On Monday, a new record of number of seriously ill patients in Japan with COVID-19 was reported. The number of seriously ill patients went to 472.
According to Health Minister Tamura Norihisa, “The number of people in serious condition tends to lag behind new cases. So the fact that serious ones have increased to nearly 500 means we’re facing a sense of crisis.” The Health Minister is telling the local governments to secure enough hospital beds.
He also said that patients who are infected with COVID-19 and don’t require hospitalization should be quarantined in designated facilities, including hotels to free up resources.
Tokyo is still the biggest hotspot of the COVID-19 in Japan with more than a quarter of total cases nationwide. Officials reported over 370 cases on Tuesday in the city of 14 million.
Metropolitan government officials want local hospitals to increase the number of beds for seriously ill patients from 150 to 200 to meet the growing demand.
As of 2020/12/01, Tuesday, there are 150,976 total confirmed COVID-19 cases across Japan. 23,397 of which are still active cases, 125,470 have already recovered and 2,109 are deaths.
sources:
[1] https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20201201_36/
