Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University in Japan is an infectious disease specialist. He decided to investigate isolation conditions onboard the Diamond Princess. This is extremely important given the impression Covid-2019 virus is impossible to contain in cramped conditions. To the contrary, Kentaro Iwata claims the Diamond Princess quarantine was ‘completely chaotic … and violated all infection control principles’.
Criticism of the Diamond Princess Quarantine Adds Weight
A fierce debate was already raging across Japan. America’s decision to evacuate its citizens reflected its own concerns, and in hindsight may have been correct. However, Kentaro Iwata had an uphill struggle to inspect the cruise ship before he finally succeeded.
In the hours before they lifted quarantine, he released a disturbing 12-minute video we summarize at the end of this paragraph. In it, he describes infection measures as ‘totally inadequate’. The Diamond Princess quarantine was flawed because the boundaries around potentially infectious areas were not demarcated. Moreover non-infected zones were also not clear. ‘People were coming and going between them,’ Kentaro Iwata says.
What Does This Mean For Our Chances of Containing the Virus?
Kentaro Iwata claims, and we quote ‘The ships medical officer was saying that she was already infected; she was giving up protecting herself’. Moreover, passengers were eating lunch with protective gloves on, even when using smartphones which have high potential as carriers.
If this was truly the case (and we need independent confirmation) then someone did not control the Diamond Princess quarantine adequately. We are unsure who this was. The cruise ship company and their on-site medical crew might have been out of their depth. Kentaro Iwata points fingers to ‘Japan’s bureaucratic approach to infection prevention’.
However, Japan’s public health expert Shigeru Omi, head of the Japan Community Health Care Organization, disagrees. That’s because he insists ‘quarantining the passengers was appropriate and justified’. Therefore, we should wait for health scientists to decide.
Related
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Taking Coronavirus Precautions WHO Advises
Preview Image: Diamond Princess Pool Deck
