Canadian passengers of a cruise ship that has been quarantined in Japan due to a coronavirus outbreak on board are still waiting to be repatriated as their American counterparts touched down in the U.S. on Monday.
On Saturday, the Canadian government said it had chartered a plane to bring home many of the 255 Canadians aboard Diamond Princess, off Yokohama, Japan, where some 3,500 passengers have been stuck for 10 days amid an outbreak of the novel coronavirus. So far, more than 450 people have been infected, including 32 from Canada.
Late Monday, Global Affairs responded to an email from a Canadian couple on board and told them the plane is expected to arrive in Japan on Feb. 19. The aircraft will pick up Canadian passengers who are not showing symptoms.
The email reply said the departure date will be confirmed once final arrangements have been made with the Japanese government and the cruise ship company.
Those who are transported back to Canada will be placed under quarantine for 14 days. There are also 330 Hong Kong residents and 35 Italians, including crew members, on board the ship or undergoing treatment in Japanese hospitals.
Passenger Trudy Clement, of Port Dover, Ont., told CBC News Monday that she and her husband are still waiting for results from a throat swab they had taken two days ago to determine if they’ve contracted the virus.
“It’s bad enough having to be here for two weeks but not knowing anything, it’s extremely stressful,” she said.
Watch: Trudy Clement describes the wait for news aboard the Diamond Princess:
The Canadian government says it’s chartered a plane to bring home many of the 255 Canadians aboard the cruise ship that has been quarantined for 10 days amid a coronavirus outbreak. 6:16
The quarantine in Canada will be good for the peace of mind of friends, family and the community, Clement said. She said all the passengers she’s been able to talk to agree that Canadian aid did not come quickly enough.
“If this had of been started earlier, it would have ended earlier,” she said.
If she does test positive for the virus, she’ll be removed from the ship and taken to hospital in Japan.
If not, the passengers will be tested for any symptoms when they disembark, then again when they arrive in Trenton, Ont. Then they’ll face another two-week quarantine in Cornwall, Ont.
3/4 As we assist Canadians from the <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/DiamondPrincess?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#DiamondPrincess</a> cruise ship, we are taking every precaution to keep them, and the local community, safe and healthy. Thank you to the people of Cornwall for your collaboration and support.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, appeared to offer assurance on Monday that Cornwall has no worries about transmission.
Tam said Canadian health officials are “taking every precaution” to keep the city of about 46,000 “safe and healthy,” as those quarantined stay in an isolated section of the Nav Centre, a hotel and conference training facility in Cornwall.
Health Minister Patty Hajdu says the government is working to bring home a number of Canadians onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in quarantine off Japan. 0:24
Americans back home
Also on Monday, more than 300 American passengers, including 14 who tested positive for coronavirus, were being quarantined at military bases in California and Texas from Japan on charter flights overnight.
One plane carrying cruise passengers touched down at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California just before midnight Sunday, while another arrived at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas early Monday. The passengers will remain at the bases for two weeks.
Japan’s Defence Minister Taro Kono tweeted earlier that Japanese troops helped transport 340 U.S. passengers on 14 buses from Yokohama port to Tokyo’s Haneda airport. About 380 Americans were on the cruise ship.
U.S. passengers repatriated from a cruise ship in Japan disembark from a Kalitta Air flight at Kelly Field early Monday in San Antonio, Texas. (William Luther /The San Antonio Express-News/The Associated Press)
The U.S. said it arranged for the evacuation because people on the Diamond Princess were at a high risk of exposure to the new virus that’s been spreading in Asia. For the departing Americans, the evacuation cuts short a 14-day quarantine that began aboard the cruise ship Feb. 5.
The State Department announced later that 14 of the evacuees received confirmation they had the virus but were allowed to board the flight because they had no symptoms. They were being kept isolated from other passengers on the flight, the U.S. State and Health and Human Services said in a joint statement.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday an infected person who shows minimal symptoms could still pass the virus to someone else.
Paul Molesky, right, and Cheryl Molesky, who evacuated off the quarantined cruise ship the Diamond Princess, film a selfie video aboard a Kalitta Air plane bound for the U.S., at Haneda airport in Tokyo. (Cheryl and Paul Molesky/The Associated Press)
It’s unclear which base the 14 who tested positive for the virus went to.
