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Thursday, March 28, 2024

More than 40 Americans infected with coronavirus on cruise ship: Fauci

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More than 40 Americans infected with coronavirus on cruise ship: Fauci
More than 40 Americans infected with coronavirus on cruise ship: Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said on CBS "Face the Nation" that more than 40 Americans, who were quarantined aboard the Diamond Princess cruise liner off Japan for two weeks, tested positive for the coronavirus and were 'not going anywhere'.

(SOUNDBITE) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIH, SAYING: "Well, 40 of them have gotten infected.

They are not going to anywhere.." Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Health on Sunday said that more than 40 Americans aboard the quarantined cruise liner in Japan tested positive for the coronavirus and would be undergoing health screenings before returning to the U.S. (SOUNDBITE) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIH, SAYING: "They're going to be in hospitals in Japan.

People who have symptoms will not be able to get on the evacuation plane.

Others are going to be evacuated starting imminently to Air Force bases in the United States.

If people on the plane start to develop symptoms, they'll be segregated within the plane./ When you come back to the United States, importantly, they're still subjected to a 14 day quarantine." His comments came on CBS'S "Face the Nation" just as passengers on board the Diamond Princess, including Americans, finally disembarked the ship at the Japanese port of Yokohama after being quarantined for two weeks.

The Department of Defense said American evacuees who did not test positive for the virus would be flown to either Travis Air Force Base in California or Kelly Field/Lackland Air Force Base in Texas where they will be quarantined for another two weeks.

Seventy new coronavirus cases were confirmed on board the Diamond Princess, bringing the total on the ship to 355, by far the largest cluster of cases outside China.

(SOUNDBITE) DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIH, SAYING: "...the degree of transmissibility on that cruise ship is essentially akin to being in a hot spot." Within China, authorities reported 2,009 new cases on Sunday, noting that this was down from more than 2,600 the previous day.

Chinese officials called this proof that its steps to fight the outbreak were working.

In mainland China, more than 1600 deaths have been reported from the virus.

Outside China there have been at least five.

Last week, an 83-year-old American woman who had been on board another cruise ship, Holland America's MS Westerdam, which docked in Cambodia, tested positive after she flew to Malaysia, alarming health experts who feared she may have exposed others to the flu-like virus.

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