Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, takes questions from reporters online on Aug. 24. (Koichi Ueda)

The central government will ease its policy of requiring medical institutions to provide daily reports of all COVID-19 cases around the nation.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Aug. 24 told reporters a new system will give local governments the option of reporting only about elderly patients and people with pre-existing conditions in areas where health care organizations and public health offices are facing a crisis with the latest surge in infections.

Kishida said the new policy is like “an emergency escape” that will allow “health care organizations to secure time to see infected people who need consultations.”

In such emergency cases, doctors will only be required to submit COVID-19 reports about elderly patients, those who need to be hospitalized and people who are at high risk and require a curative drug treatment.

Under the law, doctors are currently required to submit the names, contact numbers and other details of all patients diagnosed with COVID-19 to public health offices run by local governments.

But the practice of reporting all the cases has put a heavy burden on doctors and health care officials who are already swamped under the seventh and latest wave of the pandemic.

The National Governors’ Association and others have urged the central government to simply drop the reporting policy.

But Kishida said the central government will assess the infection situation before making such an across-the-board change.

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