Source : Thailand Medical News Feb 18, 2020 4 years, 9 months, 4 days, 21 hours, 1 minute ago
Japan risk having a domestic
coronavirus epidemic according to epidemiologists from the UK and US. They are warning that Japanese health authorities need to take more stringent measures as it risk developing a local domestic
coronavirus epidemic due to a variety of possible factors and reasons.
In reality
Japan has only 66 confirmed
coronavirus infections as the remaining 454 cases were from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
However of the 66 infected cases, a majority were transmissions that were not linked to individuals who had recently travelled to China and also were confirmed as being local domestic transmissions.
When the cruise ship docked in
Japan, a lot of attention and resources was shifted away from investigating these 66 cases that could result in certain unidentified carriers still being out there circulating with the Japanese population.
Furthermore, in the early stages, the Japanese health authorities were not screening passengers arriving from Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, hence they could have missed many infected individuals including numerous asymptomatic infected individuals (ie those infected but not showing symptoms.)
Japan has not only a high inbound foreign tourist traffic but also many Japanese who travel to many of the high risk countries besides China such as Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong etc.
To make matter worse, considering that the incubation period of the SARS-CoV-2
coronavirus which causes the Covid-19 disease can be as long as 2 to even 3 weeks, it further adds to the theory that there are lots of ‘carriers’ currently in
Japan.
Coupled with all that, there was more than 570,000 Chinese travelling to
Japan during the months of December 2019 up to January 24
th 2020 with about 6.5 per cent from Wuhan city alone! This was just before the official lockdown of Wuhan.
The cruise ship could also further contribute to all this as many of Japanese personnel ranging from government officials, healthcare officials , port workers logistic contractors and workers were exposed as a result of the cruise ship. Already one Japanese health personnel had contracted the
coronavirus as a result of having to monitor and test passengers onboard the ship.
Some countries are now starting to place travel restrictions to
Japan while most countries are requiring health screenings from all passengers arriving from
t;Japan.
The effects from the
coronavirus is also expected to have an effect on the Japanese economy.
In a recent development, Emperor Naruhito of Japan’s birthday event set for this coming weekend has been cancelled due to the
coronavirus outbreak. The Imperial Household Agency announced today that they had cancelled the public birthday event at the Imperial Palace as they are concerned it could contribute to the spread of the deadly
coronavirus.
For more about
Japan Coronavirus situation, check-out updates at :
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/coronavirus
