The Tokyo metropolitan government's multilingual COVID-19 support services have received nearly 6,000 consultations from foreign residents amid the pandemic, revealing some of the challenges such residents experience in Japan.
A Vietnamese student in his 20s who tested positive for coronavirus in February said, "When I was told to recuperate at home, I felt numb with worry that I might infect my housemates."
The man had been living in a studio apartment in Tokyo with two other Vietnamese students. He thought that he would receive treatment at a hospital or be accommodated at a recuperation facility, but a public health center instructed him to stay at home.
Fortunately, the Japanese language school he had been attending let his housemates stay in a vacant room in the school's dormitory. The infected housemate had to take time off from school and his part-time job, and had to borrow money from his friends and others to get by.
"I was worried when I was recuperating at home alone. But, I was lucky to have people around me whom I could rely on."
According to the Japanese language school the man attended, it is common for foreign students to live in shared accommodation as a cost-saving measure.
"Many rental houses in Japan do not allow tenants to share accommodations," a school official said. "We are asking our students not to stay in shared apartments, but we also understand that their financial situation might be tight. They usually don't have anyone to rely on, and if they don't ask for help, we have no idea if they need support."
Last November, the government's COVID-19 subcommittee said there had been an increasing number of cases in which outbreaks of group infections were not detected in some expat communities at an early stage because some foreign residents were reluctant to go to medical institutions due to language difficulties among other issues.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has issued a notice to prefectural governments asking them to create an environment in which foreigners can receive consultations.
Prior to the notice, the Tokyo metropolitan government established the Tokyo Coronavirus Support Center for Foreign Residents (TOCOS) in April last year. It had handled about 5,600 inquiries by the time the center was dissolved at the end of March.
Since April, Tokyo has been offering telephone consultations (03-6258-1227) in several languages and it has handled more than 250 inquiries in a month.
According to the metropolitan government, most of the consultations handled by TOCOS were concerning financial situations, at 24.4%, including inquiries about pandemic relief and loan procedures, followed by health concerns, at 21.8%. Expiration of resident status and job losses were among other inquiries received.
A metropolitan government official said, "The pandemic has shed light on some of the problems that foreign residents experience."
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