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Hong Kong brings home 3rd batch of residents aboard virus-hit cruise ship from Japan

Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 23 Feb 2020

Hong Kong brings home 3rd batch of residents aboard virus-hit cruise ship from Japan

Wikimedia Commons

Hong Kong/Xinhua: The third chartered flight arranged by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government arrived in Hong Kong Sunday morning, bringing back five more residents from the COVID-19-inflicted Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

The flight landed at the Hong Kong International Airport at around 6:10 a.m. local time. Those passengers will undergo the same 14-day quarantine as other 208 Hong Kong residents who took flights back home days ago.

Diamond Princess, initially carrying around 3,700 passengers and crew from more than 50 countries and regions, had been quarantined at the Yokohama Port south of Tokyo since Feb. 5.

Before the evacuation operation by the HKSAR government, there were altogether 364 Hong Kong residents on board the quarantined ship, including 68 tested positive for the COVID-19 and about 30 close contacts, according to the HKSAR government.

The majority of the task force sent by the HKSAR government for evacuation operation took the third charted flight back to Hong Kong too. And there were a number of Immigration Department officers staying in Japan to continue to provide assistance to the Hong Kong residents who were receiving medical treatment there.