TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Japan will only treat patients Covid-19 who are seriously ill and those who are at risk of hospitalization. Meanwhile, patients with COVID-19 who are in the mild and moderate category are asked to self-isolate at home.
Menurut para pejabat setempat, terjadi kekhawatiran rumah sakit akan kewalahan melayani pasien Covid-19 yang terus naik setelah Tokyo menjadi tuan rumah Olimpiade 2021.
Saat ini kasus Covid-19 di Jepang meningkat tajam dengan 10.000 kasus baru setiap hari secara nasional. Tokyo memiliki rekor tertinggi 4.058 pada hari Sabtu pekan lalu.
Hironori Sagara, Direktur Rumah Sakit Universitas Showa mengatakan kepada Reuters bahwa rumah sakit sudah mulai krisis akibat melonjaknya pasien. "Ada yang ditolak berulang kali untuk masuk," katanya dalam sebuah wawancara. "Di tengah kegembiraan Olimpiade Tokyo, situasi tenaga medis sangat parah."
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters that fewer elderly people, most of whom had been vaccinated, were infected. “On the other hand, infections in younger people are increasing and people in their 40s and 50s with severe symptoms are increasing,” he said. “With people also being hospitalized with heat stroke, some people can’t be treated right away. They are recovering at home.”
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who announced the government would ensure people isolated at home can be hospitalized if necessary. Previously, Japan served all Covid-19 patients for various categories.
However, it is feared that the policy change could trigger the death toll.
“They call it home care, but it’s home neglect,” the opposition leader Yukio Edano’s Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan was quoted as saying by public TV NHK.
Japan on Monday expanded the state of emergency to include three prefectures near Tokyo and the western prefecture of Osaka. The state of emergency in Tokyo is the fourth since the pandemic began, and in Okinawa it will last until August 31.
The Tokyo Shimbun newspaper said as many as 12,000 COVID-19 patients were isolated at home, a 12-fold increase in the past month.
Read: New Covid-19 Cases in Tokyo Reach Highest Number
REUTERS
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