TOKYO, March 18. /TASS/. A Japanese man who said he wanted to spread the coronavirus after he had been diagnosed with the disease has died, Kyodo News reported on Wednesday.
The man who lived in Gamagori, a city in Aichi Prefecture, was 57 years old. He died in the hospital where he remained over the past few days.
The patient was diagnosed with the coronavirus in early March. He could only be hospitalized to the infectious disease ward the next day, so the doctors asked him to go straight home and self-isolate. Instead, the man reportedly visited at least two bars, informing his relatives who had earlier tested positive for the infection that he was going "to spread the virus."
In one of the bars, the man said that he had been infected with the coronavirus, after which employees got in touch with the police and public health services, which detained him. To date, at least one of those who had contacts with the infected man has tested positive for the coronavirus. That was a visitor of one of the above-mentioned bars. Her condition is described as stable.
More than 1,500 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Japan, including passengers and the crew of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Thirty-seven people have died.
The current coronavirus illness was registered in central China at the end of December 2019. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic. COVID-19 infection cases have been recorded in more than 130 countries. According to the latest data, over 190,000 people have contracted the virus, about 8,000 of them have died.