Australians to be evacuated off Diamond Princess, put into quarantine
The Australian government will launch an evacuation of more than 200 Australians trapped on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and quarantine them in a Darwin mining camp for another two weeks.
Qantas will fly to Japan on Wednesday to pick up the passengers from Yokohama, where they have spent the past two weeks as more than 200 of their fellow travellers have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the national security committee had taken the advice of the chief medical officer to provide direct assistance to those on the vessel.Credit:AAP
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the national security committee had taken the advice of the chief medical officer to provide direct assistance to those on the vessel.
Mr Morrison said the daily increase in the number of infections on board meant the effectiveness of the quarantine on the Diamond Princess could not be assured, requiring a further 14-day quarantine in Australia. A further 70 cases were confirmed on board the cruise ship on Sunday, taking the total to 355 out of 3700 passengers and crew on the vessel.
"Now I understand that those who were on board will feel very frustrated about this as well as their family members," the Prime Minister said.
Mr Morrison said he needed to make it "very clear" that any person who has been on board that ship would not be granted entry to Australia within the next 14 days if they did not take up the quarantine.
"Our first responsibility is that we have to protect the health and safety of Australians in Australia today," he said.
The evacuees will be housed at the Howard Springs mining camp, 30 kilometres outside Darwin.
They will join more than 200 other evacuees from Wuhan, China, who have been housed at the camp since last week after taking the third evacuation flight out of the centre of the epidemic.
The two groups will be kept separate and isolated in family groups to minimise the risk of the disease spreading.
More to come