NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A top official from the National Institute of Health said "more than" 40 Americans on a cruise ship docked in Japan have contracted the coronavirus as he warned the outbreak is “on the verge” of becoming a global pandemic.
On CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the outbreak is approaching the pandemic threshold, CBS News reported.
“Technically speaking, the (World Health Organization) wouldn’t be calling this a global pandemic. But it certainly is on the verge of that happening reasonably soon unless containment is more successful than it is right now,” Fauci said.
According to Fauci, 24 countries outside China have collectively recorded more than 500 cases. A number of cases have already reached their second and third transmission of the virus.
Fauci said there needs to be multiple person-to-person transmissions before the outbreak would be categorized as a pandemic.
Fauci revealed that more than 40 Americans aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in the port of Yokohama, near Tokyo, have the coronavirus.
"Forty of them have gotten infected," Fauci said. "They are not going to go anywhere. They're going to be in hospitals in Japan."
More than 350 passengers aboard the ship are confirmed to have the virus.
About 380 Americans were on the Diamond Princess. The Japanese defense ministry said around 300 of them are preparing to be flown back to the United States, where they will have to spend another two-week quarantine period at a U.S. military facility.
Some Americans disembarked Sunday night and boarded buses to take them to Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The U.S. State Department has arranged for charter flights to fly the Americans back to the United States. Canada, Hong Kong and Italy said they were planning similar flights of passengers.
More than 1,600 people have died from the coronavirus globally, with most of the deaths reported in China. Europe reported its first death this weekend—a person in France. Fifteen people in the U.S. have contracted the disease, while nearly 70,000 have worldwide.