Tokyo: Japan prepares to rebound feared in the case of Coronavirus when the highway and the airport are filled with travelers at the beginning of the New Year’s vacation on Wednesday.
Metropolis Governor Tokyo and Osaka urged residents to keep the year-end meeting, because more cases of omicron variants from Covid-19 were revealed, including alleged clusters in the Osaka nursing home.
Health officials suggest tourists to take advantage of free Coronavirus tests before departure, amid fears that the outpouring of the city population can spread infection to the countryside.
“The highest risk is to meet people without taking adequate steps to prevent infection,” said Norio Ohmagari, director of the center of the control and prevention of disease and the top health advisor to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
“Also, because reports of relatively light infections caused by omicron tensions, people underestimate the risk of Corona.” The new year holiday in a row marked one of the busiest travel seasons in Japan.
Records from the NHK public broadcasters showed Tokyo’s main airport packed, while public highway data showed 39 km (24 miles) traffic congestion towards the southwest of the capital.
Officials in Osaka confirmed five omicron cases at the nursing home, which was believed to be the first cluster of variants in Japan, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.
The Omicron Community Transmission has been found in eight prefectures so far, according to the calculation of the Jiji news agency.
The variant can consist of 90% of Covid-19 cases in Osaka at the beginning of next month, according to the projection released on Tuesday by the University of Kyoto Professor Hiroshi Nishiura.
Concerns that Omicron may be more contagious and avoid vaccine protection has encouraged Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to accelerate the Japanese shooting program and maintain some of the most stringent border restrictions in the world.
The new Covid-19 infection has beaten in recent weeks, reaching 385 nationally on Tuesday.
Even so, serious cases and death remain low, assisted by vaccination encouragement which has been fully inoculated by almost 80% of the population.
Japan has seen only 28 deaths related to Covid-19 in December, of course for the lowest monthly calculation since July 2020.