengers, I couldn't believe it. Seems like the main focus was keeping the passengers off Japanese soil, ramifications for the passengers themselves be damned. Now Japan is the world's third largest economy - there is simply no excuse for the way they handled this situation and the treatment of the passengers for 2 weeks on board what amounted to a prison ship full of infected passengers is just shocking in every way. I'm so disappointed and angry at the Japanese government for having dropped the ball as they did, there's no excuse.
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@ManhattanWilliam 'Seems like the main focus was keeping the passengers off Japanese soil, ramifications for the passengers themselves be damned.'
Are you surprised? This is fundamentally the same approach as taken by all the other countries in banning Chinese passengers from entry. All driven by the 'keep you diseases to yourselves' mantra. If it's justifiable then, it is justifiable now.
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@ben But the solution would be to request and allow the passengers' home countries to evacuate and quarantine them.
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@ManhattanWilliam
What is worse is that they have allowed passengers to disembark and go wherever they wish on the assumption that a 2 week quarantine from the first case indicates they are not infected. They need 2 weeks quarantine from the last person who has the disease because they may have contracted the virus from that last person. I sure would not let any of those passengers board my airplane until they proved healthy 2 weeks from now. This is a recipe for a full fledged pandemic. Bless the infectious disease doctor who stepped up and called this. He may well prove to be the Japanese equivalent of the Chinese doctor who did the same. If the doctor was concerned enough after just going on the ship for a short time to see what was happening (to be thrown off by incompetents), to put himself immediately into quarantine, that pretty much sums up the potential danger.
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It appears that the virus has been circulated in China since November 2019. Now with the virus outbreak(s) on the cruise ships in Asia, it is becoming more obvious the proverbial cat is out of the bag.
Is it time to move from containment to mitigation or are we too afraid of the economical impacts that such move would create?
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@ma
and by mitigation you mean what precisely?
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@ma
That shift would occur by necessity. There are several cases of taxi and tourist bus drivers got infected by Chinese visitors in Japan and Singapore. Equally many Chinese visitors went to France before Wuhan was locked down. Yet, no case has been reported in Europe of bus drivers getting infected. Do French or other European bus drivers naturally avoid Chinese passengers while Japanese drivers greet and smile to them?
Wow. The "chaotic" and downright irrational handling of the cruise ship quarantine echoes in some ways the behind-the-scenes mishandling of things in the early days of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. What's going on with Japan's disaster management? This is far from reassuring, especially with the Japanese Olympics looming.
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@RD
Do not worry. The Games will be postponed until further notice. A terrible blow to many athletes.
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Most of the people I know are indifferent to what's going on in China (and now other countries in Asia albeit on a much smaller scale). It's just not real to them. I've noticed there have been fewer comments on the Times' articles about COVID-19 recently. A lot of people seem to be getting bored.
Soothing assurances from experts notwithstanding, everything I've read tells me that we're in the land of what Donald Rumsfeld once called "unknown unknowns".
I postponed a long standing trip to California that at the end of the month until the late summer -- and I'm staying out of airplanes and other public transportation until (a) we understand this virus better and/or (b) we're sure that the US is going to be spared.
My guess the US will dodge the bullet this time. But if the virus does hit us, we're simply not prepared for a Chinese style response.
The tragic Diamond Princess saga also seems to confirm (a) longer than expected incubation periods, (b) a high probability for transmission in a confined space and (c) general chaos in the official handling of this crisis.
I am scared.
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@Frequent Flyer
I'm flying to Europe next month. I felt okay about it ... until now.
Each time there is a new case of Coronavirus, the 14 day quarantine resets to zero. This did not happen on the Island Princess. Japan appears to have misunderstood how to effectively quarantine the people on the Cruise ship and just counted fourteen days.
Even though those released tested negative for Coronavirus, this does not mean that they will not get the virus later. They were just exposed to the virus this week.
Japan may have spread the virus around the globe.
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@Rebecca
Give me a break. Chinese visitors partly deceived by China's curren t regime spread the virus.
