The Diamond Princess Coronavirus Quarantine Is a Lesson in Taking Responsibility

Even as Japan accepted the Diamond Princess into its shore, its government was still repatriating its own citizens from Wuhan, China, sending five chartered flights to Hubei to bring almost 800 Japanese and their non-Japanese families back. Of little-known information is the fact that the first Japanese plane was carrying thousands of masks and protective gear donated by private agencies and local government units to give to the Wuhan government. 

In the Diamond Princess case, instead of other governments or agencies helping out, the Japanese administration of Abe Shinzo came under fire for the quarantine measures it instituted to protect the public and prevent the disease from spreading.

When you come to the aid of someone in distress, the least you would expect is to receive flak for it. That is what happened when Japan, in a show of humanitarian concern, accepted the Diamond Princess cruise ship on Feb. 3 after a passenger who had left the ship was later confirmed positive for the Covid 19. 

The drama began when the cruise ship cut short its voyage and returned to Yokohama late Feb. 3. Passengers and crew had to stay on the ship which had been placed under quarantine. By Mar. 1, everyone except the captain had left. More than 700 people had been infected with the coronavirus and seven have since died. Eight Japanese workers who had been on the ship, including one quarantine officer, had also been stricken by the virus.  

According to The New York Times, “more than three days had passed before Japan imposed a quarantine.” But the same newspaper later found out that an email sent from Hong Kong authorities to Princess Cruises on Feb. 1 remained unread for one day. It was only on Feb. 2 that the cruise ship knew about a former passenger who had disembarked earlier and later tested positive for the coronavirus.  The ship arrived at Yokohama port in early Feb. 3 and a few hours later, a Japanese team arrived. Thus, its supposed delay was a result of the cruise ship company’s negligence.

When the Japanese workers came on board, they immediately ordered all passengers to get inside their cabins and not to go about the ship’s premises.  The quarantine began in the late hours of Feb. 3. They also performed tests on some people and results came back the following day showing 10 people infected. These patients were sent to four different hospitals.

The next few days saw a rapid increase in the number of passengers and crew contracting the coronavirus. The foregoing circumstances show that these people had already been infected prior to the quarantine. According to the World Health Organization, the incubation period for the disease is commonly around five days and may be as long as 14 days. The incubation period is the length of time from catching the virus and the start of symptoms showing. The passenger who first had the disease and disembarked at Hong Kong had been in contact with the other ship passengers and crew for five days and had already had a cough at the start of the cruise. 

But the spike in the number of positive cases sparked international condemnations and experts around the world were quick to blame the Japanese government for the spread of the disease on the Diamond Princess. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a health official at US National Institutes of Health, called the quarantine process a failure and the ship an incubator for infection. Be that as it may, it’s difficult to gauge the health status of a group of people at first meeting, more so that this is a motley group coming from several countries. 

Yet, when two chartered planes repatriated more than 300 US citizens from the ill-fated ship to bring them home, the 14 that were positive for the coronavirus were taken with them, inciting the anger of the US president and the CDC. 

Dr. Amesh Adalja, working at an affiliate of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, called the quarantine “not justified” and a violation of the individual rights of the passengers. But legal experts think otherwise. The power to quarantine is actually a police power that gives any country the right to quarantine a foreign vessel that is in its territory if circumstances call for it. 

Professor Kentaro Iwata, an infectious diseases expert at Kobe University, released a video criticizing the Japanese government for its quarantine measures, saying he felt safer with the Ebola and SARS outbreak. In fact, he was on the ship for less than two hours, after being kicked out for meddling with the teams’ operations. 

Steven Hoffman, a professor of global health from York University, surmised that Abe’s administration probably had the protection of the public health in mind when it ordered the quarantine, which is actually what quarantine is all about, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Japanese officials themselves admit that the quarantine may not have been perfect. The ship was not a hospital after all, and the disease had only been identified in December of the past year. There were no established protocols and they had to go with several unknowns.

It wasn’t all blame and criticisms though. Officials of the US State Department expressed their gratitude and appreciation to their Asian ally for their exceptional help in facilitating the evacuation and coordinating with the US medical team in all aspects of the repatriation. They recognized the challenges that Japan faced with the uncertainties surrounding the coronavirus. 

The management of the American-owned Princess Cruises, owner of the British-flagged Diamond Princess, cooperated with Japan’s Ministry of Health from beginning to end and acknowledged them as the lead public health authority that will determine the testing protocols up to the disembarkment processes. 

The Diamond Princess drama has ended. But Japan, like 181 other countries, is still grappling with Covid 19. The country has slid down to No. 18 in the list of countries with the most number of cases. As the microscopic coronavirus causes panic, subjugates entire governments, and humbles arrogant politicians, the world could learn a lesson or two from Japan’s high ethical standards of promoting international accord and sympathy.