Japan’s COVID-19 Vaccination Rollout in Turmoil (2) ―The Nippon Foundation Doing Its Part to Help Fight Pandemi
As part of our campaign to help the nation combat the pandemic, The Nippon Foundation since late February has been conducting free and regular polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for the novel coronavirus for caregivers and other essential workers at up to about 10,000 nursing homes in Tokyo and three nearby prefectures.
But despite our efforts to encourage staff to be tested regularly with a view to containing infection clusters at these facilities, far fewer workers than we expected have undergone the tests. This is probably because the Japan Medical Association, a powerful lobby of medical doctors, has been promoting expensive PCR tests covered by state subsidies conducted by its member clinics and hospitals.
I do not understand why local authorities announce only the number of new COVID-19 cases, but not the number of tests administered. To overcome the coronavirus pandemic, it is essential to promote both the vaccination rollout and PCR testing. I would like to invite experts’ comments on this point.
As of July 2, the foundation has conducted 519,923 PCR tests of which 91 came back positive.
All in all, The Nippon Foundation has been undertaking five major projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with total assistance to date coming to 9.08 billion yen (about $82.5 million) so far.
The five initiatives are as follows:
1. Building a makeshift facility with 140 private rooms in Odaiba on Tokyo Bay for novel coronavirus patients with mild or no symptoms at a total cost of 1.88 billion yen (about $17.1 million). As of July 2, 3,439 patients, many with pets, had stayed there.
2. Transporting to and from hospitals COVID-19 patients with slight symptoms, and doctors and nurses working around the clock to combat COVID-19. We leased vehicles specially designed to prevent airborne droplets from the patient reaching the driver to carry 3,544 patients at a cost of 114 million yen (about $1.04 million) as of May 30. We also distributed more than 16.6 million yen (about $150,000) worth of taxi vouchers (as of June 15) to doctors and nurses going to and from hospitals.
3. Providing 127 emergency medical service hospitals in 36 prefectures across the nation that take care of severely ill and high-risk patients with a total of 4.94 billion yen (about $44.9 million) in grants to help them beef up facilities and equipment.
4. Free and regular COVID-19 PCR tests for caregivers and other essential workers at nursing homes in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures. As of July 2, a total of 519,923 tests had been conducted at a cost of 986 million yen (about $9 million).
5. Helping 236 hospitals across the country taking care of coronavirus patients purchase medical and other equipment with the total sum given at 1.14 billion yen (about $10.3 million).
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