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@Rebecca, you're right, but the problem is that if they kept resetting the quarantine release date, no one would ever have got off that ship. People were sharing the same air (and the virus) via the shipboard ventilation system, not to mention the high likelihood that staff members were carrying the virus from cabin to cabin.
Japan should have put the passengers in a proper onshore quarantine facility to begin with --- a place where they couldn't infect each other.
As you noted, it's a not a "quarantine" if the virus gets passed around to more people than it would infect otherwise, and those people are then released into the general public to keep infecting others.
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Very true.
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‘He acknowledged, though, that after three health ministry officials who had tended to passengers on the ship tested positive for the virus, “I cannot say that things are being controlled completely.”’
‘“The lack of a coordinated response in which genuine experts are responsible for decision making is problematic,” he said,” because what happens instead is that you have political functionaries who are placed in roles of authority beyond their competency. For me, the echoes and analogies with Fukushima are just really disturbing.”’
These two statements say everything about the cruise ship quarantine. We humans never know everything, but clearly some of us are more expert than others. And when non-experts try to manage an epidemic, potentially horrible and probably unnecessary consequences are likely to result.
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Just out of curiosity...
Who pays for the costs of housing the passengers on cruise ship under quarantine? The govt that orders the quarantine or the cruise line ?
Who pays for the the chartered planes cost that brings passengers/ tourists back from Japan/ China? The govt of the country they are evacuating to or the passengers themselves?
Who pays for the 2 week quarantine at the Air Force bases in the US? And lost wages for the persons that are under the quarantine order ?
None of the news articles I could find seem to address these questions.
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I’m sure the US government pays for flying them over here and quarantining them stateside. But I don’t want to have to wear a mask here in Massachusetts, so I fully support the expense.
You’re not seeing the big picture. Apple can’t make iPhones right now. Who will pay for missed first quarter corporate profits? There’s a real risk of a worldwide recession because China doesn’t have food sanitation and likes to eat endangered species. They will catch the brunt of it. I hope we can keep it from taking hold on this continent.
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Re charted planes, my impression is that the US government pays. They can charge you full economy, but in practice the charter costs much more than this. It is a benefit of being a US citizen and paying US taxes.
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@S_lake, the cruise line for the Cambodia ship is Holland America. The ship is the Westerdam. HAL is paying the costs of the passengers disembarking and flying home from Cambodia, as well as the refund for the cruise, etc.
1
The passengers sick or not should have been evacuated in shifts to their respective countries rather than languishing on this ship of contagion for so long. There are going to be many more incidents requiring tough decision making especially as the virus gains a foothold worldwide. What is WHO doing during all this? And let's hope our CDC and NIH are ready.
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Is it safe to let people who have been confined in a ship overwhelmed with a deadly virus to leave if they have a negative test? Of course its not. They should have been taken off the ship 14 days ago and put in hospitals or flown back to their own countries to be quarantined. That is what needs to happen NOW. All of them need to be quarantined again for 14 days and only then if they are still negative should they be allowed to travel freely.
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Looks like Japan is helping the spread of the coronavirus since they have no clue is some of the people are just coming down with the virus. Now it can spread around as they fly home. It seems pretty negligent to me.
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I would hope that people will start boycotting Princess Cruise Line for they have handled this crisis on their ship so very poorly and now they are allowing disembarkation without demanding more protocols and quarantines to be put in place to make sure the people leaving will not be taking the virus to all of their home countries.
By allowing these people to leave their ship under these circumstances is abhorrent. It makes me feel like they just want to end any more financial responsibility as a result of more passengers showing signs of infection while on board so instead they just want to send them on their way.
Another good reason to boycott Princess Cruises is, well, just imagine what is going to happen when all the crew members finish their mandatory sterilization of the ship and are then dispersed to other Princess Cruise Line ships? Will they be fully tested and quarantined after cleaning the ship? Myself, I doubt it very much. Not after seeing how they handled this debacle.
I for one will be boycotting Princess Cruises and I will never step foot on one of their ships again.
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@Jimringg
I do not know if a private company has the authority to confine its customers against their will - that is the responsibility of the government in whose waters the ship rests.
