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 The variants appear to be more infectious and may be resistant to
vaccines, which are still not widely available in Japan. The
situation is worst in Osaka, where infections hit fresh records last
week, prompting the regional government to start targeted lockdown
measures for one month from Monday.
A mutant COVID-19 variant first discovered in Britain has taken hold
in the Osaka region, spreading faster and filling up hospital beds
with more serious cases than the original virus, according to Koji
Wada, a government adviser on the pandemic.
"The fourth wave is going to be larger," said Wada, a professor at
Tokyo's International University of Health and Welfare. "We need to
start to discuss how we could utilize these targeted measures for
the Tokyo area."
Japan has twice declared a state of emergency that covered most of
the country in the past year, most recently just after New Year as
the pandemic's third and most deadly wave struck. Officials are now
opting for more targeted measures that allow local governments to
shorten business hours and impose fines for noncompliance.
Osaka city cancelled Olympic Torch relay events there, but Prime
Minister Yoshihide Suga has insisted Japan will carry out the Games
as scheduled. Suga said on Sunday that measures employed in the
Osaka area could be expanded to Tokyo and elsewhere if needed.
There were 249 new infections in Tokyo on Monday, still well below
the peak of over 2,500 in January. In Osaka, the tally was 341, down
from a record 666 cases on Saturday.
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 The true extent of the mutant
cases is unknown, as only a small fraction of
positive COVID-19 cases undergo the genomic
study necessary to find the variants.
A health ministry report last week showed 678
cases of variants from Britain, South Africa,
and Brazil had been discovered nationwide and at
airports, with the biggest clusters in Osaka and
nearby Hyogo prefecture.
Those three all have the N501Y mutation, and the
latter two also have the E484K mutation.
Authorities in Japan have found more than 1,000
cases that only have E484K.
That variant was present in about 70% of
coronavirus patients tested at a Tokyo hospital
last month, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said
on Sunday.
The rebound in cases came within weeks of the
government lifting state of emergency measures,
and the priority measures being rolled out now
are intended to halt an unexpected rise in
mutant cases, said Makoto Shimoaraiso, a Cabinet
Secretariat official for Japan's COVID-19
response.
"We take the criticism when people say that we
have not been able to detect any variants," he
said.
(Reporting by Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Editing by
Giles Elgood)
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