Photo/Illutration Tenri Mayor Ken Namikawa responds during an interview on Aug. 25 with The Asahi Shimbun. (Kazuhiko Ishikawa)

TENRI, Nara Prefecture--Demanding apologies from COVID-19 patients will only worsen the social unrest caused by the pandemic, according to the mayor here, home to a university rugby team hit by a cluster infection. 

Calls have flooded into Tenri University and the Tenri city offices after it was announced that a number of team members had been infected by the novel coronavirus. 

At a news conference on Aug. 20, Mayor Ken Namikawa and Noriaki Nagao, the university's president, asked people not to discriminate against students there because rugby team members were infected.

Following that, the university and Tenri city hall were bombarded with calls demanding that the university first apologize for not being vigilant enough in stopping the spread of infections.

Namikawa explained his feelings about the uproar caused by the university's cluster infection in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun and a lengthy email sent to the reporter at the Nara General Bureau covering the city government.

“Infections can hit any group, but the pressure from the ‘public’ to apologize will only eat away at our souls,” said Namikawa, 41.

The Nara prefectural government announced the rugby team cluster on Aug. 16. Fifty-eight of the team's 168 members were confirmed infected with COVID-19 as of Aug. 25.

Other Tenri University students with no connection to the team also suffered as a result. Some who were scheduled to practice teaching at junior and senior high schools were told to stay away. Others with part-time jobs were also treated unfairly.

Namikawa said that the city government received about 50 calls from the public after his news conference with Nagao.

Many were critical of Tenri University for what they said was its failure to take the proper steps to prevent an infection cluster and demanded an apology for causing trouble to the public.

University officials said they also received similar calls.

In an Aug. 24 email to the Asahi reporter, Namikawa said he was “certain that one thing society should definitely refrain from doing during this pandemic is having outsiders saying 'apologize' (to those who are infected)."

He pointed to the possibility that anyone could be infected with COVID-19 as well as the fact that a certain percentage of cases are untraceable.

“Criticizing a group where an infection cluster has occurred is the flip side of worries that one will be criticized should he or she become infected,” Namikawa wrote.

He also asked those demanding an apology to think about what they would do if the shoe was on the other foot.

“It is difficult to totally prevent infections in the home,” he wrote. “How would you feel if when a family member became infected, those around you continued to say, ‘Apologize because you were not careful and acted in a neglectful and irresponsible manner.’”

Namikawa urged the public to realize that those who exclude others because they fear negative publicity are in fact perpetrating the spread of such publicity.

He said that the pandemic was not only a health problem, but also a psychological one because it led people to be excessively cautious about others due to their own worries and led to unintentional hurtful words and deeds.

Namikawa added that the unique Japanese-style of peer pressure demanding an apology to the public for causing trouble would only worsen the stagnation in society and the economy brought on by the pandemic.

On Aug. 25, Namikawa agreed to an interview with the Asahi in which he said, “I believe that those demanding an apology are doing so out of a sense of justice. But at the root of that feeling is a strong sense of worry. Excluding others because of that worry will only worsen the problems caused by the novel coronavirus.”

(This article was written by Kazuhiko Ishikawa and Akira Nemoto.)

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