No one's safe anymore: Japan's Osaka city crumples under Covid-19 onslaught
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard
FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2022
FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2022
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Splash
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Long Read
  • Games
  • Epaper
  • More
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Subscribe
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
No one's safe anymore: Japan's Osaka city crumples under Covid-19 onslaught

Coronavirus chronicle

Reuters
24 May, 2021, 09:35 am
Last modified: 24 May, 2021, 09:42 am

Related News

  • Biden visits Japan, South Korea carrying warning to China
  • Japan records trade deficit as imports surge on energy costs
  • China relaxes some Covid test rules for US, other travellers
  • New York Times pauses return to office for workers
  • Japan's GDP shrinks as surging costs raise spectre of deeper downturn

No one's safe anymore: Japan's Osaka city crumples under Covid-19 onslaught

Japan's western region home to 9 million people is suffering the brunt of the fourth wave of the pandemic, accounting for a third of the nation's death toll in May, although it constitutes just 7% of its population

Reuters
24 May, 2021, 09:35 am
Last modified: 24 May, 2021, 09:42 am
Passengers wearing protective masks amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, ride a subway train in Tokyo, Japan, July 3, 2020. Photo: Reuters
Passengers wearing protective masks amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, ride a subway train in Tokyo, Japan, July 3, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Hospitals in Japan's second largest city of Osaka are buckling under a huge wave of new coronavirus infections, running out of beds and ventilators as exhausted doctors warn of a "system collapse", and advise against holding the Olympics this summer.

Japan's western region home to 9 million people is suffering the brunt of the fourth wave of the pandemic, accounting for a third of the nation's death toll in May, although it constitutes just 7% of its population.

The speed at which Osaka's healthcare system was overwhelmed underscores the challenges of hosting a major global sports event in two months' time, particularly as only about half of Japan's medical staff have completed inoculations.

"Simply put, this is a collapse of the medical system," said Yuji Tohda, the director of Kindai University Hospital in Osaka.

"The highly infectious British variant and slipping alertness have led to this explosive growth in the number of patients."

Japan has avoided the large infections suffered by other nations, but the fourth pandemic wave took Osaka prefecture by storm, with 3,849 new positive tests in the week to Thursday.

That represents a more than fivefold jump over the corresponding period three months ago.

Just 14% of the prefecture's 13,770 Covid-19 patients have been hospitalised, leaving the majority to fend for themselves. Tokyo's latest hospitalisation rate, in comparison, is 37%.

A government advisory panel sees rates of less than 25% as a trigger to consider imposition of a state of emergency.

By Thursday, 96% of the 348 hospital beds Osaka reserves for serious virus cases were in use. Since March, 17 people have died from the disease outside the prefecture's hospitals, officials said this month.

The variant can make even young people very sick quickly, and once seriously ill, patients find it tough to make a recovery, said Toshiaki Minami, director of the Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University Hospital (OMPUH).

"I believe that until now many young people thought they were invincible. But that can't be the case this time around. Everyone is equally bearing the risk."

Breaking Point

Minami said a supplier recently told him that stocks of propofol, a key drug used to sedate intubated patients, are running very low, while Tohda's hospital is running short of the ventilators vital for severely ill Covid-19 patients.

Caring for critically ill patients in the face of infection risk has taken a serious toll on staff, said Satsuki Nakayama, the head of the nursing department at OMPUH.

"I've got some intensive care unit (ICU) staff saying they have reached a breaking point," she added. "I need to think of personnel change to bring in people from other hospital wings."

About 500 doctors and 950 nurses work at OMPUH, which manages 832 beds. Ten of its 16 ICU beds have been dedicated to virus patients. Twenty of the roughly 140 serious patients taken in by the hospital died in the ICU.

Yasunori Komatsu, who heads a union of regional government employees, said conditions were dire as well for public health nurses at local health centres, who liaison between patients and medical institutions.

"Some of them are racking up 100, 150, 200 hours of overtime, and that has been going on for a year now...when on duty, they sometimes go home at one or two in the morning, and go to bed only to be awakened by a phone call at three or four."

Medical professionals with firsthand experience of Osaka's struggle with the pandemic take a negative view on holding the Tokyo Games, set to run from July 23 to August 8.

"The Olympics should be stopped, because we already have failed to stop the flow of new variants from England, and next might be an inflow of Indian variants," said Akira Takasu, the head of emergency medicine at OMPUH.

