Coronavirus: Diamond Princess guest slammed as 'Ugly American' for refusing to self-isolate

When California lawyers Matthew Smith and Katherine Codekas checked into a hotel in Tokyo last weekend, they decided not to hide where they had been.

The couple, along with about 900 other passengers, were released from Feb 19 to 21 after a two-week quarantine on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where a coronavirus outbreak has left more than 700 people infected and killed four Japanese nationals.

Foreign governments evacuated hundreds of their citizens, including about 300 United States nationals, and imposed 14 more days quarantine. But Smith and his wife were not among them.

Smith led a mutiny of about 50 Americans who refused to fly "coronavirus class" with "hazmat astronauts" on the government's converted cargo plane over concerns of sharing a long flight with potentially infected passengers.

Japan did not impose another quarantine upon about 800 Japanese nationals and an estimated 100 foreigners who chose to stay in Japan. Critics say the authorities moved the viral "petri-dish" from the ship into the general public.

Health minister Katsunobu Kato said this week that at least 45 of the 800 released Japanese passengers have reported fevers after disembarking, and at least 23 others were not properly tested.

Officials of foreign governments also reported that at least 42 Americans, seven Hongkongers, seven Australians, four Britons and one Israeli have tested positive after they were repatriated.

The admission comes amid a rising wave of public discontent and concerns by experts that Japan's limited virus-testing capability is masking the true extent of the problem in the country. The number of confirmed infected stands at 186, excluding the Diamond Princess cases.

Smith said hotel staff gave him and his wife masks and have been leaving food outside their door. Smith has tweeted photos of Tokyo Tower and a dining tour of Japanese, Italian, Vietnamese and other restaurants.

During his period of quarantine on the Diamond Princess, he also shared images of the food served on board.

Some have called him an "Ugly American" for possibly spreading the coronavirus around Tokyo, where officials have cancelled classes, concerts and sporting events for at least two weeks.

Smith, who says he reports his temperature daily to the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC), defended himself on Thursday night, saying: "I'm not infected. What are you spreading?"

The lawyer said he and his wife did not leave their luxury suite and balcony on the Diamond Princess for two weeks, and that they felt healthy from the delicious food and Tokyo Bay air. Finding a disembarkation permit in his door, he declared: "Tokyo, here we come!" Many joined him.

Many released Hong Kong passengers received a similar letter. As they left the ship, Princess Cruises executives led them to taxis or buses that took them to train stations.

Carlos Soto Pineda, a lecturer at Hong Kong University, took his wife and son to a hotel in Tokyo's bustling Shinjuku ward.

His wife Yardley Wong, who gained global media attention and more than 4,000 Twitter followers during her ordeal in a tiny windowless cabin, posted photos of pedestrians, a shop and a restaurant where she had noodles and beer.

While some on Twitter accused her of threatening public health, she said she was following instructions from the Japanese government and Princess Cruises.

The next day, Pineda shared a picture of a new disembarkation order given to another round of departing passengers, telling them to "stay home unless absolutely necessary". Wong's photos showed her following those orders and isolating inside their hotel.

Since they no longer had a room on the ship, they spent another night in Tokyo waiting for the release of their parents, aunt and uncle. The family of seven then boarded the government's second charter flight to Hong Kong. At least four passengers on that flight later tested positive in Hong Kong.

Wong, who had earlier hoped to be quarantined at their Kowloon town house, said her family was healthy and resting in the government's quarantine buildings in Fo Tan, which were better than their expectations.

The Hong Kong government repatriated 218 Hongkongers on three charter flights, and 25 others took commercial flights from Tokyo back to the city. It was not clear if flight crew or passengers knew they were sitting among survivors of the contaminated cruise ship.

Smith said it should not matter, because freed passengers had been tested more than almost anyone else.

Smith said he planned to spend at least another week in Japan, since the US Centre for Disease Control had barred him from entering the country until at least March 4.

Asked if he would go on another cruise, he said: "Yes. What are the odds of us encountering anything close to this again?"

So what about all the reports of stacked bodies and nonstop cremations in Wuhan? What is most likely is that the CCP is lying about the mess in Wuhan and probably all their other stats are bogus, too. They have a history.

I tend to think that the Chinese would not shut their economy down for a prank.

While there might be more Asian casualties than non-Asian, it did start in Asia, after all.

If you wander through an apple orchard and look on the ground you will see fallen apples. That does not mean that only apples fall off of fruit trees. Causation versus correlation.

There is as yet insufficient data to conclude that it will affect different races differently, and unless the reports out of Wuhan are part of the hoax, the thing is certainly lethal to Asians. We have to assume it will affect other races with about the same lethality.

The two factors that are clear from the data are that age matters and that when your health care system is saturated and overwhelmed, a lot more people die.

[So what about all the reports of stacked bodies and nonstop cremations in Wuhan? What is most likely is that the CCP is lying about the mess in Wuhan and probably all their other stats are bogus, too. They have a history.]

There is no unitary “CCP” that thinks and acts like a giant ant hill. There is Xi Jinping and the other key leaders who would like to be head honcho instead of Xi.

[I tend to think that the Chinese would not shut their economy down for a prank.]

It’s not a prank. It’s a power play in the midst of uncertainty, combined with the fact that epidemics tend to bring out a Pavlovian reaction among Chinese contenders for power - a signal that the time for revolt/mutiny is nigh. It’s a reaction elicited by the fact that Chinese pols don’t so much look decades or centuries ahead, as thousands of years backwards, for historical precedent. And epidemics preceded a number of serious popular revolts/elite mutinies.

There is no giant ant hill of “Chinese” drones. There is Xi Jinping and the people who would like to be sitting where he is. This is not some kind of joke - he is literally surrounded by enemies, even people he personally appointed. Public servility combined with vicious (and occasionally murderous) plots are part of an ancient Chinese tradition.

For a long and involved explanation, read this entry about the complicated dynamics that belie the surface calm of life at the top in China:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3820772/posts?page=26#26

[There is as yet insufficient data to conclude that it will affect different races differently]

Re coronaviruses, it’s not a racial distinction. It’s a distinction between consumers and non-consumers of exotic game. Chinese have a several thousand year tradition of eating exotic animals. Koreans and Japanese do not. Nor, to my knowledge, do Vietnamese or just about any other nationality in the world, with the exception of Africans, who have a fondness for bush meat of just about every type. In China, it’s partly to do with the role of exotic game in TCM (traditional Chinese medicine):

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reference/traditional-chinese-medicine/

I suspect that there are other factors causing the high illness rates among Asians, besides proximity.

Let's say that smoking slows the lungs ability to sweep out foreign pathogens, as compared to non-smokers.

That would start to explain why statistics for children under 10 (or 9?) show no deaths. And perhaps why the virus will not kill many otherwise healthy non-smokers in the West.

The flu kills thousands every year, and most are killed by some form of fluid in the lungs. Very rough on asthmatics and the elderly.

Would be interesting to compare infection rates, and death rates, among patients that smoked cigarettes (China) verses Westerners that smoke pot and derivatives.

I don't know how much to simply blame on the ACE-2 markers, but I suspect that there are other issues at play.

Yes. And it’s up to 24 days incubation.

There was a post here about some in-depth study that showed the average (average) [average] time from symptom onset to case resolution was 28 days. Add in 10-14 days of incubation, and your AVERAGE infected person is apparently carrying the virus around for a month and a half. Not just 14 days.

Which would certainly explain why so many negatives coming off the cruise ship later tested positive.

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