Two Americans were among 10 additional passengers confirmed to have the new coronavirus on a cruise ship docked in Japan overnight. There were at least three U.S. nationals from the ship with the flu-like virus, and the number of infections inside the U.S. has also increased, with officials in Wisconsin confirming the state’s first case.
The total number of cases in the U.S. was 12 as of Thursday morning, but the outbreak was still focused largely in central China, where both the infection rate and the death toll have continued to rise. The new coronavirus has killed at least 565 people, all but two of them in China. The other two deaths were in Singapore and Hong Kong. More than 28,000 people have been infected with the virus, the vast majority of them in China.
Several more U.S. government-chartered evacuation flights were expected to depart Wuhan on Thursday, a day after two planes carrying about 350 people arrived in California. All those passengers will spend up to two weeks under quarantine while they are monitored for symptoms of the virus.
