THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
September 3, 2021 at 17:56 JST
Infectious diseases expert Shigeru Omi, the nation's point man on COVID-19, joined Instagram on Aug. 30 to exchange ideas more directly with Japan's youth, who have consistently made up a large proportion of infections.
Omi, who chairs the government's expert panel on the response to the pandemic, posted his first photo of himself dressed casually in a white T-shirt bearing a Japanese hashtag that translates to “#You know, Omi-san.”
His number of Instagram followers had topped 100,000 as of 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 2.
“There are many things that we can’t decide only from the perspective of science for anti-coronavirus measures,” he wrote in a post to the account the day before.
“For instance, as people have battled the virus for a long time, we have faced the question of, ‘What kind of society do we want to live in?’ I think that this should be answered after we have discussed it with people,” he posted. “I would like to deliver everybody’s voices to the government.”
Omi, who is also considering doing live streams, explained that he aimed to gather questions from people through Instagram and “respond to their voices as much as possible by picking up popular ideas or outstanding opinions.”
His Instagram account name is omi.shigeru.
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Shigeru Omi’s first post on Instagram. His T-shirt reads: “You know, Omi-san.” (From Shigeru Omi’s Instagram account)
