Eight Russian Diamond Princess passengers evacuated to Kazan for coronavirus quarantine

Eight Russians on board the cruise liner Diamond Princess, which has experienced an outbreak of the coronavirus COVID-19, have been evacuated from Tokyo to Kazan.

The evacuees will be held under quarantine in the Tatarstan regional capital’s infectious disease hospital. One of them is a child. According to Russian Vice Premier Tatiana Golikova, three of the evacuees were diagnosed with a mild form of the viral infection during their time on the Diamond Princess. Tatarstan government officials said those three patients are currently in stable condition.

Twenty-four Russian citizens had previously been aboard the Diamond Princess, which had anchored at Yokohama. Some had already left the ship, and others declined to be evacuated.

More than 600 individuals on the Diamond Princess have been diagnosed with the coronavirus out of 3,700 total passengers, making the ship the largest outbreak site outside mainland China. Three individuals have died from the infection in the two weeks since it was first detected on the ship.