Officials said the evacuees who arrived at Travis Air Force Base will be housed at a different location from the more than 200 other Americans who were already being quarantined on the base, in a hotel. Those people have been at the base since early February, when they arrived on flights from China.
No Travis officials will have contact with the passengers, officials said.
Now that they’re in the U.S., the cruise ship passengers must go through another 14 days of quarantine at the military facilities — meaning they will have been under quarantine for nearly four weeks.
New cases
The latest updates follow the release in China’s official media of a recent speech by President Xi Jinping in which he indicated for the first time that he had led the response to the outbreak from early in the crisis. While the reports were an apparent attempt to demonstrate the Communist Party leadership acted decisively from the start, it also opened Xi up to criticism over why the public was not alerted sooner.
In his speech, Xi said he gave instructions on fighting the virus on Jan. 7 and ordered the shutdown of the most-affected cities. The disclosure of his speech indicates top leaders knew about the outbreak’s potential severity at least two weeks before such dangers were made known to the public.
The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in mainland China rose to 1,868 as of the end of Monday, up by 98 from the previous day, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday. Across mainland China, there were 1,886 new confirmed infections on Monday, bringing the total so far to 72,436.
A medical worker in protective suit takes a break at an isolated ward of Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in Hubei province, China, on Sunday. (China Daily via Reuters)
With fears of the virus spreading further, Chinese and residents of nearby countries and territories have begun hoarding supplies of everything from masks and other personal protective gear to instant noodles, cooking oil and toilet paper.
In Hong Kong, local media reported that police had arrested two men and were seeking three others who allegedly stole a load of 60 packs of toilet paper at knifepoint early Monday morning. Supplies of the commodity have become extremely scarce, with often only low-quality imports still available. Police were expected to discuss the matter later.
Another 1,200 doctors and nurses from China’s military began arriving in Wuhan on Monday morning, the latest contingent sent to help shore up the city’s overwhelmed health-care system.
The city has rapidly built two prefabricated hospitals and converted gymnasiums and other spaces into wards for those showing milder symptoms, but residents still say they are being wait-listed for beds and even ambulance rides.
Wuhan has accounted for the vast majority of mainland China’s 70,548 cases. Some 60 million people in that area and other parts of China are under lockdown in a bid to prevent the virus from spreading further.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Schools in Mexico will have six months to implement a government-sponsored ban on junk food or else face heavy fines, officials said Monday.
The rules, published on Sept. 30, target products that have become staples for two or three generations of Mexican schoolkids: sugary fruit drinks sold in triangular cardboard cartons, chips, artificial pork rinds and soy-encased, salty peanuts with chile. School administrators who violate the order will face fines equivalent to between $545 and $5,450, which could double for a second offense, amounting to nearly a year’s wages for some of them.
Mexico’s children have the highest consumption of junk food in Latin America and many get 40% of their total caloric intake from it, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund which labeled child obesity there an emergency.
The new ban targets products that have become staples for two or three generations of Mexican schoolkids: sugary fruit drinks sold in triangular cardboard cartons, chips, artificial pork rinds and soy-encased, salty peanuts with chile.
President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday schools would have to offer water fountains and alternative snacks, like bean tacos.
“It is much better to eat a bean taco than a bag of potato chips,” Sheinbaum said. “It is much better to drink hibiscus flower water than soda.”
However, the vast majority of Mexico’s 255,000 schools nationwide do not have free drinking water available to students. According to a report in 2020, the effort to install drinking fountains succeeded in only about 10,900 of the country’s schools, or about 4% of them. Many Schools are located in areas so poor or remote that they struggle to maintain acceptable bathrooms, internet connection or electricity.
Also the most common recipes for beans, refried beans, usually contain a significant dose of lard, which would violate rules against saturated fats.
Mexico instituted front-of-package warning labels for foods between 2010 and 2020, to advise consumers about high levels of salt, added sugar, excess calories and saturated fats. Some snack foods carry all four of the black, octagonal warning labels.
But under the new rules, schools will have to phase out any product containing even a single warning label from school snack stands. It wasn’t immediately clear how the government would enforce the ban on the sidewalks outside schools, where vendors usually set up tables of goods to sell to kids at recess.
Mexican authorities say the country has the worst childhood obesity problem in the world, with about one-third of children overweight or obese.
NEW YORK – Florida Panthers centre Sam Reinhart was named NHL first star of the week on Monday after leading all players with nine points over four games last week.