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@Jimringg
I agree about boycotting Princess. In my opinion they are more concerned with profit than passenger safety. My wife and I paid for a Circle Japan Cruise last September. The day of the cruise Typhoon Jebi, Category 5, hit Western Japan with much destruction. Did they cancel the cruise, Nope. They stayed in port at Yokohama for one day and changed their itinerary to avoid the ports with extensive damage. We asked for a refund due to the circumstances, their answer Nope, Sorry we're sailing, no refund. Wouldn't cruise with them again.
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The world is not ready for a pandemic. Japan is not ready.
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“I cannot say that things are being controlled completely.” comforting.
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When everyone is finally off the ship, what will Princess do with the Diamond Princess? Fumigate it? Disinfect it? Refurbish it? Rename it? Maybe all of the above?
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@L.A. Observer
If the virus cannot survive outside a host for long, just let it sit for a week and it should be safe.
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Some of the previously quarantined folks in CA have come down with symptoms.
Thanks China, for being transparent and protecting the world from this horror.
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I say it is the best move ever. Please note, when Bats are stressed, that is when they shed the Coronavirus. Why not work on the assumption that it may be the same case in humans? I say, this virus has been roaming world wide since it first started in Wuhan, lord only knows exactly when. It is obviously not a very dangerous virus. What it has succeeded in doing is expose the vulnerability of political bodies to strategize and plan for a pandemic disease that is not so kind. The WHO seems to be as ineffectual as any governmental organization. I say there should be a non-governmental association of the leading epidemiologists formed through billionaire money answerable to no government and completely (at least as much as can be hoped) independent. They should be allowed freely into any country worldwide and consult with any government without hindrance. Also this whole mad rush to make vaccines, is like encouraging gun manufacturers to make more guns to keep America safe. Look where that has got us. I say we need a fresh look at immunity. A fresh look at organisms that co-habit this earth with us. Nothing is bad or good. It is about what maintains a certain balance that contributes to a positive outcome vs a negative one. I say we refresh our outlook on what constitutes a diseased situation and a different perspective on the why. Perhaps a peek into history far back in time would be a great start.
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@Meena
" It is obviously not a very dangerous virus. " I suspect the people on ventilators and the families of the people who have died may have a different perspective on the danger than you do. Are you an anti-vaxer? Let nature take it's course and may the fittest survive? I wish you no ill and hope you do not become infected. If by some horrendous circumstance you do, you may change your opinion.
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@ExPatMX
Please read the CDC pages. And those of other foreign governments before giving in to hyperbole. If it was anything dangerous, we would be facing it right here in the United States right now. As well as the rest of the world. Absolutely, it is terrible for those on ventilators. The relevant question to ask is what caused them to be there? Covid or the medications presumed to keep corona at bay? Or secondary infections caused by the person’s immune response. We have no clear or truthful data from China.
I am certainly not anti- vaccination. Clearly it helps with stable organisms that do not have the ability to mutate frequently and those that elicit excellent memory responses from our immune system. Unfortunately the same approach is very ineffective for others like the rhinovirus, or influenza. The latter has an efficacy of only 40-60%. In effect you gamble when taking it hoping you are part of that lucky 40-60%. Then of course there is cost to prevention figures to consider. Surely we must be more intelligent and realize we need a new perspective on how to address infection itself. This new viral entrant, so far seems less harmful than the excited responses from the human population it has jumped into. Hopefully we will calm down enough to study it with intelligence.
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“They want to handle the case based on a successful plot that the bureaucrats created, and they just want to follow it,”
It became painfully evident during the aftermath of earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Government elites who hold key positions as well as those who are in the chain of command are products of Japanese elite academic education - a system whose sole purpose is to send students through top universities and career track in public and private sector entities. As such, they have received education that emphasizes excellence in test scores but low on imagination and creativity. In addition, those who have received top marks (and thus likely to hold highest positions) have had little experience in facing adversity and failures while growing up.
The resulting elites in Japan lack leadership skills and imagination, fragile when met with challenge. The quote at the beginning summarizes the symptomatic weakness and ineffectiveness of the Japanese government in the face of crisis.
