Only 47 health care personnel in Tokyo tested positive for the novel coronavirus in May, less than 10% of the cases recorded in this year's peak month of January, The Yomiuri Shimbun has found.
As the ratio of medical worker infections to the total number of coronavirus cases has also dropped, experts believe that the decline has been due to the effect of vaccination, which started in earnest from March.
The Yomiuri Shimbun calculated figures such as the monthly total of new infection cases in Tokyo, based on the daily data released by the Tokyo metropolitan government, and analyzed the infection situations of doctors, nurses, and other medical workers.
When the monthly total of newly confirmed cases in Tokyo hit a peak of 40,000 in January, the number of health care worker infections reached 525, or 1.3% of all cases. In February and March, when new cases totaled about 10,000 each month, the number of medical worker infections reached 366 in February, or 3.33% of the total, and 237 in March, or 2.55%.
While the new cases of infection soared to a total of 18,000 in April, the number of cases among medical workers totaled only 77, accounting for 0.43% of the total. In May, when the new cases totaled about 22,000, health care worker infections dropped to 47 to account for just 0.21% of the total.
The vaccination of health care workers, who are at risk of getting COVID-19, started earlier than the general population, in February at 100 designated medical institutions across the nation. Since March, they have been given preferential vaccination at other medical institutions.
Norio Ohmagari, director of the Disease Control and Prevention Center at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine, said that the decline in health care personnel infections "is partly because medical workers are making their own efforts not to get infected, but also due to COVID-19 vaccines, which have proven effective."
-- Feeling of relief
"Since my anxiety about infection has been mitigated, I feel relieved," said Kunihisa Miura, 56, deputy director of Tokyo Hikifune Hospital in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, who was given the second shot of COVID-19 vaccine in April.
His hospital has been accepting patients with moderate or mild symptoms of COVID-19 since April last year, and more than 10 infected patients, including people suspected of being infected, visit the hospital every day. Doctors at the hospital are treating these patients while wearing protective gear and face shields, which Miura said, "has been quite burdensome."
The vaccination for the staff at the hospital started in April, covering about 350 staff members who wished to be vaccinated. So far, 80% of them have been given the second shot. Since April, the number of infections among staff has remained at one.
Tetsuya Matsumoto, a professor at the International University of Health and Welfare who is an expert on infectious diseases, said, "At many medical institutions, the vaccination has begun showing signs of effectiveness."
Since last spring when the infections spread in Tokyo, cluster infections of over 100 cases have occurred at 12 medical institutions. Although the number of patients being treated in hospitals has declined from the May 16 peak of 2,431, thanks to the ongoing state of emergency that has been in place in Tokyo since April, the tally was still 1,483 as of June 13. Therefore, a tense state of affairs continues among front-line medical workers.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, however, there have been cases of novel coronavirus infection even among those who have been fully vaccinated.
"Even if fully vaccinated, we have to take measures against infection," Miura said, calling for health care workers to brace themselves. "If vaccination spreads not only among front-line medical workers, but also among people outside that field, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for social and economic activities to get restarted."
According to the Tokyo metropolitan government, the medical service workers subjected to preferential vaccination total about 570,000. As of June 10, about 368,000 of these workers, or 65% of the total, have received the second vaccine shot. By the end of this month, all of these health care workers in Tokyo are slated to be fully vaccinated.
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