|
 Shigeru Omi told reporters the contagion should treated as a natural
disaster and he called on the government to increase testing to find
and contain the spread.
A few days after the end of the Tokyo Olympics, the capital reported
4,989 new daily cases on Thursday, down slightly from record 5,042
last week. The new number of patients with serious symptoms
increased to an all-time daily high of 218.
There has been no evidence that the Olympics https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2021-08-07/olympics-tokyo-feared-games-would-spread-covid-numbers-suggest-that-didnt-happen
directly increased case numbers in Japan, but health experts have
warned that holding the Games could have encouraged people to relax
infection controls.
Japan is vaccinating https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/vaccination-rollout-and-access
more than 1 million people a day, but it still lags many major
economies in inoculating its population.
Tokyo is already under a state of emergency, the fourth so far in
the pandemic, though some experts have said it should be expanded to
cover the whole country. The western prefecture of Osaka reported a
record 1,654 new cases on Thursday.
[to top of second column] |
 Hospital beds are filling up
rapidly, mainly with patients in their 40s and
50s, Omi said. To try to break the chain of
infection, he said, authorities should try to
reduce human mobility to about 50% of the
average in July.
His comments echoed those of a separate panel of
experts who said on Thursday contagion in Tokyo
had become uncontrollable.
"The number of new positive cases is rapidly
increasing, making it impossible to control the
situation," Norio Ohmagari, a health adviser to
the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, told a panel
chaired by Governor Yuriko Koike.
Koike urged residents to avoid travel and stay
home to slow the transmission of COVID-19, which
is causing hospitals to have to forego some
standard medical care.
(Reporting by Rocky Swift and Tim Kelly in
Tokyo; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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