Fri, Feb 28, 2020 page4

• Virus Outbreak: Abe orders Japanese public schools to close next week

  • AFP, TOKYO
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  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday called on public schools nationwide to close from Monday next week to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

  “The government considers the health and safety of children above anything else,” Abe said. “We request all primary, junior-high and high schools ... across the nation to close temporarily from March 2 next week until their spring break.”

  “Efforts to prevent the spread of infections among children are being made in various areas,” Abe added.

  The spring break for public schools usually starts in late March and runs run until the start of the new school year in April.

  However, Japanese Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Katsunobu Kato has said that the measures would not apply to daycare facilities, Kyodo News reported.

  Many public elementary schools and junior-high schools in Hokkaido were closed yesterday after the prefecture’s governor requested that they be closed for about a week.

  Thirteen new infections were reported in Hokkaido yesterday.

  Osaka earlier yesterday had announced it would close its kindergartens, elementary and junior-high schools from tomorrow for two weeks.

  Authorities have said that the coming two to three weeks would be critical in determining whether they can stem the outbreak of the virus, which has infected nearly 200 people in the country and been linked to the deaths of three.

  “It’s extremely important to prevent one patient cluster from creating another and we think we should take thorough measures,” Abe said at a Cabinet-level meeting on the virus.

  Japan is at a “crossroads” in its bid to prevent a major COVID-19 outbreak and might need to reconsider the Olympics if domestic transmissions are not brought under control, an expert advising the government has warned.

  Norio Ohmagari, an infectious disease specialist, told reporters in an interview that he believes measures being taken by the government could still prevent the virus from spreading more widely, but that the next three weeks would be critical.

  “We are now on the crossroads for the containment of the COVID-19 ... within our country,” said Ohmagari, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Japan’s National Center for Global Health and Medicine.

  However, Ohmagari, who helps advise the government, defended the measures, including requesting — but not ordering — the cancelation of major events, and encouraging teleworking and off-peak commuting.

  “If we keep going with what we are doing right now, we do have [the] significant possibility for the containment or the elimination of this COVID-19,” Ohmagari said.

  However, he conceded that there is still significant uncertainty, which has cast a shadow as Tokyo gears up to host the Olympics from July.

  Ohmagari said that he would want to see domestic transmissions of the virus brought under control before the Games.

  “We have to see the situation at least three weeks from now,” he said. “If we can contain the secondary transmission within the country ... I think that’s a very good sign, and it’s a very good signal for us to decide ‘go’ for the Olympics and Paralympics.”

  However, if infections are continuing domestically, authorities will face a “big, big decision,” he added.

  “If there is a significant outbreak or ... a pandemic of this kind of infectious disease, we really have to think about holding this kind of large event, is it feasible or not?” Ohmagari said.

  The government’s handling of the crisis has come under scrutiny internationally and domestically, with opposition lawmakers questioning the relatively low number of tests administered in Japan, compared with 57,000 in South Korea.

  Ohmagari acknowledged that “limiting the number of tests makes grasping the true number of cases impossible,” but said that the tests could not always detect infections.

  “Catching all the people who are having this virus is impossible,” he said. “We can see the trend.”

  Japan has also faced significant criticism for its handling of a cruise ship placed in quarantine after a former passenger contracted the virus.

  More than 700 people who were on board the Diamond Princess have tested positive for the virus, with multiple new cases emerging while the ship was in quarantine and even among passengers allowed off the cruise liner after initially testing negative.

  “Doing more than 14 days of quarantine ... might have been the way to go,” Ohmagari said. “But I also have to say that this process ... must have been quite difficult.”

  He said that there was no evidence that passengers had infected others after leaving the ship.
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