THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
February 4, 2022 at 17:16 JST
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike attends a meeting to discuss COVID-19 crisis management measures. (Provided by the Tokyo metropolitan government)
Tokyo on Feb. 3 established new criteria for requesting a COVID-19 state of emergency based on the rate of patients with severe symptoms and characteristics of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.
Previously, the metropolitan government considered asking the central government to issue a state of emergency for the capital if the hospital bed occupancy rate reached 50 percent.
Now, the metropolitan government will consider making the request if the occupancy rate of hospital beds for patients in serious condition or for those requiring oxygen inhalation falls between 30 and 40 percent, and when the daily average of new COVID-19 cases over a week hits 24,000.
Officials said the metropolitan government decided to take into account the occupancy rate of ICU beds, the number of patients receiving emergency care and other indicators to calculate the occupancy rate of hospital beds for severe patients.
They noted that a growing number of patients who had only mild COVID-19 symptoms are ending up requiring intensive care after becoming seriously ill from other diseases.
The new guidelines take into account that patients infected with the Omicron variant are less likely to become seriously ill than those with other variants, officials said.
The metropolitan government had released the occupancy rate of hospital beds for severe patients who meet the capital’s definition of serious cases based primarily on their respiratory symptoms.
As of Feb. 2, Tokyo had 30 patients in serious condition--requiring ventilators or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) devices.
But the number would soar to 113 under the new criteria, according to officials.
The same day, 15.1 percent of hospital beds for seriously ill patients were filled, while 8 percent of patients needed oxygen inhalation.
Officials said the metropolitan government set the 24,000 threshold for the weekly average of new cases after taking into account the impact on companies’ business continuity.
(This article was written by Kayoko Sekiguchi and Taichi Kobayashi.)
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