A clutch of new coronavirus cases not clearly linked to China have emerged across Japan. How the patients contracted the virus remains unclear.

Japan must brace for the possibility of a coronavirus epidemic at home. Effective emergency measures need to be taken quickly to minimize damage in case this happens.

Priority must be given to locating coronavirus patients in a serious condition so they can immediately receive appropriate treatment. There is a limit to the inpatient capacity of medical institutions designated to treat coronavirus patients. For this reason, steps should be taken to enable general hospitals to accept patients who need hospitalization.

The government should also consider recommending convalescence at home for patients displaying mild symptoms.

Initial responses to potential patients should also be reconsidered. Probably because of the nature of the new coronavirus, there have been cases in which medical institutions initially failed to correctly diagnose people displaying suspicious symptoms.

In most such cases, too much time elapsed before the infection was confirmed.

It seems highly likely that the virus infects others in such situations.

Medical experts need to be quicker off the mark in suspecting infection with the virus when they treat people with possible symptoms and take required steps.

There are fears the virus could spread among doctors, nurses and other medical experts. A surgeon in Wakayama Prefecture, who has been confirmed to be infected with the virus, continued working even after developing a fever and treating it with an antipyretic.

An inpatient at the hospital where the surgeon works was confirmed to be infected on Feb. 14. Even though the hospital says the patient did not come into contact with the surgeon, it must be assumed that the possibility of nosocomial, or hospital-acquired, infections can occur.

It is crucial to identify swiftly how the two individuals contracted the virus.

With regard to the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, docked at Yokohama Port, the infection also spread to a quarantine officer who was helping to keep track of the health of crew and passengers.

Although the quarantine officer followed protocol and wore a face mask and gloves while on the ship and sanitized his hands with disinfectant, he apparently fell short in doing everything right. It needs to be stressed that people dealing with this health crisis follow the basic rules of hygiene to a T.

Doctors, nurses, quarantine officers and public health center officials who deal with suspected coronavirus patients will probably bear a growing burden in the coming weeks.

If they are forced to work excessively hard and long hours, they will be become exhausted and less attentive.

One lesson from Wuhan, where the outbreak started, is that the situation deteriorates quickly if the safety of medical experts is not secured.

A package of emergency measures the government announced on Feb. 13 includes, along with efforts to enhance the system to detect infections, steps to secure sufficient supplies of medical masks and medications.

Both the central and local governments need to ready themselves for a long battle to contain the spread of the virus and make their own efforts to ensure that sufficient manpower and materials will be available, without leaving the mission entirely to medical institutions.

One big challenge is how to deal with the cruise ship. The government has decided to allow elderly passengers who meet certain criteria, such as those who are 80 or older with chronic illness, to leave the vessel and stay in a lodging facility provided by the government.

With the number of confirmed cases among the passengers and crew members growing daily, the virus is clearly spreading within the ship.

The government deserves to be criticized for adopting a misguided policy of not allowing suspected patients to enter Japan. This caused delays in responding properly to the situation on board the ship.

It is time to switch to a more flexible approach that takes account of the health conditions and wishes of individuals.

Many foreign passengers and crew members are also on board the ship.

It is crucial to explain to the people trapped on the vessel what measures are being taken to deal with the situation so as to alleviate anxiety and distrust among them.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 15