Japan is to hospitalize only COVID-19 patients who are seriously ill and those at risk of becoming so while others isolate at home, officials said, as worries grow about a strained medical system amid a surge in Olympics host city Tokyo and elsewhere.
The nation has seen a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and is recording more than 10,000 daily new infections nationwide. Tokyo had a record high of 4,058 on Saturday.
Tokyo hospitals are already feeling the crunch, Showa University Hospital director Hironori Sagara said.
Photo: Reuters
“There are those being rejected repeatedly for admission,” Sagara said in an interview. “In the midst of excitement over the Olympics, the situation for medical personnel is very severe.”
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters fewer elderly people, most of whom are already vaccinated, are getting infected.
“On the other hand, infections of younger people are increasing, and people in their 40s and 50s with severe symptoms are rising,” Kato said. “With people also being admitted to hospital with heat stroke, some people are not able to immediately get admitted and are recovering at home.”
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who announced the change on Monday, said the government would ensure people isolating at home can be hospitalized if necessary. Previous policy had focused on hospitalizing a broader category of patients.
However, some worry the shift could lead to more deaths.
“They call it in-home treatment, but it’s actually in-home abandonment,” Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Edano was quoted as saying by NHK public television.
Japan on Monday expanded its state of emergency to include three prefectures near Tokyo and the western prefecture of Osaka. An existing emergency in Tokyo — its fourth since the pandemic began — and Okinawa is now set to last until Aug. 31.
The nation has avoided a devastating outbreak of the virus, with 946,504 total cases and 15,222 deaths as of yesterday, but it is now struggling to contain the highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 even as the public grows weary of mostly voluntary limits on their activities and the vaccination rollout lags.
Just under 30 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, including three-quarters of those 65 and over.
Nearly 70 percent of hospital beds for seriously ill COVID-19 patients were filled as of Sunday, Tokyo data showed.
Sagara said there was a difference between theoretically available beds and beds that could accept patients immediately.
“I think the latter is close to zero,” he said, adding that if infections keep rising, hospitals would have to limit surgery and other non-COVID-19 treatments.
“We must avoid a situation in which the Olympics was held, but the medical system collapsed,” Sagara said. “At present, infections are spreading quite a lot and if they spike further, [the Olympics] will be considered a failure.”
Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare guidelines state that seriously ill patients are defined as those admitted to intensive care units or needing artificial respirators.
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