Finally!!! Our citizens should have been repatriated days ago.
And shame on the Japanese officials for not taking passengers off that ship, especially after it became clear that the virus was being spread between passengers several days ago. Passengers should have been removed and better isolated from each other while under strict quarantine onshore in Japan. If any US citizen dies from this negligence, Japan is responsible.
“And shame on the Japanese officials for not taking passengers off that ship, especially after it became clear that the virus was being spread between passengers several days ago.”
Yes and no. Japan will ALWAYS put their people first (for example, don’t try having a legal or criminal dispute there if you’re not Japanese, it’s hopeless). We could learn from them...but still, there were probably options, such as offloading them to islands (Japanese or otherwise).
“And shame on the Japanese officials for not taking passengers off that ship, especially after it became clear that the virus was being spread between passengers several days ago.”
It is quite likely that they did not want to put stress on their medical infrastructure until they had to. There are so many unknowns and how much of a risk to the general population dispersing the potential carriers poses is one of them.
Consider that some 1700 medical workers that have been involved with this disease have become infected. These people should know what they are doing (you would expect) and still they are getting infected in droves.