image source, Reuters
Japan still maintains the requirements to wear face masks.
Low immunity against covid-19 and a growing population of vulnerable elderly are causing a rise in coronavirus deaths in Japan, which has long maintained some of the toughest pandemic restrictions.
Japan once had one of the lower covid death ratesbut the figure rose at the end of 2022.
The Asian country reached its all-time high on January 20 of this year with 425 deaths that day, proportionally more than Latin America, the United States or South Korea, among others, according to data from Our World in Datafrom the University of Oxford.
Japan was largely closed to foreign visitors from 2020 until mid-June last year.
It opened its borders cautiously: At first, travelers had to be part of a package tour, buy health insurance and wear face masks in all public places.
Some children ate in silence for more than two years as schools imposed bans on lunchtime conversation.
However, as restrictions have been eased, the low population immunity against covid may be causing an increase in infections, local health experts told the BBC.
Most of the latest covid deaths are of older people with underlying medical conditionsthe experts added.
This is in contrast to the initial series of Covid deaths in Japan, which were due to pneumonia and were often treated in intensive care.
“It is also difficult to prevent these deaths with treatments,” said Hitoshi Oshitani, one of Japan’s leading virologists, adding that Covid was only the trigger.
“Due to the emergence of variants and subvariants – which escape the immune system – and the decline in immunity, it is becoming increasingly difficult to prevent infections,” he said.
“Immune escape” is when the human host’s immune system becomes incapable of responding against an infectious agent. New versions of the omicron variant are masters of immune evasion.
aging population
Before the omicron variant appeared, Covid deaths in Japan were mostly in cities like Tokyo and Osaka, but now there are cases all over the country, said Oshitani, who was once a WHO regional adviser on disease surveillance and response. communicable.
“In smaller prefectures and rural areas, the proportion of the elderly population is even higher than the national average. This changing geographic pattern may also contribute to the increasing trend in deaths,” she estimated.
Japan is one of the sociedades more longevity of the world by various measures, and its proportion of older people has increased every year since 1950.
Older people who become infected in nursing homes or community groups do not receive timely treatment, according to epidemiologist Kenji Shibuya, director of the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research.
You understand that faster treatment can help, but due to the Japanese classification of covid as class 2 or “very dangerous” disease, only government-designated hospitals can treat the infected. And they have been overwhelmed by the growing number of cases.
Shibuya called for covid to be downgraded and treated as a form of influenza, allowing all clinics and hospitals to treat patients who have the virus.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced earlier this month that the ranking would be lowered, but not before May 8. Experts, including Japan’s top coronavirus adviser, Shigeru Omi, have been calling for this since last year.
image source, Getty Images
Japan has a very long-lived population.
Oshitani and Shibuya also said the death rate may have been inflated by underreporting of Covid cases due to asymptomatic infections and adjustments to physician reporting requirements last year.
Japan is one of the few countries that still provides daily covid counts.
Yasuharu Tokuda, a physician at the Institute for Global Health and Policy, said the natural immunity of the Japanese population, acquired through infection, had been low until the middle of last year.
He added that natural immunity is stronger than that obtained with vaccination, so low infection rates have led to low immunity in Japanwhich in turn is causing more deaths.
Oshitani pointed to a similar phenomenon in Australia, where the death rate from covid has been rising since it reopened the borders in early 2022 after keeping them closed for two years.
Experts are divided on the trajectory of covid in Japan. Tokuda, for example, believes that future infection and death rates will be lower.
Oshitani, on the other hand, sees a further increase in deaths in the coming months, as affordable antiviral drugs are not yet widely available.
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