Passengers talk about life aboard stricken cruise ship
According to Japanese broadcaster NHK, as of Tuesday, the number of infections on the ship had risen to 542 and laboratory kits had been used to test 2,404 people for novel coronavirus pneumonia.
Japan has the largest confirmed cluster of cases outside China. As of Monday, all confirmed cases and a small number of elderly passengers had been transferred to hospitals.
Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the rapidly rising number of infections on the Diamond Princess has raised questions about whether the isolation and quarantine orders imposed on the vessel have been effective.
"The case of the Diamond Princess is highly instructive for us to gain more understanding of the novel coronavirus, but for now, it seems that keeping suspected contacts in the same space requires more stringent management measures.
"Ideally, as soon as the first case of infection was discovered, people should have disembarked immediately and confirmed cases should have been sent to the hospital. Others should have been quarantined according to their symptoms," Zeng said.
But in practice, this is not easy.
