Photo/Illutration A quarantine officer works at Narita International Airport in May. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Anyone thinking of leaving Japan for a summer vacation should consider “scrapping their plans” as no beds are available for COVID-19 patients near Narita International Airport, health experts are warning. 

The airport in Chiba Prefecture has seen a spate of cases in which a passenger returning from summer vacation abroad has tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon arrival. The traveler then has been quarantined at a designated hotel and developed severe symptoms, but had nowhere to go because beds for COVID-19 patients at area hospitals are full.

Entrants to Japan who test positive at an airport are required to stay at a hotel designated by the airport’s quarantine station until they test negative twice.

There are currently 60 or so returnees staying at hotels near the airport after testing positive for the virus upon arrival, said Kazunari Tanaka, who heads the quarantine station at Narita Airport managed by the health ministry.

Twenty percent of them have displayed symptoms such as fever, Tanaka said.

Some have had temperatures that ran nearly 40 degrees. For many, their blood oxygen saturation level has remained at around 93 percent, which requires oxygen therapy. 

Two to three patients have been diagnosed every week with symptoms that required them to be hospitalized.

In these cases, the quarantine station has directly made a request to hospitals in the prefecture to take them in.

But many area hospitals have refused the station’s request since around late July as hospital beds became increasingly unavailable.

In the past week, hospitals turned down almost all requests to accept COVID-19 patients, Tanaka said.

The quarantine center fortunately found a hospital to send patients to, but it is 80 kilometers away.

The usage rate of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients in Chiba Prefecture was 67 percent as of Aug. 12, falling into the “stage 4” category.

“If the number of returnees who need hospitalization increases, it would deprive Chiba Prefecture residents of valuable beds,” Tanaka said.

Preparing for the shortage of hospital beds, the station on Aug. 13 ordered five oxygen enrichment devices that can be used at a hotel to treat quarantined patients.

Tanaka is worried that a large number of people who travel overseas for a summer vacation will contract the virus during the trip and bring it back when they return to the airport in Japan.

Some countries are allowing the entry of visitors from Japan without requiring an isolation period if an entrant shows proof of a negative COVID-19 test result.

Tanaka urges people to “think again if you really need to travel overseas now.”

COVID-19 cases are still spreading globally. If a passenger who travels overseas contracts the virus on their trip and is unable to obtain proof of a negative test result, they may be banned from entering Japan.

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