Asia Today: Cases on ship in Japan; India to use wristbands

BANGKOK (AP) — Japanese officials said Wednesday that 33 crew members on a docked cruise ship tested positive for the coronavirus in one day of testing after the first case from the ship was reported.

The Italian-operated Costa Atlantica has been docked in Nagasaki since late January for repairs and maintenance by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry. The ship has 623 crew members but it is empty of passengers during the repair work.

The outbreak surfaced Tuesday when the first crew member, identified only as a foreign national, tested positive for the virus.

None of those infected had serious symptoms and all are isolated in single rooms on the ship, officials said.

Mitsubishi officials said no crew members have left the ship since mid-March. Before then, crew members were allowed to go to shore if they passed temperature checks and had not recently traveled to high-risk countries such as China and Italy.

Nagasaki officials are investigating how the crew members contracted the virus.

The outbreak adds to concerns about hospital capacity in Nagasaki, where only 102 beds are available.

All of Japan is under a coronavirus state of emergency as cases rise. Japan has about 11,500 confirmed infection, with 280 deaths. Those numbers are separate from an earlier outbreak on another cruise ship carrying more than 3,700 passengers and crew, where 712 were infected.

In other developments around the Asia-Pacific region:

— INDIA TO USE WRISTBANDS FOR MONITORING: India says it will use wristbands to monitor the movements and body temperature of quarantined patients and help people identify their risk of coronavirus infection. Officials said the wristbands will also help health workers by letting them know if people have contacted infected people or been to high-risk areas. Thousands of...