By RYUICHI HISANAGA/ Staff Writer
January 25, 2022 at 18:05 JST
An email from a certified nursery school in Tokyo notifies parents of children attending the school of its temporary closure due to surging COVID-19 cases. (Natsumi Nakai)
The health ministry announced that a record 327 nursery schools had temporally closed in Tokyo, Hokkaido and 25 prefectures as of Jan. 20 due to surging COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant.
The figure released Jan. 24 was nearly quadruple that of Jan. 13 when 86 nursery schools were closed in Tokyo, Hokkaido and 12 prefectures.
It also far exceeded the 185 in Tokyo, Hokkaido and 13 prefectures as of Sept. 2, 2021, which at the time ranked as the highest number since the pandemic flared in Japan.
The surge in nursery school closures is expected to affect many working parents with young children at home and workplaces.
The 327 nursery schools are located in the northernmost main island of Hokkaido as well as the prefectures of Aomori, Akita, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Nagano, Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Okayama, Yamaguchi, Kagawa, Ehime, Kochi, Fukuoka, Saga, Oita, Kagoshima and Okinawa.
The ministry said 23,896 nursery schools were operating across the country as of last April.
Probe sought into bullying of child with gender dysphoria
February 13, 2021
Pedophiles face 10-year ban on teaching at nursery schools
November 25, 2021
No Olympic fans in stands in Hokkaido and Fukushima
July 10, 2021
Ministry plans database of child-abusing baby-sitters
January 29, 2021
Tokyo’s infection tally nearly triples from week ago to 8,638
January 20, 2022
Eight more prefectures to fall under state of emergency
August 25, 2021
Stories about memories of cherry blossoms solicited from readers
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series on the death of a Japanese woman that sparked a debate about criminal justice policy in the United States
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
