Photo/Illutration Older people wait to receive COVID-19 booster shots at a mass vaccination site in Fukuoka’s Chuo Ward on Jan. 5. (Shoma Fujiwaki)

Health experts called on the government to pay more attention to the needs of the elderly, citing the adverse effect that hospitalization due to COVID-19 could inflict on their physical or mental state.

Members of a panel advising the health ministry on steps to tackle the crisis issued a series of proposals at a meeting held in Tokyo on March 23 to address those concerns.

Eleven members of the advisory board, including Shigeru Omi, who chairs the government’s expert panel on the pandemic, affixed their signatures to the proposals along with representatives of three associations of academics on medical care for the elderly.

The proposals highlighted a number of issues specific to the elderly during the sixth wave.

The panel members found that hospitalization due to COVID-19 tended to negatively impact elderly people both physically and psychologically.

For example, they noted that a change in living environment heightened the risk of older people falling or breaking bones. The panel also found that lower levels of activity due to hospitalization resulted in a decline in bodily functions among older people.

Sudden separation from family members due to hospitalization was also cited as a matter of concern on grounds it can negatively impact the mental state of older people, the panel said.

Citing the risks of people suffering physically or mentally as a result of hospitalization due to COVID-19, the proposals said it was essential to ensure that elderly patients receive treatment in facilities that are best suited to their needs.

In this respect, panel members referred to cases of older people who, although not needing nursing care before being hospitalized for COVID-19, were unable to return to their former lifestyle after being discharged from hospital.

Hospitalization due to COVID-19 should not result in older people finding once they are discharged that they are less able to cope on a daily basis or that the quality of their lives has deteriorated, the panel members said.

The proposals called for deeper discussion on the issue in light of the possibility of yet another wave of the pandemic hitting Japan. The members called for mid- and long-term measures to improve treatment of the elderly infected with the novel coronavirus.

A study by Hiroshi Nishiura, a professor of environmental hygienics at Kyoto University, and other experts was also presented at the March 23 meeting. It said that as many as 40 percent of new COVID-19 patients in Tokyo could now be infected with the BA.2 Omicron subvariant, which is believed to be even more contagious.

The meeting heard that the percentage of patients infected with BA.2 among new cases in the capital could reach 80 percent on April 1 and almost 100 percent on May 1.

(This article was written by Kai Ichino and Kayoko Geji.)

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