Photo/Illutration Social distancing is maintained at a Coming of Age Day ceremony held in Tokyo’s Koto Ward on Jan. 10. (Naoko Kawamura)

Coming of Age Day ceremonies were held across Japan over the three-day weekend that ended Jan. 10 to mark the annual rite of passage into adulthood among 20-year-olds, despite soaring cases of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus sweeping the nation.

Municipal governments took a range of steps to prevent the spread of infection, for example, by holding more sessions to disperse attendance numbers and shortening the hours of events.

The Tokyo metropolitan government confirmed more than 1,000 fresh cases of COVID-19 on both Jan. 8 and 9 as a three-day weekend kicked off. It was the first time for the capital to report more than 1,000 new cases a day since last September.

Authorities in the capital’s Koto Ward, where 4,000 or so individuals are marking their entry into adulthood, increased the number of ceremony sessions from two to four to whittle down numbers attending each event. 

The municipality also shortened the duration of the ceremony from 45 minutes to half an hour, and held online video streaming of the events.

Outside event venues, young adult attendees held reunions with friends and schoolmates and snapped photos together.

“Some young people who are shy about mixing in large crowds were still able to participate in events through online streaming, so I hope that such efforts will continue even after the pandemic is contained,” said 20-year-old university student Shun Orii.

Yokohama city, the nation’s most populous municipality, hosted four ceremony sessions at the Yokohama Arena event hall that were attended by 21,913 people. The figure represented about 60 percent of the eligible total of 36,373.

Authorities in Yokohama had announced they would distribute antigen test kits to “new adults” at no cost prior to the event, and sent kits to 2,500 or so applicants who had mainly remained unvaccinated.

“Kanagawa Prefecture has also entered the sixth COVID-19 infection wave,” City Mayor Takeharu Yamanaka said at the Jan. 10 ceremony. “So please refrain from going to eat together after the ceremony.”

In Okinawa, Yamaguchi and Hiroshima prefectures, which are now covered by pre-emergency measures, a string of Coming of Age ceremonies scheduled to be held over the three-day holiday period were canceled or postponed.

Some municipalities only conducted live video streaming of events or held memorial photo sessions.

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