US Evacuates 340 Americans From Cruise Ship [VIDEO]

Time Magazine reports:

Americans evacuated from the virus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship are arriving in the United States, where they will be quarantined for another 14 days on military bases in California and Texas.

“I have no idea where they will send me from here and I’m told we don’t get a choice,” Sarah Arana, 52, who was on the flight to California, said in Facebook post. “But it doesn’t even matter. I am back home.”

Some 340 Americans boarded two chartered planes from Japan, where the cruise ship—docked in Yokohama—became the largest cluster of the novel coronavirus outside mainland China. On Monday, Japanese authorities once again raised the number of people from the ship infected with the virus to 454.

The New York Times reports:

Fourteen Americans who were evacuated from a cruise ship in Japan were placed in segregated areas of a chartered flight on Monday after they were found to have the new coronavirus shortly before boarding the plane to the United States, American officials said.

The passengers were among more than 300 Americans aboard a cruise ship that has been quarantined in Yokohama for more than 10 days. United States officials initially said they would not allow infected people to board the evacuation flights, but appeared to reverse that decision early Monday.