Arab News Japan

TOKYO: While Japan has seen a significant spike in COVID-19 cases this year, numbers remain far below those in the West, data showed.

Japan has seen a total of 310,643 confirmed cases as of Saturday, with 4,342 deaths, mostly of elderly people and many in care homes.

The Japanese population stands at around 126.3 million people, double that of the United Kingdom, which has seen more than 87,000 deaths from 3.32 million cases. Around two-thirds of the infections are in the Greater Tokyo area, that combined 4 prefectures, which has a population of around 38 million people.

In the period from January 2 to 15, the number of people tested positive in Japan amounted to 78,803, compared to 773,954 in the UK Deaths from COVID-19 in the same period were 862 in Japan and 13,170 in the UK.

Eleven prefectures in Japan, including Tokyo, are under a state of emergency, but the provisions in the state of emergency are guidelines rather than enforceable actions under the law. Restaurants, bars and cafes remain open but are being asked to close at 8 p.m.

Vaccinations in Japan are not expected to start until the end of February, but many Japanese are wary of the untried vaccinations and say they are planning to wait before getting the two-dose shot. In a survey reported by Yahoo News, only 28 percent of Japanese said they would get the vaccine immediately.

The government is encouraging patients suffering no or mild symptoms to stay at home or in a designated hotel to free up hospital beds for those with more severe conditions. Beds reserved for COVID-19 patients are almost at capacity in Tokyo.

However, sending infected patients back into the community poses its own dangers. Those infected have to get home somehow and need to shop for food and other necessities. Homebound patients are now believed to be a major factor in the recent rise of infections nationwide, experts say.

Clusters of infections are also increasingly appearing. Even in a small town in Chiba prefecture, bordering Tokyo, five staff at a fast food chain got infected.