Coronavirus: One more Diamond Princess evacuee tested positive in Australia

Another person evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship to Australia has been reportedly tested positive for coronavirus, taking the number of confirmed cases to seven. According to international media reports, the 57-year-old woman from Queensland will now remain in isolation overnight and will be later transported to her home state on a specialised medical retrieval plane. After being evacuated from the cruise ship, the group of 164 Australians are currently being held at the facility in the Northern Territory as part of the 14-day quarantine period. 

An evacuation plane from Japan carrying the group of Australians arrived in Darwin on February 20 and since then the health authorities have also confirmed two Victorians and four others, including a woman from Southern Australian, a man from Western Australia and two people from Queensland, positive for the deadly virus. While speaking to an international media outlet, Northern Territory chief medical officer Dianne Stephens said that the authorities will continue to screen every day with a very precautionary approach. Presently, the evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship are in lockdown at a quarantine facility 30 kilometres south-east of Darwin's CBD. 

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First detected in the city of Wuhan, in Hubei Province of China, the virus outbreak has now spread across more than 25 countries since December 2019. More than 1,700 people have recovered from the disease, whereas, nearly 12,500 coronavirus patients have by now been discharged from hospitals. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has dubbed the virus as COVID-19. 

Death toll surpasses 2,400

According to Hubei's health commission, the death toll in China has also risen to over 2,400. The authorities further also reported 630 new confirmed cases which brought the total within China to nearly 77,000. However, China has also reported a significant decline in new cases as well as deaths caused by the deadly virus.

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The World Health Organisation has reportedly welcomed the decline in new cases in China but continues to be concerned about the growing number of infections in other countries. The real disturbing trend, as reported by WHO, is that the new cases have no links to China such as travel history or contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19, prompting the mystery around how these individuals were infected. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also claimed that the biggest fear for the organisation is that the virus will continue to spread to other countries and especially those with weaker health systems. 

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