The cruise ship Diamond Princess is seen docked at Yokohama Port in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, on Feb. 22, 2020 in this photo taken from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter.

Some passengers of the cruise ship Diamond Princess may have mistakenly been given a document when disembarking that did not instruct them to avoid going out for two weeks unless absolutely necessary even if they did not have symptoms such as coughing or fever, the health ministry announced on March 15.

The document was a "health card" that indicated what the former passengers should be doing or looking out for after they left the ship, which saw many people infected with the novel coronavirus. A document that instructed passengers to "avoid going out if they exhibited symptoms" was distributed on Feb. 19, the day disembarkation began. But based on a meeting of a government expert panel held that same night, the instructions on the health card were meant to be changed from Feb. 20 to say that regardless of health status, former passengers should "avoid going out for two weeks unless absolutely necessary." According to the ministry, however, there is a possibility that the cards were distributed in their original form until Feb. 21. The ministry says it queried the ship about which cards were distributed, but were unable to obtain a clear-cut answer.

A male resident of the city of Shizuoka, central Japan, who disembarked from the Diamond Princess on Feb. 20 was found to have developed symptoms after using a gym. According to those tied to the case, the man had received a health card with the original format that did not warn against going out even if one did not have symptoms. "We are extremely sorry if the cards were not distributed appropriately," a health ministry official said.

(Japanese original by Sooryeon Kim, Lifestyle and Medical News Department, and Wakako Otani, Shizuoka Bureau)