Tensions are growing on the Diamond Princess where Australians remain
stranded, despite the overnight evacuation of some
of the 400 Americans on board the luxury cruise liner. Buses began moving people
off the ship at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak early this morning.
They're being taken to Tokyo Airport where planes have arrived to fly them to
quarantine facilities in California and Texas.
70 new cases of the COVID-19
virus have been confirmed on the ship with eight more Australians among those
infected. The federal government says it's working on plans to move
Australians, but there's been no final decision on how that will happen.
One Australian on board told us the lack of information is frustrating.
The last (couple) of days we've had very delayed information and we just feel like we're kept in the
dark and all of a sudden now the talk is, because the US citizens have been
evacuated, Canadians are being evacuated very soon,
we are finding out that we will need to endure a further 14 days of quarantine.
I really want to know why have we been quarantined here and then now, when we go
back to our own home soil, we need further quarantine. Does testing and
having a negative result mean nothing? Is it because the Australian government
doubt Japan's testing ability? You know those kind of information all passengers
should be made aware of. These things are really important things that
we need to know, especially the passengers here on board, regardless of
what nationality you, are because it is very unknown at the moment.
Vera Kozlova-Fu, one of the increasingly angry Australian passengers
on board the Diamond Princess. Let's take you to Canberra now. Our reporter Stephanie Borys
joins us from Parliament House. Steph good morning. So what is the
government saying they'll do about Vera and the other aussies on board?
This morning the federal government has said it is looking at whether to plan an operation
to bring these Australians home that are stranded on the Japanese ship. A decision
will be made today. So the processes to what that final decision is,
there's an Australian senior medical officer that's been flown to Japan and
he's boarding that ship today to talk with medical and international
authorities about what to do next, and if the advice is that there's been a
secondary round of infections, which is expected, the government is looking at
working with Qantas to bring these Australians back. Now the next question
obviously is whether they will have to be quarantined even further. We've seen
Australians evacuated from Wuhan over the past weeks and they've been placed
on Christmas Island and Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said Christmas Island
and other options are being considered.
Many of these patients or passengers on
the ship are very, very elderly and may need to be near major hospital
facilities, so we're working through that with with different options and we'll
have advice later today. I am deeply aware of the stress the situation that
the passengers have been under. It's likely that, as the Americans have done,
they may have to be in a quarantine situation but more advice coming today,
decisions today, announcements today,
So the national security of Committee of
Cabinet are waiting for the advice from that senior medical officer now based in
Japan and will make a final decision today in terms of numbers of how many
Australians here in Australia that have contracted coronavirus. It still
stands at 15, and 8 now have been cleared of the virus
Stephanie Borys thank you.
Meanwhile more than 200 Australians who have been
quarantined on Christmas Ireland are expected to begin returning home
tonight. They've spent the past 14 days on the remote territory after being
evacuated from Wuhan amid the coronavirus outbreak.
you