Japan is lifting a more than 2 1/2-year ban on international cruise ships that was imposed following a deadly coronavirus outbreak on the cruise ship Diamond Princess at the beginning of the pandemic.

SAN ANTONIO – Wednesday marks one year since a San Antonio couple was allowed to return home after a period of quarantine at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The order to stay on the military base came after the couple and other U.S. citizens were pulled from a cruise ship where some passengers tested positive for COVID-19. The couple was told to stay inside their cabin on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship as it sat off Japan’s coast. Some of those passengers, including Don and Natty, were able to board a plane back to the United States. Don remembers when he was finally able to go back to his home in San Antonio.

The two new cases were confirmed as an evacuee from Wuhan, China, tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month. First coronavirus evacuees leave JBSA-Lackland after quarantine; 1 patient ‘treated and transferred’A total of 329 Americans were evacuated off the ship, which remains docked at a Japanese port, because they were at risk of contracting the virus. Messonnier said five evacuees transported to Travis tested positive, and another 11 passengers who tested positive are being treated at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s quarantine unit in Omaha. Thursday marked the end of the 14-day quarantine for the first group of coronavirus evacuees at Lackland from China. This week, local officials called for coronavirus evacuees to stay on a military base instead of being transported to local hospitals.

14 coronavirus-positive evacuees in the U.S. as more than 300 cruise ship passengers remain in JapanPublished: February 18, 2020, 9:45 amThe State Department said Monday that 338 Americans were evacuated from the ship, which remains docked at Japan’s Yokohama port due to the virus.

A “very slow” process has brought a local couple once quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship back to San Antonio, but they haven’t made it home. Feds: 7 cruise ship passengers that landed at Lackland tested positive for coronavirus, sent to NebraskaThe number of Americans evacuated from Japan. Don and his wife, Natty, were evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. For the departing Americans, the evacuation cut short a 14-day quarantine that began aboard the cruise ship Feb. 5. The Department of Defense said JBSA-Lackland’s coronavirus quarantine zone will remain available to patients through mid-March.