COVID-19 Coronavirus: situation in Japan

johnnyG said:

I just got a new voucher for the 5th shot. I thought it had come early (my 4th shot was in July), but as in the above post my wife said she heard that the interval was three months for this next one.

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It said the inoculation program had put a huge financial burden on the central government, and the public should copay for future shots. According to the ministry, influenza vaccination operations targeting 36 million people 65 years or older cost the government 95.2 billion yen ($645.5 million) in fiscal 2021. In comparison, the overall cost to the government for the COVID-19 vaccine program for 120 million people aged 5 and older was 2.34 trillion yen. The ministry said the financial burden increased when the government provided generous assistance to municipal governments and healthcare organizations in the summer of 2021 to administer COVID-19 shots to as many people as possible in a short period of time. The administration of one COVID-19 shot costs about 10,000 yen for the government, compared with 5,000 yen for a flu shot.

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According to government data released Friday, a total of about 7.38 million shots of the new vaccines have been administered, meaning that just 5.9% of Japan's total population has received the shots. The government has said it aims to administer over 1 million shots a day to finish by the end of this year the inoculation of all people willing to get the new vaccines. Currently, however, the number of daily shots stands below 500,000.

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Japan has entered the eighth wave of the coronavirus pandemic, marking a period where "high-risk behaviors" should be controlled based on the "judgment of each individual," the Japan Medical Association said Wednesday. "As medical resources are limited, a sharp increase in COVID-19 patients would put a strain on the health care system," Satoshi Kamayachi, an executive board member of the association, said at a press conference. Japan's daily COVID-19 cases totaled 106,689 on Wednesday, topping 100,000 for the second straight day. Hokkaido and Nagano prefectures reported record infections, while Tokyo saw 10,114 cases, exceeding the 10,000 mark for the second consecutive day.

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According to a pre-peer-reviewed paper released in October by a group from Peking University in China and other institutions, all BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and XBB subvariants had the characteristic of "immune escape," a tendency to escape neutralizing antibodies that prevent infection, compared to the BA.5 subvariant. These new subvariants have also been confirmed in Japan, and according to the genome analysis results that were presented at a Tokyo Metropolitan Government meeting on Nov. 4, 93.8% cases reported in the capital were BA.5, while BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 1.6% and XBB 0.3%.

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The medicine for COVID-19 patients aged 12 or older with mild symptoms also became the first drug authorized under the new emergency approval scheme established in May. [...] The decision on the treatment requiring seven Xocova tablets over five days comes as Japan has been experiencing a rebound in its number of daily COVID-19 cases, with prefectural governments across the country reporting a total of 124,004 on Tuesday, up about 18,000 from a week earlier. The number of deaths totalled 178.

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The Fiscal System Council proposed that the special exemption for COVID-19 vaccines be abolished because the rate of severe cases decreased this summer during the seventh infection wave. It said that the shots should instead be classified as routine vaccinations like those administered to infants and young children. Under Japan's Immunization Act, vaccinations against COVID-19 can be defined as special temporary vaccinations only if it is deemed that there is an "urgent need" to prevent the disease's spread. In such cases, the government fully covers the cost of vaccinations. According to data from the Fiscal System Council, in fiscal 2021 alone, the amount spent on vaccinations and preparing the vaccination system in Japan reached nearly 2.34 trillion yen (about $16.54 billion).

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The government has promoted the vaccine program on TV commercials and through social media. It set a target of making arrangements with local governments to administer more than 1 million doses of the vaccine per day in October and November. At the end of October, the arrangements made could provide up to 1.68 million doses per day. However, the daily average of administered doses reached only around 600,000 in one week in mid-November. Two weeks earlier, the figure was around 440,000. As of Nov. 24, the largest daily number of Omicron vaccine doses given was 840,000. But even if 1 million doses are administered every day from now, around 56 million people, or only half of the eligible people aged 12 or older, will have had the vaccine by the end of this year. Ninety percent of people over 65 have each received three vaccine shots.

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Currently, COVID-19 is classified as an "infectious disease, such as novel influenza," under the Infectious Disease Law, putting it in category 2 or higher. Diseases at this severe level include tuberculosis. Government authorities can impose strong measures on the public to prevent the spread of such diseases. The government could lower COVID-19's status to category 5, according to Kato. If that happens, government authorities would drop their requests to the public to refrain from going out. Restrictions related to work and business operations will also no longer apply.

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The Japanese government projects a total of up to 750,000 people will be infected a day amid a double coronavirus and flu outbreak. It intends to create conditions for sick people to test themselves at home by making test kits easily available. By doing so, the government aims to ease the burden on fever outpatient clinics and other medical institutions faced with sorting out COVID-19 and flu patients. Currently, 12 dual test products manufactured by 10 companies have been approved, and they have 39 million test kits in stock. Of those, five products by four makers have passed both the self-nasal specimen collection test and the performance test. It is expected that the numbers of kits to reach market will be limited because some firms are not planning to apply to sell their products at pharmacies or online.

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Experts believe the spike protein of BQ.1 harbors multiple mutations that BA.5 does not have. Such mutations could make immunity gained through vaccines or infections less effective against BQ.1. Although BQ.1 could spread more easily, the risk of infected patients developing serious symptoms is about the same as for BA.5 patients, the experts said. [...] BA.5's dominance started to wane in early October. The institute's estimate published on Dec. 7 said BA.5 is expected to account for 54 percent of all COVID-19 patients in the week starting on Dec. 5. The institute predicts BQ.1 will cause 36 percent of all cases in the same week. BQ.1 has already overtaken BA.5 in Western countries. According to the UK Health Security Agency, BQ.1 patients accounted for 50 percent of all COVID-19 patients in Britain in the week through Nov. 19.

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Proper or lucky positioning on crowded escalators can help people significantly lower the risk of novel coronavirus infections caused by coughing maskless individuals, a study showed. Standing behind a cougher on a descending escalator makes one less exposed to virus-laden droplets compared with standing behind the maskless individual while ascending, the study showed. [...] The researchers simulated a situation in which men 175 centimeters tall stand on an escalator and a maskless man at the front of the line coughs. The computer simulation covered both ascending and descending escalators, and it showed how droplets of 0.0009 to 1.5 millimeters spread from the cougher. For both ascending and descending escalators, large droplets from the maskless cougher immediately fell to the stairs. But on an ascending escalator, small droplets fell slightly, remained suspended near the original coughing point and behind the coughing person for a long period of time. The escalator moved people behind the coughing person up into area where the droplets were hovering.

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