Coronavirus: 2 Australian passengers evacuated from the Diamond Princess have virus
Two Australians evacuated from a cruise ship in Japan diagnosed with the virus, and there are fears of more to come.
Two Australians evacuated from the coronavirus-riddled cruise ship the Diamond Princess have tested positive for COVID-19 at a quarantine centre outside Darwin.
The pair, described by health authorities as “one younger person and one elderly person”, are due to be medevaced today to their home states of South Australia and Western Australia.
The positive cases were among six people isolated overnight after showing flu-like symptoms upon arrival in the Top End capital on Thursday.
The passenger from South Australia is a 24-year-old female who will be treated at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, South Australia’s Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier confirmed.
Four other people tested negative for potentially deadly coronavirus. A seventh person was being tested on Friday after developing a “mild cough”.
Acting Northern Territory Chief Health Officer Dianne Stephens said there was no danger to the public, staff or other evacuees, adding that the newly detected coronavirus patients had low-level symptoms.
“Those people remain well and mildly ill with cold-like symptoms and they do not necessarily need to be in the hospital system but more than likely will enter the hospital system in their home states while they managed the COVID-19 quarantine and isolation procedures,” Dr Stephens said.
“The majority, 80 to 90 per cent of people, (with coronavirus) have very mild symptoms like the common cold, for which you do not need to be in hospital.
“The other small minority of people with COVID-19 can go on to develop serious disease. That happens slowly over a number of days, and so both these individuals will be taken into their hospital systems to watch to see whether or not they’re going to improve or deteriorate.”
The six suspected cases were identified as people disembarked the evacuation flight on Thursday. Those people were transferred to the quarantine facility in a separate bus.
“These may not be the only two people with COVID-19 infection during this period. Every day we will screen, we will isolate people, and we will test them,” Dr Stephens said.
“We are taking a very cautious approach. Anybody with any symptoms are being isolated.”
Australia’s chief medical officer Brendan Murphy also confirmed the cases and said that more passengers could contract the virus on Friday morning.
“It is possible that more could develop positive tests over the next few days. We don’t know that, but if they do we are completely well set up to detect and manage and isolate them,” Mr Murphy said.
“It’s not unexpected that some people might have been incubating the virus and when they arrived yesterday at the screening before the Howard Springs facility. Six people had some mild symptoms and were tested. Four were negative but two people have shown positive tests for the covid-19 infection.”
Six people suffering a sore throat and runny nose were tested and separated from the rest of the group who arrived in Darwin on Thursday morning.
The former Inpex LNG project workers camp at Howard Springs will be their home for the next fortnight.
They had already been quarantined on the Diamond Princess in Yokohama for two weeks, effectively leaving them confined for almost a month.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus on the ship, which was carrying 3700 passengers and crew, has topped 620 and includes 36 Australians, all of whom are stable, which has prompted criticism of quarantine measures on board.
Some 180 citizens and permanent residents had taken up the federal government’s offer of a seat on the special Qantas evacuation flight.
But 10 were told they could not leave because they had tested positive to the deadly disease, known as COVID-19.
Another 15 had already chosen to stay behind in Japan to be near family members who have been hospitalised after contracting the virus.
“Whether it is us or the crew, we just wanted to get off this damn ship,” Australian Vera Koslova-Fu told ABC before boarding the flight in Japan. She said she had been tempted to stay in Japan but decided to fly home saying “if Australia decides, ‘oh no, the pandemic is getting worse you are going to have to stay away, you are not allowed to come in’, then we are basically stuffed”.
The federal government announced on Thursday that Australia’s ban on travellers from China has been extended until February 29, locking out students and tourists as the number of cases and deaths from coronavirus grows.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday that 15 other people in Australia had so far tested positive for coronavirus, of which ten had recovered. Over 40 Australians with the disease remain in Japan.
So far there have been more than 75,200 cases recorded worldwide and 2009 deaths, almost all of which were in China.
With AAP
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