Shivalik
Tokyo: Two people who had contracted the novel coronavirus and were on board a cruise liner that was quarantined in Japan earlier this month have died, state media reported Thursday, taking the general toll within the country to 3.
The two passengers aboard the Diamond Princess were a man and a woman in their 80s who contracted COVID-19, Efe news quoted public broadcaster NHK as saying during a report.
Their identities weren't revealed, though they said both were Japanese.
The two victims had been admitted to hospital after testing positive. One was evacuated on February 11 from the ship and the other the subsequent day.
The cruise was quarantined on February 3 within the Japanese port of Yokohama with 3,700 people on board and discovered that about 600 passengers or crew had been infected with the coronavirus.
One other person had died in Japan on February 13 thanks to COVID-19 in Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo.
According to the last official balance, 621 people aboard the Diamond Princess contracted the virus through a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong before arriving in Japan.
Medical teams have performed 3,011 tests on the cruise until Wednesday.
Outside the cruise, approximately 80 people in Japan have tested positive.
