The Westerdam of the Holland America line yesterday received permission from Cambodia to dock today in the port of Sihanoukville where passengers can disembark. The HAL says there are no sick passengers on board. On Wednesday, the ship was escorted by the Thai frigate HTMS Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The 1.455 passengers on the Westerdam can finally disembark now that Cambodia has granted permission to dock in Sihanoukville. The decision was made because of "humanitarian considerations", according to a senior Cambodian government official. The ship will remain in port for several days from 7 am this morning. Charter flights, paid for by the airline, take passengers to Phnom Penh.
Thai health minister Anutin says he is not convinced that the ship is virus-free, because was the medical team on board able to test the passengers for the virus? In addition, other countries had also refused the ship and Thailand was never a destination of the ship.
There are also 21 Thais on board the Westerdam, including 19 crew members, but that did not change Anutin's mind either. A phone call from the head of WHO to admit the ship failed to impress Anutin as, according to the minister, he was not on board himself, so could not pass judgment.
News update on the Coronavirus
- More than 60.000 people worldwide are infected with Covid-19 and at least 1.355 people have died from the effects of the virus. The majority of patients are Chinese.
- Of the 33 Covid-19 (the official name of the virus) patients registered in Thailand, 22 are still in hospital. 799 people were checked, 587 of whom turned out not to be infected, most of them had the normal flu.
- A British drug suspect, arrested in Pattaya in November and deported in January, has succumbed to the corona virus in a British prison, according to English media. The Corrections Department says he showed no symptoms of the disease before his deportation. His body temperature was 36,6 degrees, the x-ray of his lungs was normal. According to the Disease Control Department, his medical report was sent to England before he left.
- In the Chinese province of Hubei, the number of infections and deaths from the corona virus has risen sharply. The death toll in the hard-hit province rose from 1068 to 1310, according to the local health authority. The number of infections rose from 33.366 to 48.206. The striking increase in the number of infections has to do with new diagnostic criteria from the Chinese government.
- Vietnam has decided to quarantine 10.000 citizens in villages about 40 kilometers from the capital Hanoi due to an outbreak of the corona virus in the region. People in the community of Son Loi have died from the effects of the virus.
- Another 44 people aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is quarantined in Japan, have tested positive for the 2019-nCoV coronavirus, Japan's Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said on Thursday. The number of infected on the ship thus rises to 218.
- Two new infections have been detected in the German province of Bavaria, the German Ministry of Health reports.
- WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calls it "worrying" that recent infections in the United Kingdom and France have been found in people who have not been to China. They were infected by patients who did visit the Asian country. He calls the virus more dangerous than terrorism.
Source: Bangkok Post and Dutch media
Dear people,
It is better to leave this topic as it is!
With these people in power, little else is to be expected, simply because these people sold Thailand so that you can say that they should do what the Chinese want. Look at the cruise ship with Chinese in Krabi?
As an argument that the Chinese invest, it is not said that they run it with Chinese personnel and that no Thai earns anything from it.
Can they take a chance in Sihanoukville (Kampong Son) in the casinos and Sihanoukville that have been abandoned by the Chinese while waiting for their flight home.
Those interested parties there will probably be scratching their heads for a moment, now that they have sold their soul and salvation to the real estate guys there in recent years. Little or nothing is left of the once nice, quiet, adventurous Sihanoukville. I lived there for some time in the early 90's and visited again last year. Not for long, after a day I was gone again. This 'progress' brings tears to your eyes.