Lessons from the ‘Diamond Princess’ COVID responseーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS
Five years ago, when the cruise ship Diamond Princess docked at Yokohama Port near Tokyo, it brought with it a massive outbreak of COVID 19. This happened just as the world was starting to hear about the novel Corona virus. The ship had returned to Japan from a cruise that included stops in Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan. There were over 3,700 people on board. They were forced to stay in quarantine on the ship for an extended period. In all, 712 people developed infections. 13 of them later died after disembarking. To deal with the situation, a Japanese disaster medical assistance team or DMAT boarded the ship to provide treatment and organize medical evacuations. We spoke with the doctor who led the team to find out what lessons need to be learned. Dr. Anan Hideiyaki was the leader of the DMAT team on the Diamond Princess. At the time, all I could think about was that this was a major crisis unfolding right in front of us. I just wanted to bring it under control to somehow bring an end to it. A film based on Anan’s real life experience is set for release in June. It’s called Frontline Yokohama Bay. The protagonist, modeled after Anan, is a demat leader tasked with caring for both the passengers and crew and finding hospitals that would accept them. The film covers the 23 days it took for all the passengers to disembark after completing their quarantine. Demats are medical teams, including doctors and nurses, that are dispatched from hospitals around Japan at the request of local governments during a major disaster. Demats were also sent to support relief efforts following the Great East Japan earthquake in 2011 and the Noto Peninsula quake last year. The initial challenge facing the team on Diamond Princess was the rapid spread of infections. There were days when as many as 99 people tested positive. Sometimes it felt hopeless. Hanan’s team assessed not only each individual’s infection status, but also their pre-existing conditions and overall risk. The aim was to prioritize who needed to be evacuated first so they could gradually start getting people off the ship. But while tackling the medical issues, the team found they faced another serious problem. The DMAT members became targets for prejudice and discrimination. The film depicts how one nurse was deeply affected. Our vests had the name of our hospitals on them. After we were shown on TV, people knew which hospital had staff working with COVID patients. I heard some people called the hospital to complain or said they’d never go there again. Some team members even reported they were harassed by other staff at their own [Music] hospitals. One nurse called me a germ and said I was spreading infections. It was deeply hurtful. The hospital director told me to apologize. Am I a criminal just for taking part in demat? [Music] The number of people on the team began to drop. It wasn’t just decisions by the individuals. Some hospitals started preventing their staff from taking part. Even people scheduled to work in the following days had their assignments canled that caused a chain reaction which disrupted the whole operation. It was a major struggle for [Music] us. Despite those challenges, DMAT completed its 23-day mission without any fatalities before everyone had left the ship. discrimination and prejudice. It’s up to every individual to prevent this occurring again when the next unknown threat emerges. To this day, Anan still reflects on that [Music] issue. I believe everyone has the right to be afraid and it’s okay to run from that fear. But what we must not do is turn it into attacks on others. Looking back, some of the things that were said and the way people looked at others due to their fear may have caused hurt or even worse. I believe we need to reflect on that if we are to move forward. Since that time, major efforts have been introduced to ensure Japan’s medical systems are not overwhelmed. But as Anan says, less has been done to tackle the issue of discrimination and prejudice that surfaced in that critical situation. Thanks to human ingenuity, we made it through the worst of the COVID crisis. Who’s to say we can’t defeat our fears,
Five years after the COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, we look back at Japan’s response in the early days of the pandemic.
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