Hundreds of Hongkongers stranded on the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship currently docked in Japan are slated to be repatriated by a team of government officials and returned to the city by Thursday, where they will undergo quarantine at a Fo Tan housing estate.
RTHK reports that Under-Secretary for Security Sonny Au Chi-kwong and Director of Immigration Erick Tsang Kwok-wai are leading the Hong Kong government delegation to retrieve the 350 passengers, who have been quarantined on board the ship in the port of Yokohama since Feb. 4. Just over 450 people on board are confirmed to have contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus, including 21 Hongkongers.
Two chartered flights have been arranged free of charge for the Hong Kong passengers, who will be sent to quarantine centers as soon as they arrive in the city, Secretary for Security John Lee said yesterday.
“It’s important for them to know that if they do not take our chartered flights on this occasion, there’ll likely be a lot of difficulties for them to come back to Hong Kong because they have been on board this cruise,” he said.
Lee said the two flights would have enough space to accommodate 350 Hong Kong residents and five Macau residents.
The planes are expected to depart Haneda Airport on Wednesday and arrive in the SAR on Thursday. The passengers will then be put in quarantine at the newly completed Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan.
Fo Tan has been the site of recent protests by spooked residents who oppose the government’s plan to quarantine coronavirus patients in the new housing block. The government, however, maintains that the building is hundreds of meters from the nearest residential area, and that there’s little choice as it is, given that other quarantine units are nearly already full.
Some of the 350 or so Hongkongers on the Diamond Princess have said they don’t want to be quarantined for another two weeks, as they have already been stuck on the ship since Feb. 4. Their current two-week quarantine period is due to end on Wednesday.
In an interview with RTHK, however, Chinese University of Hong Kong respiratory diseases expert David Hui Shu-cheong said that the number of infected passengers has continued to rise, and suggested that quarantining even those who aren’t currently showing symptoms for another two weeks would be the wisest course of action.
As of last night, the number of COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong stood at 60.
