The Tokyo metropolitan government plans to conduct polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests on residents and employees of facilities for the elderly and the disabled, sources close to the metropolitan government said.
To help prevent infection among those who are likely to have severe symptoms from the coronavirus, the metropolitan government is to spend about 3 billion yen to conduct the tests. About 150,000 people are subject to the measures.
After a series of in-house infections, the metropolitan government also decided the employees of such facilities will be regularly tested.
The PCR tests will be conducted at more than 800 facilities that are above a certain size, according to the sources. Those are facilities for the elderly, including special nursing homes and nursing care facilities, and facilities for the disabled. Saliva collected at the facilities will be sent to private laboratories for examination. Because the accuracy of the tests is lower than that of a test conducted at a medical institution, it will be considered a screening. If someone tests positive, they will go through a procedure to confirm the diagnosis under the instructions of the public health center.
For employees who have daily contact with people outside of the facilities, the metropolitan government plans to repeatedly conduct the tests even when the saliva test results are negative, in the hopes of detecting an infection early on and preventing it from spreading among the residents.
Between July and August, 477 people in Tokyo were infected with the virus within facilities for the elderly and the disabled. At a nursing care facility for the elderly in Arakawa Ward, 32 people were infected with the virus in a group outbreak.
The death rate among those in their 80s and 90s exceeded 30%, according to an analysis of 325 people who died in Tokyo by the end of June, raising concerns about the risks elderly people face as their conditions can easily become serious.
The PCR tests are scheduled to begin in October after a supplementary budget bill passes the metropolitan assembly, which is to start in the middle of this month.
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