Reinhart had four goals, five assists and a plus-seven rating to help the Stanley Cup champions post a 3-0-1 record on the week and move into first place in the Atlantic Division.
New York Rangers left-winger Artemi Panarin took the second star and Minnesota Wild goaltenderFilip Gustavsson was the third star.
Panarin had eight points (4-4) over three games.
Gustavsson became the 15th goalie in NHL history to score a goal and had a 1.00 goals-against average and .962 save percentage over a pair of victories.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Deshaun Watson won’t finish the season as Cleveland’s starting quarterback for the second straight year.
He’s injured again, and the Browns have new problems.
Watson ruptured his right Achilles tendon in the first half of Sunday’s loss to Cincinnati, collapsing as he began to run and leading some Browns fans to cheer while the divisive QB laid on the ground writhing in pain.
The team feared Watson’s year was over and tests done Monday confirmed the rupture. The Browns said Watson will have surgery and miss the rest of the season but “a full recovery is expected.”
It’s the second significant injury in two seasons for Watson, who broke the glenoid (socket) bone in his throwing shoulder last year after just six starts.
The 29-year-old went down Sunday without being touched on a draw play late in the first half. His right leg buckled and Watson crumpled to the turf. TV replays showed his calf rippling, consistent with an Achilles injury.
He immediately put his hands on his helmet, clearly aware of the severity of an injury similar to the one Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers sustained last year.
As he was being assisted by the team’s medical staff and backup Dorian Thompson-Robinson grabbed a ball to begin warming up, there was some derisive cheers and boos from the stands in Huntington Bank Field.
Cleveland fans have been split over Watson, who has been accused of being sexually inappropriate with women.
The reaction didn’t sit well with several Watson’s teammates, including star end Myles Garrett, the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, who was appalled by the fans’ behavior.
“We should be ashamed of ourselves as Browns and as fans to boo anyone and their downfall. To be season-altering, career-altering injury,” Garrett said. “Man’s not perfect. He doesn’t need to be. None of us are expected to be perfect. Can’t judge him for what he does off the field or on the field because I can’t throw stones for my glass house.
“Ultimately everyone’s human and they’re disappointed just like we are, but we have to be better than that as people. There’s levels to this. At the end of the day, it’s just a game and you don’t boo anybody being injured and you don’t celebrate anyone’s downfall.”
Backup quarterback Jameis Winston also admonished the uncomfortable celebration.
“I am very upset with the reaction to a man that has had the world against him for the past four years, and he put his body and life on the line for this city every single day,” he said. “The way I was raised, I will never pull on a man when he’s down, but I will be the person to lift him up.
“I know you love this game. When I first got here, I knew these were some amazing fans, but Deshaun was treated badly and now he has to overcome another obstacle. So I’m going to support him, I’m going to lift him up and I’m going to be there for him.”
The injury is yet another twist in Watson’s tumultuous time with the Browns.
Cleveland traded three first-round draft picks and five overall to Houston in 2022 to get him, with owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam approving the team giving Watson a fully guaranteed, five-year $230 million contract.
With a solid roster, the Browns were desperate to find a QB who could help them compete against the top AFC teams.
The Browns had moved on from Baker Mayfield despite drafting him No. 1 overall in 2018 and making the playoffs two seasons later.
But Watson has not played up to expectations — fans have been pushing for him to be benched this season — and Cleveland’s move to get him has been labeled an abject failure with the team still on the hook to pay him $46 million in each of the next two seasons.
Watson’s arrival in Cleveland also came amid accusations by more than two dozen women of sexual assault and harassment during massage therapy sessions while he played for the Texans. Two grand juries declined to indict him and he has settled civil lawsuits in all but one of the cases.
Watson was suspended by the NFL for his first 11 games and fined $5 million for violating the league’s personal conduct policy before he took his first snap with the Browns. The long layoff — he sat out the 2021 season in a contract dispute — led to struggles once he got on the field, and Watson made just six starts last season before hurting his shoulder.
Cleveland signed veteran Joe Flacco, who went 4-1 as a starter and led the Browns to the playoffs.
Before Watson got hurt this year, he didn’t play much better. He was one of the league’s lowest-rated passers for a Cleveland team that hasn’t scored 20 points in a game and is back in search of a franchise QB.
