Health authorities in Japan are worried that the COVID-19 variant drove a new fourth wave in a pandemic with only 109 days left to the Tokyo Olympics. Variants seem to be more contagious and perhaps resistant to vaccines, which are still not widely available in Japan. This situation is the worst in Osaka, where infections hit a new record last week, encouraging local governments to start imposing social distancing steps for one month from Monday.
The Covid-19 mutant variant was first discovered in the UK and has now taken hold in the Osaka region, spreading faster and filling hospital beds with more severe cases than the original virus, according to Koji Wada, a government adviser. “The fourth wave will be bigger,” said Wada, a professor at the University of Health and Welfare of Tokyo. “We must start discussing how we can take advantage of these targeted steps for the Tokyo area.”
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Japan had declared an emergency twice, which covered most of the country in the past year, most recently after the new year as the third and the deadliest pandemic wave hit the Asian nation. Officials now chose more targeted steps that enable local government to shorten working hours and impose fines for non-compliance.
Osaka City canceled the Olympic torch event there, but Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga insisted that Japan host the games on the schedule. Suga said that the steps imposed in the Osaka area could be extended to Tokyo and elsewhere if needed. There are 249 new infections in Tokyo on Monday, still far below the peak of more than 2,500 in January. In Osaka, health officials recorded 341, down from a record 666 cases on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the new mutant effect is still unknown, as only a tiny portion of the positive cases of Covid-19 undergo a genome study needed to find a variant. According to a report by the Ministry of Health published last week, as many as 678 cases of variants from the UK, South Africa, and Brazil had been found nationally and at the airport, with the largest group in Osaka and the nearest Hyogo prefecture.
All of these three have N501Y mutations, and the last two also have an E484K mutation. The authorities in Japan have found more than 1,000 cases that only have E484K. The variant was present at around 70% of Coronavirus patients tested at Tokyo Hospital last month, the Japanese public announcer said on Sunday.
Rebound in cases coming in a few weeks after the authorities imposed emergency measures intended to stop the increase in unexpected mutant cases, said Makoto Shimoaraiso, a cabinet secretariat official for Covid-19 response in Japan, “We take criticism when people say that we have not been able to detect any variant,” he said.
