November 30, 2021

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on November 29 at a press conference in the Diet building said that as COVID-19 cases are declining at present, the government should fundamentally enhance the testing capacity and medical preparations in order to prevent a possible spread of the new coronavirus variant Omicron in Japan based on the lessons obtained from the government failure in providing proper measures to deal with the fast-spreading delta variant.

Koike pointed out that as evidenced by a rapid spread in Europe, Australia, and Asia, the COVID-19 omicron variant is highly contagious, possibly more so than the delta variant. He said, “The need is for the government to work with all its resources to get a detailed picture of the newly emerged variant.”

Asked for a comment on the government decision to tighten border restrictions and ban the entry of all foreigners, Koike said, “It is reasonable that the government take such actions.” In this regard, Koike noted that at present, every airport in Japan uses a quantitative antigen test to detect infection with the virus, and said that the PCR test, which is more accurate than the antigen test, should be carried out.

Furthermore, Koike pointed to a possibility that those infected with the omicron variant could slip through the airport safety net. He said that the government should implement measures that enable genomic sequencing to be conducted on all samples, if possible, to trace the omicron variant.