On February 18, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said that the Diamond Princess cruise ship confirmed another 88 new coronary pneumonia patients. On the afternoon of 17 February, a further 99 people were confirmed to be infected, of whom 70 were asymptomatic. So far, of the 3,711 people on this luxury cruise ship, 542 people have been diagnosed, a whopping 14%. In Japan, the number of confirmed cases has reached 612.
Amesh, a senior U.S. scholar of epidemiology, said the priority now is to get the people on board to disembark quickly and help those in need. The new crown virus can be transmitted through the air, and the closed cabin is the ideal environment for the virus to spread.
Medical staff pick up the patient and disembark
Katsunobu Kato, minister of health, labor and welfare, also admitted that the confined space may have led to a new round of infection. The inner cabin on the cruise ship uses central air conditioning circulation to supply air, and whether the Diamond Princess has opened the external circulation system in time is unknown at this time. Kato Katsunobu said: "The source of infection of new cases has changed, and people are repeatedly in contact in confined spaces. "
This means that the old man in Hong Kong, China, who was diagnosed on February 1, is not the source of infection for all infected people, and a second transmission has already occurred on the cruise ship.
On February 16, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Japanese government held a meeting of experts on countermeasures. At the meeting, some experts said that Japan is currently in the early stages of the epidemic.
Schematic
On February 13, an infected elderly woman in her 80s died of illness, and in just a few days since the start of the fight, in addition to the number of confirmed cases on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, the number of confirmed cases in Japan has surged from 29 to 70, plus 542 people confirmed by the Diamond Princess, and 612 people in Japan have been infected.
What is even more frightening is that the 12 cases of infection in 6 places, including Hokkaido, Tokyo, and Chiba Prefecture, have not been able to confirm the source of transmission, and the cause of the patient's infection is not yet clear.
In the critical period of epidemic prevention and control, Japan has ushered in marathon competitions and folk festivals. This year's marathon, 12 times a day, about 500,000 people participated. On February 15, The city of Okayama celebrated another 500-year-old nudity festival, where tens of thousands of naked young men huddled together like sardines in the deep sea.
Live footage
In addition to the sudden appearance of unexplained infected people in various regions of Japan, there have also been cases of medical personnel being infected. Of the three infected medical staff, 2 are quarantine officers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and 1 is the nurse who died in the first case.
Ad hoc professor of Tohoku Medical University in Japan, Horai Manfu believes that in the early stage of infection with the new crown virus, patients' symptoms are mild and easy to ignore, and if they only have symptoms of colds, doctors of unknown causes may continue to work. In addition, a professor at Tunghai University said that patients may seek medical treatment in some ordinary hospitals, and that hospital may not have enough protection against infectious diseases.
From the soaring number of confirmed cases on the Diamond Princess to the first death case, to the unexplained infection cases in many places, Japan has also entered a critical period of epidemic prevention and control, and is willing to work with China to defeat the new crown virus at an early date.