As the outbreak of the new coronavirus continues to spread, health minister Katsunobu Kato presented a policy Tuesday to expand the range of reporting on possible infections.
Medical institutions currently report people who are believed to be at risk of infection to public health centers. Speaking at a press conference after a Tuesday Cabinet meeting, Kato said the range of people covered by the reporting system would be expanded.
At another press conference on the day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga revealed that the government is considering shortening from two weeks to 10 days the assumed incubation period between infection with the new coronavirus and the development of symptoms.
The reporting criteria are being expanded because cases have been identified in which the current reporting range did not identify infections. By expanding the range, the government aims to take all possible steps to prevent the further spread of infections.
The reporting system is called suspected carriers surveillance. It is meant to find people who are suspected of being infected as soon as possible, ensure that tests for the virus are conducted, and prevent the infection from spreading.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry had designated three categories for people subject to the reporting system:
-- People with a fever of 37.5 C or higher and respiratory symptoms including those of pneumonia.
-- People who stayed in Wuhan in China's Hubei Province within two weeks before the start of their symptoms.
-- People who have been in contact with others who traveled to Wuhan, and who develop fever and respiratory symptoms.
However, a bus driver in Nara Prefecture was confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus on Jan. 28. He drove a bus for a group of tourists from Wuhan, but he himself has never visited that city and was not confirmed to have had contact with people with a fever or other symptoms.
Based on such cases, the ministry is considering such changes as excluding symptoms of pneumonia from the first category and applying the reporting system to people with only fever and respiratory symptoms, such as coughing.
In the second category, people who have traveled to the whole of Hubei Province, not only Wuhan, will be included. In the third, the range of the reporting system will also cover people who have close contact with others who have traveled to Hubei Province, regardless of whether the former have symptoms of the new pneumonia.
Ship quarantined
The health ministry quarantined about 3,700 passengers and crew members on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was carrying a person infected with the new coronavirus, off Yokohama Port from Monday evening to Tuesday morning.
According to the ministry, there are many elderly people among the passengers, and the quarantine officials let the passengers sleep at night. Thus the quarantine took a long time.
After the quarantine, the ministry plans to test passengers with fever and other symptoms for the virus, and ask them to stay on the cruise ship until the results are known.
According to its planned sailing route, the cruise ship was scheduled to depart Yokohama Port on Jan. 20, and make calls at Kagoshima Prefecture on Jan. 22, Hong Kong on Jan. 25, Vietnam on Jan. 27 and 28, and Naha on Feb. 1.
According to the Okinawa prefectural government, when the cruise ship made a port call at Naha Port on Saturday, 13 passengers got off the ship.
The Naha Quarantine Station said it had been confirmed that some other passengers disembarked temporarily. An official of the quarantine station said the number of passengers was being checked.
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