Revellers ring in Christmas in Tokyo amid surging Covid-19 infections
TOKYO – Revellers in Tokyo rang in the festive season by crowding shopping districts, packing Christmas markets and thronging illumination events with barely a thought for social distancing, potentially compromising official efforts to rein in surging Covid-19 infections.
Tokyo set a new single-day high of 949 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday (Dec 26), busting its previous, two-day old high of 888 on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas Day, 884 new infections were reported.
The country recorded at least 3,877 cases on Saturday, the fourth straight day the national record has been rewritten.
Nearly half the cases were in Tokyo and the neighbouring prefectures of Kanagawa (480), Saitama (265) and Chiba (201).
There were 654 seriously ill patients nationwide as of Saturday, also a new record.
Given the surge in cases, Japan said last night it will ban entry into the country for all except citizens and returning foreign nationals from Dec 28 until end-January.
The British variant of the coronavirus, said to be up to 70 per cent more contagious, was detected in the capital yesterday.
Two of Tokyo’s 949 new infections were due to the British mutation: an aircraft captain in his 30s who returned from Britain recently but was not detected at the airport, and a female family member.
The Health Ministry is investigating if there are close contacts.
The two cases followed Friday’s confirmation of Japan’s first five cases of the more transmissible variant by airport quarantine officials.
They all involved people that had returned from the United Kingdom.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga advised people on Friday to “spend the year-end period quietly and refrain from traditional social activities” such as large gatherings and drinking parties.
He did not rule out calling a second state of emergency – the first one lasted from April 7 to May 25 – if the situation continued to spiral out of control.
But these official warnings and advisories to spend the festive season “quietly” may fall on deaf ears.
The number of people going out in Tokyo this month remains at pre-pandemic levels even as new cases surge. Dr Shigeru Omi, the chief of the government’s Covid-19 task force, said on Friday that convincing an increasing weary public to change their behaviours was an uphill battle.
It remains to be seen whether metropolitan areas will be crowded with people celebrating the New Year, though the discontinuation of the Go To Travel domestic tourism campaign has deterred many from returning to their hometowns for family gatherings.
Kyodo News cited airlines as saying that reservations for domestic flights between Christmas and Jan 3 were down 45 per cent from a year earlier. Bookings for shinkansen and express trains were down 61 per cent from Dec 9 to Jan 5.
Japan has had relatively relaxed Covid-19 guidelines – Mr Suga said on Friday that he plans to toughen them by revising laws to punish businesses who refuse to comply with requests to shorten operating hours – but more oversight might be needed on quarantine.
Those on self-isolation at home in Japan can go out for brief periods to run errands at convenience stores or supermarkets. The authorities rarely check in – if ever.
A confirmed Covid-19 case – a man in his 20s who works in the investigation department of the Tokyo Public Prosecutors’ Office – skipped quarantine despite being on self-isolation until Dec 27.
He travelled to Fukuoka via highway bus. While details on when he left are unavailable, Deputy Prosecutor Hiroshi Yamamoto denounced the behaviour as “extremely inappropriate”.
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