He was referring to a variant first found in India that the World Health Organisation (WHO) designated as being of concern after initial studies showed it spread more easily.

"In the Olympics, 70,000 or 80,000 athletes and the people will come to this country from around the world. This may be a trigger for another disaster in the summer."

World+Biz

COVID-19 / Japan

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • What needs to be done now?
    What needs to be done now?
  • Bangladesh’s currency has lost value by more than Tk7 against the greenback in only around seven days in the kerb market. Photo: Noor-A-Alam
    Dhaka’s kerb market money exchangers losing out on customers
  • A woman walks past the International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo at its headquarters in Washington, US, 10 May 12018. Photo: REUTERS
    IMF urges Asia to be mindful of spillover risks from tightening

MOST VIEWED

  • Medical staff members check the temperature of people as they enter at Capital Airport, following an outbreak of Covid-19, in Beijing, China, 5 November, 2020. Photo: Reuters
    China relaxes some Covid test rules for US, other travellers
  • Representational image.
    China Junshi's potential Covid drug shows promise in small trial
  • A woman wearing protective mask walks at a sidewalk near business district in Jakarta, Indonesia March 2, 2020. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan/Files
    Indonesia to drop outdoor mask mandate as Covid-19 infections drop
  • North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presides over a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, May 17, 2022, in this photo released May 18, 2022 by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA via REUTERS
    N Korean leader slams officials' 'immaturity' in response to Covid outbreak
  • North Korea Covid outbreak is 'worrying' for new variants -WHO
    North Korea Covid outbreak is 'worrying' for new variants -WHO
  • People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in North Korea, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea on 17 May 2022. Photo: Reuters.
    N Korea Covid outbreak could have 'devastating' impact on human rights, UN says

Related News

  • Biden visits Japan, South Korea carrying warning to China
  • Japan records trade deficit as imports surge on energy costs
  • China relaxes some Covid test rules for US, other travellers
  • New York Times pauses return to office for workers
  • Japan's GDP shrinks as surging costs raise spectre of deeper downturn

Features

Two paddle steamers (orange coloured) and two new steamers are docked at Badamtoli Rocket Ghat on the bank of the River Buriganga in Old Dhaka. The photo was taken recently. Photo: Mumit M

The last water rockets

32m | Features
Bangladesh’s currency has lost value by more than Tk7 against the greenback in only around seven days in the kerb market. Photo: Noor-A-Alam

Dhaka’s kerb market money exchangers losing out on customers

32m | Panorama
Sketch: TBS

'Food inflation is an unavoidable consequence of currency devaluation'

22h | Interviews
The open-browser-tabs question also tells an interviewer how much of an internet native the job applicant might be. Photo: Noor-a-Alam

The best question to ask a job applicant

22h | Pursuit

More Videos from TBS

Putin's strategies to face Nato

Putin's strategies to face Nato

11h | Videos
How many countries have nuclear weapons and how many are there?

How many countries have nuclear weapons and how many are there?

11h | Videos
Dengue fever is rising, so beware

Dengue fever is rising, so beware

11h | Videos
How a university teacher and PHD holder become farmer

How a university teacher and PHD holder become farmer

15h | Videos

Most Read

1
Tk100 for bike, Tk2,400 for bus to cross Padma Bridge
Bangladesh

Tk100 for bike, Tk2,400 for bus to cross Padma Bridge

2
Representative Photo: Pixabay.
Bangladesh

Microplastics found in 5 local sugar brands

3
Mushfiq Mobarak. Photo: Noor-A-Alam
Panorama

Meet the Yale professor who anchors his research in Bangladesh and scales up interventions globally

4
A packet of US five-dollar bills is inspected at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington March 26, 2015. REUTERS/Gary Cameron
Banking

Dollar hits Tk100 mark in open market

5
The story of Bangladesh becoming a major bicycle exporter
Industry

The story of Bangladesh becoming a major bicycle exporter

6
PK Halder: How a scamster rose from humble beginnings to a Tk11,000cr empire
Crime

PK Halder: How a scamster rose from humble beginnings to a Tk11,000cr empire

The Business Standard
Top
  • Home
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • About Us
  • Bangladesh
  • International
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Economy
  • Sitemap
  • RSS

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net

Copyright © 2022 THE BUSINESS STANDARD All rights reserved. Technical Partner: RSI Lab