Kentaro Iwata, a Japanese expert and professor of infectious diseases at Kobe University criticized the way Japan is responding to the coronavirus. He warns that the country's health care system is 'on the verge of collapsing' and that the summer Olympics may not push through even in 2021 after it was postponed this year.
Japan has already recorded a total of 10,751 cases and 171 deaths so far. The country is under a month-long lockdown because of the pandemic.
No plan B for Japan
Initially, Japan's plan for controlling the virus by limiting the testing and intensive contact-tracing in their country was successful when they have a few infected cases. But it seems to fall short when it slowly increases.
According to the Daily Mail, Iwata cautioned the government that they should prepare for when the situation changes. Once cluster-chasing will no longer be effective, Japan should be ready to change strategy immediately.
But, traditionally and historically speaking, Japan is known to be unchanging with their strategies, said Iwata. He thinks that his country's failure to change strategy as the outbreak intensified was because they are very poor of thinking of plan B since doing so means admitting that plan A did not work.
Canceled Olympic summer games
The world's leading sports competition, Olympic games comprises of summer and winter sports events participated by over 200 countries from different nations around the world. The summer and winter Olympics alternate every two years for a period of four years.
This year, Tokyo is hosting the Olympics summer games but was postponed until July 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But concerning the recent coronavirus situation in the host country, Iwata said he is 'pessimistic' it can still be held next year.
Holding the Olympics needs two conditions. First is controlling COVID-19 in Japan, and the second is to control the infection everywhere since athletes and audiences from different countries will be invited to the global sports event.
Iwata added that he sees the event will only continue if some changes are made such as no audience and very limited participation.
Masa Takaya, Tokyo 2020 spokesman said in an online briefing last week that there is 'no Plan B.' Postponing the Olympics is a great undertaking, but the organizers have insisted that they are working towards next year's opening date despite the ongoing uncertainty of when the pandemic will end.
Japan's coronavirus outbreak
Japan's coronavirus cases is one of Asia's highest hit after China and India, and roughly the same with South Korea, but is not the same with the hard-hit European countries.
The number of people that are seen on Tokyo's normally packed transport system has dropped significantly after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged citizens to reduce contact with other people by 70 to 80 percent.
However, a lot of people still go out as many shops are still open despite warnings from the country's medical associations and healthcare is struggling to cope up.
Japan's government is arguing that they have already adjusted their strategy through boosting its testing capacity, changing rules on positive cases, and imposing a state of emergency. However, medical experts have called the measures insufficient as beds in hospitals still remain full, according to Haruo Ozaki the Tokyo Medical association's president.
Despite doing everything, the virus still continues to spread faster than expected. There is also the problem of equipment shortages that the mayor of Osaka is calling for donations of unused raincoats as the healthcare workers are forced to use garbage bags for their protective equipment.
