Oregon woman infected with coronavirus on cruise ship

Medical workers in protective suits and masks walk through the halls of a quarantined cruise ship

In this Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020, photo taken by a passenger, medical workers in protective suits walk on the cruise ship Diamond Princess anchored off Yokohama, south of Tokyo. The 3,700 people on board faced a two-week quarantine in their cabins. @daxa_tw via AP

A Forest Grove woman is one of more than 60 coronavirus victims quarantined on a cruise ship off the Japanese coast.

Rebecca Frasure, 35, was on the Diamond Princess with her husband, Kent Frasure, for their 11th cruise together and her first time in Asia. She was waiting to be taken off the ship and to go a hospital, she said late Thursday Portland time. She felt OK except for a minor cough.

“I feel fine, for the most part,” Rebecca Frasure said.

A Japanese health official and a crew member told her that she had tested positive for coronavirus and her husband tested negative. She will stay at a hospital at least three days. If she gets better, Rebecca Frasure said, she will be taken back to the cruise ship to wait out the rest of the 14-day quarantine. Otherwise, she will stay in the hospital.

Rebecca Frasure said she had confidence in the Japanese health system. Her biggest concern is leaving her husband on board in their suite, she said.

An infected passenger got on the ship in Japan on Jan. 20 and got off in Hong Kong on Jan. 25, according to a message from the cruise company to its passengers. The ship has nearly 2,700 passengers and 1,045 crew members and had traveled to southern Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan and Okinawa.

The ship is now anchored near Tokyo and is in the first days of a two-week quarantine.

The ship’s captain announced earlier this week that testing revealed 10 additional coronavirus cases. Another 51 cases have since been announced, including Rebecca Frasure.

The new coronavirus raging through Asia has killed hundreds of people and infected tens of thousands, most of them in Wuhan, China, the city where the outbreak is believed to have originated. There have been 11 confirmed cases in the United States, including one in Washington.

Kent Frasure in an earlier interview expressed concern about officials’ handling of the crisis. He said passengers were allowed to mingle even after he believes they learned that the Hong Kong passenger had been infected.

Rebecca Frasure works for a medical health plan in Oregon, she told The Oregonian/OregonLive earlier in the week. She was supposed to be back at work Feb. 17, but “that’s not going to happen now," she said. Among her plans for the quarantine were to watch a lot of TV and to listen to an audio version of a new book by Margaret Atwood, “The Testaments.”

Contemplating the fact that she is in the unusual position of being an American infected with coronavirus, Rebecca Frasure said that she is “just a normal person.”

“It’s weird that so many people are going to know about this,” Rebecca Frasure said.

Japan is 17 hours ahead of Pacific Time.

Symptoms of the new coronavirus include cough, fever and shortness of breath.

-- Fedor Zarkhin

fzarkhin@oregonian.com

desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin

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