Thread by @tkatsumi06j

#CoronavirusUpdate 2021/6/7🇯🇵Tokyo has done it again. Government of Japan has decided to change the calculation for hospital usage so as to manipulate the resulting risk level assessment. Accordingly, with new calculation # of Stage 4 prefectures are reduced from 20→11.

According to #報道1930, the new calculation would affect the overall assessment of risk levels by lowering the definition of hospital capacity from “all positive AND other patients” to “all whom are committed to COVID beds”, thereby understating the actual hospital capacity.

In actuality the “COVID beds” are often near-full and the beds are extended to other beds to accommodate severe patients. The original calculation reflected this. Now the ground reality would be understated to create a false pretense of “less risk”. This has serious repercussions

With the new calculation, the “actual” risk will be understated to assess the overall risk which determines the criteria to declare #stateofemergency: actual risk will NOT be represented in the government’s decision. This erroneous assessment would affect the measures in place.

With understated risk, restrictive measures will be relaxed for areas where it should NOT be, creating a greater risk of spreading the infection in actual affected areas with limited hospital capacity. This would further strain the medical resources and undermine ER capacity.

As a result, areas which should be restricted will be open for access with lifting of #stateofemergency measure, thereby creating a new impetus for infections to spread. But this will no longer be represented correctly in the national risk assessment. This is truly terrifying.