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@Heidi Weber
Stop with the Harvard school of Asian stereotypes. Asians’ supposed lack of leadership skills and imagination have been repeated ad nauseam by the west to argue: 1. how the west are still better even though East Asia are equally as developed, and 2. why the world should still be lead by the west.
If the west is actually better than East Asia, then why is Europe and the US in such a mess? Why do people go to East Asia to look at the latest tech and infrastructure and not UK’s HS2 or Germany’s Brandenburg Airport?
3
The virus has already spread far and wide to be contained. The passengers from the ship that disembarked in Cambodia have flown around the world. It is likely that the planes they flew in will carry the infection for days and so will their co-passengers and staff. The permutations from that one incident itself are mind-boggling. There are many others which no-one knows about. It is like putting the genie back in the bottle it came out of, it cannot be done.
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@Rahul : It can't be truly contained, but it needs to be slowed. The more people impacted at once, the higher the case fatality rate may be, because at a certain point there are simply not enough hospital beds, medical professionals, and ventilators to keep all of those with serious complications alive.
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Woe unto all of us when the released passengers “release the virus” all over the world.
Who knows, for example, to what degree the virus has mutated?On a ship which provided the ideal incubating conditions for both the mutation and spread of a new pathogen? To unsuspecting victims? Who will now become unwitting experimental subjects in an Experiment they never agreed to take part in?
Events have set in motion which are completely predictable - but with unpredictable consequences.
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@TheraP
We've seen this movie before - I Am Legend, etc. - and it never ends well for mankind.
1
We seem to be witnessing more and more normalization of deviance in this outbreak.
It’s a term used largely in aerospace and industry to describe the circumstances when those in charge of operational matters chafe under the paranoia of those who set the original standards (which can often be the same person). Over time, allowances are made for greater and greater deviance from the correct way of doing things and the expedient way becomes the new norm.
Most of the time there’s no immediate sign this was a bad idea, which only encourages more deviance, until something goes horribly, but predictably wrong.
Challenger, Columbia and the entire Chemical Safety Board channel on YouTube are excellent examples of this in action. I fear the coronavirus outbreak will provide a few more case studies.
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@Bill Deregulation of the financial industry, and the Boeing 737 Max scandal are two more examples of this.
16
@Brian gee I think the entire Republican Party is another.
2
Well said Bill. Apply the same thoughts to the Wuhan Virology BSL4 Lab/Institute.
2
This is about the most non-sensical decision ever made!
Japan is supposed to hold the Summer Olympics.
We already know a person can test negative and be symptom free, while passing along the virus.
Is this the time to experiment?
The Law of Unintended Consequences now has hundreds of people testing how far the virus can spread from just this one sample of people who’ve been trapped on a virus incubator for 2 weeks.
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@TheraP No one will show up for the Summer Olympics now that Japan will be an incubator for the virus as people leave the ship.
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@Jacquie
I suspect that, by the summer, the world will look very different and the lack of Olympics will be the least of our problems.
8
@TheraP The Summer Olympics? I hope we can all redirect our concern toward people, infected or not, who were suffering under these inhumane conditions.
2
Viruses have a large variation in development of symptoms. Rabies, for example, can take anywhere between a couple of weeks to two months from time of infection.
Two months incubation. Hmmm.
13
@B. The speed of onset of rabies depends on where the virus entered the body: the more distant from the brain (e.g., the foot) the longer it will take to manifest itself. Rabies virus travels up the nerves in the inoculation site to the brain, and until it reaches the brain, disease is not evident.
23
Thanks, BA.
1
It concerns me that Japan seems to be just exporting its problem with the virus.
I hope the U.S. will immediately implement stringent quarantine procedures for all arrivals from Japan as well as Cambodia and China.
There are still too many unanswered questions about how transmittal opportunities and incubation periods for the world to relax its vigilance, especially when there are procedures at hand to limit unnecessary exposure.
113
Japan was spared the SARS epidemic 17 years ago, and the lack of experience shows. Taiwan, in contrast, was on high alert as soon as the news broke.
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