The emergence of Japan’s coldest city as a COVID-19 hotspot has raised considerations among fitness experts that this may just be a sign of what the rest of the country may face when winter sets in and more and more. people remain indoors, expanding the threat of airborne transmission.
Asahikawa city, about 140 km north of Sapporo in Hokkaido, is recovering from outbreaks of infection in two hospitals and a nursing home. On Sunday, the number of cases reported on the island exceeded 10,000, and Asahikawa accounted for 16% of cases. 256 deaths.
That led the government to announce a plan Monday to send Self-Defense Force nurses to the region and Osaka to fight the outbreak.
“Hokkaido is a position where, due to weather conditions, other people tend to have the radiator far up and also in very enclosed spaces,” said Haruo Ozaki, president of the Tokyo Medical Association. “In places like Tokyo and Osaka, it will also be more embedded from now on. When we load this blood factor, it shows that we explicitly want much more caution or we will simply face a new spread of contagion. “
Asahikawa, a city of 340,000, holds the record for the lowest recorded temperature in Japan of -41 degrees Celsius in 1902. Researchers have warned that airborne transmission of the virus increases when other people spend more time in closed rooms breathing dry air.
“Asahikawa and the addition of Sapporo are in a serious condition in terms of pandemic,” Dr. Yasutaka Kakinoki said at Asahikawa City Hospital. The growing number of cases has led Asahikawa’s fitness formula to a “near collapse,” he said.
Asahikawa Kosei Hospital is home to 224 patient and staff infections, which has led the facility to reject all critical cases so far.
Yoshida Hospital, a facility in the city, has 184 cases and has struggled to move patients to other hospitals.
“This is a complicated scenario we face,” Asahikawa Mayor Masahito Nishikawa said at a recent online briefing, urging citizens to the city’s primary hospitals.
While infections have increased in recent weeks, Sapporo and Osaka have opted not to participate in an internal tourism campaign, but any of the cities will require “some kind of blockade” to the epidemic, said Kenji Shibuya, director of London’s King’s College Institute of Population Health.
Hokkaido was the first to claim a state of emergency before this year amid the first wave of the pandemic and also largely saved a momentary wave that hit Tokyo and major population centers this summer.
While cold, dry winter air were points in Hokkaido’s COVID-19 groups, lack of competition and containment also exacerbated outbreaks in Asahikawa, Shibuya said.
Others warn that they are opposed to predicting the trend of contagion observed in Hokkaido that can be repeated in the country.
Social activity recovered more than in other parts of the country, and this in turn led to a “third previous wave” that coincided with the beginning of winter, Takanori Teshima, professor at Hokkaido University School of Medicine.
“The kinetics of the pandemic between Hokkaido and Honshu,” he said.