January 5, 2022

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on January 4 demanded that the government immediately take action to prepare for a possible surge of infections with the spread of the omicron variant in Japan.

Shii, first of all, urged the government to implement measures that will mainly enable people at a higher risk for serious infection, including older people, to receive a COVID-19 booster shot as soon as six months after their second dose.

Furthermore, Shii requested the government to:
- adopt a policy of aggressively conducting regular PCR tests at nursing-care and healthcare facilities and provide full support to municipal governments’ efforts to implement this policy;
- improve collaboration between medical institutions in communities and their capacity in order to protect symptomatic patients under home isolation from experiencing severe symptoms with adequate care;
- provide sufficient support to medical institutions, including restoring a program to subsidize hospitals’ efforts to set up a consultation area for patients with fever, and increasing the amount of state remuneration paid to medical institutions for their medical services; and
- enhance the functions of community-based public healthcare centers by such means as continuously increasing the number of workers.