Passengers begin leaving after ship's virus quarantine ends

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) — Hundreds of passengers began leaving the Diamond Princess cruise ship Wednesday after the end of a much-criticized, two-week quarantine that failed to stop the spread of a new virus among passengers and crew.

Results were still pending for some passengers who've been tested for the coronavirus that has infected tens of thousands of people in China and more than 540 on the ship.

Some passengers said on Twitter they received health check forms asking if they had symptoms such as a headache, fever or coughing. Passengers who tested negative and had no symptoms still had to get their body temperature checked before leaving.

Japanese soldiers helped escort some passengers, including an elderly man in a wheelchair who wore a face mask and held a cane. Some passengers apparently called taxis to get home; others got on buses to be transported to train stations. Some people still in their ship cabins waved farewell from their balconies to those who'd already disembarked.

"I'm a bit concerned if I'm okay to get off the ship, but it was getting very difficult physically," a 77-year-old man from Saitama, near Tokyo, who got off with his wife, told Kyodo News. "For now, we just want to celebrate."

About 500 passengers were expected to leave Wednesday, and Japanese officials will spend several days staging the high-stakes evacuation of about 2,000 others who were kept aboard the ship at the Yokohama port near Tokyo after one passenger who departed the Diamond Princess earlier in Hong Kong was found to have the virus.

The ship, which some experts have called a perfect virus incubator, has become the site of the most infections outside of China, where the illness named COVID-19 emerged late last year. As of Tuesday, 542 cases have been identified among the...