Questions about the stances of local governments regarding their disclosures of information about fatalities from the new coronavirus and those infected are making the rounds, as some local governments have been reluctant to reveal details seen as critical in handling the outbreak.
The Tokyo metropolitan government, for example, has sometimes not disclosed the sex and age groups of victims, saying that bereaved family members do not want details to be made public.
However, local residents' fears could escalate without the broader sharing of details on how the virus is spreading and how people are infected in each affected region. Experts said it is excessive to withhold even those pieces of information with which individuals cannot be identified.
The Tokyo metropolitan government, prefectural governments and designated major cities announce the numbers of infected people and those who died of the disease caused by the new coronavirus every day.
In Tokyo, the number of people confirmed to be infected with the virus has exceeded 4,650. The metropolitan government posts several charts about infected people on its website, including one listing several fields such as sex, age group, occupation and records of known contact with other infected people. However, the Tokyo government has withheld details except for the sex and age group, saying they are under investigation.
Moreover, among 145 people who died of the disease as of Sunday, even the sex and age group has not been made public for 28 victims. Of them, one patient's death was disclosed 12 days later.
"We set a policy that whether and how many details are made public in principle need the approval from the bereaved family members," a metropolitan government official said.
On the other hand, the Osaka prefectural government has disclosed more details on its website. They include the infected person's residential area, occupation, date of developing symptoms, preexisting diseases and whether they have family members living together.
Regarding those who have died, the prefectural government discloses victims' case number assigned when confirmed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Thus, comparing these details with information disclosed in the past makes it possible to confirm how the victims' conditions had changed.
The Infectious Diseases Law obliges the central and prefectural governments to proactively disclose information about the occurrence of infectious diseases and information necessary for prevention and treatments, while paying attention to the protection of personal information.
In February, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry issued an instruction to local governments nationwide regarding the pieces of information they should disclose about infected people, including age groups, sex, prefectures where they reside and date symptoms developed.
Though this instruction does not require local governments to make public the municipalities in which the infected people reside, most local governments disclose this according to their own judgment.
"We proactively disclose information because it is our policy that people's anxieties are not fanned if a certain range of details is made public," an Osaka prefectural government official said. The prefectural government has not received complaints from the infected people themselves or bereaved family members, the official added.
In the first place, pieces of information with which individuals cannot be identified are not supposed to require consent from the infected people or victims' bereaved family members.
Some details about the age groups and sex of infected people and changes of symptoms in those who died can be useful to help other people in similar living conditions take precautions about their own lifestyle.
Hisamichi Okamura, a lawyer who is an expert on privacy affairs, pointed out that by knowing how the virus is spreading in their communities, local residents can consider whether they should go out and make decisions on other matters in their daily life.
"This way, they can face anxieties, confusion and the further spread of the infections," he said. "Local governments have the responsibility to provide detailed information while making efforts to prevent [infected] individuals from being identified."
The Tokyo metropolitan government has been reluctant to disclose details about those infected because the infections spread so fast that public health centers "were forced to near-malfunction and became unable to keep up with their work of collecting and sorting information," a metropolitan government official said.
The metropolitan government is considering expanding the range of information to be disclosed in the future, according to sources.
Should infected people and victims of the virus be identified, they could face discrimination and find it difficult to continue to live in their local communities. Therefore, consideration toward them is necessary in accordance with the respective circumstances of local governments.
"It is not necessary to establish a nationwide uniform standard on what kind of information [about infected people] should be made public," said Prof. Shoji Tsuchida of Kansai University. "However, local governments should accurately grasp what kind of information their local residents want toward bringing the virus under control, so that they can release necessary information in an effective way."
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