Three Dutch on cruise ship quarantined over coronavirus

Three Dutch people are on board a cruise ship that has been quarantined near Japan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Twitter. Ten people on board the ship have tested positive for coronavirus 2019-nCoV. There are no indications that the Dutch are infected with the virus, the Ministry said.

The Dutch embassy in Tokyo is in contact with the three Dutch on board the ship and with the Japanese authorities, the Ministry said. Japan is in charge of the situation. 

The cruise ship involved is the Diamond Princess, according to NU.nl. It has 3,700 people on board. The infected persons were removed from the ship and taken to a hospital in Japan. The other people on the ship will have to remain in quarantine for the incubation period of the virus - two weeks.

According to the Telegraaf, two of the Dutch aboard the ship are a married couple. "The panic is increasing considerably," the couple said to the Telegraaf from the ship. "We are out on the open sea and are not allowed to leave our cabin for the duration of two weeks. Little information is given. We are receiving food, but all in all it is a shit situation."

The Diamond Princess is not the only cruise ship currently quarantined due to the coronavirus. Another cruise ship with 1,800 people on board is quarantined in Hong Kong because three passengers were found to be infected.

In the Netherlands, 15 Dutch people and two Chinese partners are in quarantine in their own homes or at a central location. They returned to the Netherlands from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, over the weekend. A total of 20 Dutch were in Wuhan when the virus broke out, but not all of them accepted the Ministry's offer of an extraction.