Richland couple stuck on board quarantined cruise ship with deadly virus

Update: Richland couple quarantined on cruise ship may be coming home to U.S.

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A Richland couple is caught in the quarantine of the Diamond Princess cruise ship at a Japanese port, as the number of people on board with confirmed cases of coronavirus grows.

Tim and Gail Howe boarded the Diamond Princess Jan. 4 in Singapore for a planned four-week cruise, with stops at such Asian ports as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and Japan.

“They really had a pretty good time,” said Tim Howe’s daughter Amy Howe.

But as their ship arrived at the final port in Japan “they think they are getting off — and surprise,” she said.

On Feb. 4, they were among the ship’s 2,666 passengers and 1,045 crew members quarantined on board at a port near Tokyo by the Japanese government because passengers had been exposed to the novel coronavirus.

“It’s just nerve wracking,” said Amy Howe, who has been in contact with her father and stepmother, sometimes several times a day, using FaceTime. “We are at the mercy of the Japanese government.”

She’s worried that little is known about coronavirus and how it spreads as her parents remain on the ship, which now has had 288 confirmed cases of the deadly virus.

Checking for coronavirus symptoms

“Right now everything is holding for them healthwise,” she said.

They are showing no symptoms of the respiratory illness and no fever as they use the thermometers the ship handed out to monitor for any spike in temperature that could be associated with coronavirus.

Amy, an Oklahoma attorney who graduated from Richland High, talked to the Herald Wednesday night, just after chatting with them.

She could hear the captain’s loudspeaker announcement to passengers that 38 more passengers on the ship had tested positive. In addition, a Japanese quarantine worker was taken off the ship

Tim and Gail Howe were watching ambulances lining up on the pier while she was on the phone, so she suspected there were more cases. Hours after the call, Japanese health officials announced 44 more cases on the ship.

Infected passengers are being taken to Japanese hospitals.

The Howes’ moods ebb and flow as the quarantine drags on and more people fall ill, Amy Howe said.

They are staying in their room to avoid as much contact as possible with other people.

They are fortunate to have booked a room with an outside balcony that allows them a view and fresh air.

They are passing their time with internet and TV, she said.

“At the end of the day, I can totally report that crew members are treating them great,” Amy Howe said. “They are getting meals, fresh linens.”

Cruise ship lacks medicine

Coronavirus has not been Amy’s only worry.

Tim Howe, 72, is a retired, longtime employee of Framatome, the nuclear fuel fabrication plant in Richland.

The couple had packed extra medicines in case they were delayed, but there were limitations on how much prescription medicine could be carried with them into some countries.

Days into the quarantine Tim was running low on the heart medicine that he relies on to help prevent serious conditions, such as an irregular heart beat or stroke.

A list of medications that all passengers needed had been gathered aboard ship, but Amy Howe still struggled to get medicine delivered to her dad as he began rationing his supply.

“Currently medications have still not been provided and this is of great concern,” she posted on Feb. 9, four days after the prescription request was made.

“In this day and age for the Japanese government to not be able to provide U.S. citizens with necessary medication on a boat that they quarantine is absolutely intolerable,” she said. “The fact that our government continues to allow this to occur is even more intolerable.”

She made numerous calls to the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and the Princess cruise line, and started calling U.S. senators and representatives.

The medicine finally was delivered to her father a day and a half after he ran out on Monday, Feb. 10.

Quarantine end in question

Amy Howe works in international custody cases as a divorce attorney “but that has been a walk in the park compared to a quarantine.”

The Japanese government announced late Wednesday that it planned to allow some of the frailest passengers on board the ship to leave if they wished.

They could volunteer to be taken to a housing facility with individual rooms and Japanese-style meals but with no medical care available on site.

It does not appear that the Howes will be leaving the ship.

Those eligible, at least initially, to leave will be passengers 80 or older with underlying medical conditions or windowless cabins, the Japanese Times and other news media reported.

Amy Howe is not confident that the quarantine will end Feb. 19, as previously announced, given the number of new cases of coronavirus.

“Their 28-day cruise has turned into a God-only-knows-how-long cruise,” she said. “I’ll be so relieved to get them off the ship and back to the United States.”

This story was originally published February 13, 2020 at 4:25 PM.