Abe: Extra hospital capacity among steps key to fight virus

TOKYO — Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday that new measures like companies letting their employees work from home and hospitals expanding their capacity to treat many patients will determine if Japan could control its coronavirus outbreak.

“We are at an extremely important time in ending the spread of infection at an early stage,” Abe said at a meeting of a task force on the outbreak.

Abe said sporadic cases of unknown transmission routes and small clusters were occurring but slowing down the pace of new infections was crucial to stopping the spread of the disease. Japan has confirmed 850 cases, third highest among nations behind China and South Korea.

Japan's total includes 691 people infected on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Abe's government has been widely criticized after the quarantine of the ship wasseen to have failedto stop the virus from spreading. Three former passengers on the ship died, andmore than a dozen people who were evacuated off the ship by their home countries later tested positive for the virus. Six government officials involved in the quarantine effort also contracted the virus.

Japanese health officials and government experts have acknowledged the quarantine was not perfect, but defended it. They said Japanese health authorities faced tough challenges in the absence of established rules in such a crisis and it wasn't feasible to quarantine the ship's passengers and crew elsewhere.

While the ship quarantine was capturing global attention, the virus was spreading across Japan as many Lunar New Year tourists were visiting the country, experts said. At least 160 of Japan's cases are not related to the ship, even in remote areas such as Hokkaido, Wakayama and Kumamoto.

The basic measures announced Tuesday to fight the illness called on people to wash their hands carefully, follow “cough etiquette” and avoid going outwhen feeling unwell. They also urged people with mild illness to stay home or go to family doctors instead of hospitals with specialized virus-control facilities, which are treating many seriously ill patients already.

Japan has allowed about 1,000 mostly Japanese former cruise ship passengers to go home if they did not share a room with a virus patient, tested negative and had no symptoms at the end of the ship's 14-day quarantine. About 100 who had infected roommates on the ship were moved to a government facility for an extended quarantine.

One former passenger who went home tested positive for the virus later. On Tuesday, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told a parliamentary session that 28 of the former passengers have developed fever and other symptoms since returning home,though their infections with the virus were not immediately confirmed.