A giggly 2-year-old boy threw his arms around his 6-year-old brother, who was watching a video on a tablet in a five-tatami-mat room.
"Don't! You'll get infected," their mother said. She quickly picked up the younger child and left the room.
It had been a few days since the family of four started isolating themselves in their apartment in eastern Hyogo Prefecture.
"Children can't stay still. The entire family may get infected with the coronavirus," the 31-year-old mother said, racked with anxiety.
In September, her first-grade son tested positive. He is believed to have contracted the virus at school. Diagnosed with mild symptoms, he was recuperating at home, and the woman, her 35-year-old husband and their younger son, who all tested negative, were also asked by a local health center to stay home.
The woman semi-quarantined her first-grade son in the children's room and thoroughly disinfected the bathroom in the apartment. She was also careful not to let the family members share the same daily necessities. However, the young boys played together whenever she wasn't looking.
She couldn't leave her quarantined son alone, and in the end, the family had no option but to live almost as normal, with the possibility that they might all get infected.
"Will the boys be OK?" Her anxiety increased further, especially after she went to bed. "My husband and I are both vaccinated, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're safe."
After days at home, her younger son was becoming agitated. She drove around the city with him late at night.
Her family's finances were also affected by the family quarantine. The first-grader went back to school 10 days later, but the remaining three family members -- who ultimately did not get infected -- had to stay at home for another two weeks as they were identified as close contacts.
Unlike her husband, who was able to work from home, she had to take 24 days off from her part-time job in the welfare sector, resulting in a loss of 100,000 yen.
"I didn't want people to know about the infection [of my family member], so I couldn't talk to anyone about it," she said. "If a child gets infected, their family becomes isolated from society. We need information and support from administrative organizations."
-- Over 5 times May peak
In the fifth wave of infections, the highly contagious delta variant spread among children, who had been largely thought to be less susceptible to the virus.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, a total of 30,427 people under 20 were found to have contracted the virus from Aug. 19 to 25. This was more than five times the previous high marked during the fourth wave's peak in the May 13-19 period.
To prevent further strain on medical services, the government has adopted a policy that children with mild symptoms should recuperate at home, leaving their families with no choice but to take care of them.
If there were enough hospitals and accommodation facilities where parents and children could stay together when one of them has tested negative, it would reduce the burden on the parents and prevent infections within households. However, under the current circumstances, there are not enough places to allow this.
Taking this into consideration, the ministry this month finally requested local governments to establish a system to secure hospital beds and accommodation facilities dedicated to treating family members together.
Kawakita Sogo Byoin, a Tokyo hospital with a pediatric ward, has been accepting parents and their children together to treat them for COVID-19 when there are spare beds.
"It's difficult to admit parents and children at a hospital that has no pediatric ward dedicated to treating COVID-19 patients," said Takahiro Okai, deputy director of the hospital. "I think hospitals with pediatric departments need to cooperate with each other to accept such patients."
COVID-19 vaccinations for children under 12 are not yet available in Japan, leaving the risk that infections may spread among children.
"We need to make more progress in vaccinating adults who are around children, and there should be more hospitals and accommodation facilities where family members can stay together to receive treatment and improved consultation services," said Koji Wada, a professor of public health at the International University of Health and Welfare. "I think it's also important to create a system to enable educational institutions to receive advice from experts."
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