Hospitals in Osaka, Japan buckling under a huge wave of #COVID19, running out of beds, ventilators, and even intubation medicine—as exhausted doctors warn of a "system collapse", and advise against holding the Olympics. Even only ~half of HCW vaccinated. 🧵reuters.com/world/asia-pac… 
2) The speed at which Osaka's healthcare system was overwhelmed underscores the challenges of hosting a major global sports event in two months' time, particularly as only about half of Japan's medical staff have completed inoculations.
3) "Simply put, this is a collapse of the medical system," said Yuji Tohda, the director of Kindai University Hospital in Osaka.
4) "The highly infectious British variant and slipping alertness have led to this explosive growth in the number of patients."
Osaka prefecture had 3,849 new positive tests in 1 week.
That represents a more than 5-fold jump over the corresponding period three months ago.
Osaka prefecture had 3,849 new positive tests in 1 week.
That represents a more than 5-fold jump over the corresponding period three months ago.
5) By Thursday, 96% of the 348 hospital beds Osaka reserves for serious virus cases were in use.
The variant can make even young people very sick quickly, and once seriously ill, patients find it tough to make a recovery, said Toshiaki Minami, director of an Osaka hospital
The variant can make even young people very sick quickly, and once seriously ill, patients find it tough to make a recovery, said Toshiaki Minami, director of an Osaka hospital
6) conditions were dire as well for public health nurses…
"Some of them are racking up 100, 150, 200 hours of overtime for a year now...when on duty, they sometimes go home at one or two in the morning, and go to bed only to be awakened by a phone call at three or four."
"Some of them are racking up 100, 150, 200 hours of overtime for a year now...when on duty, they sometimes go home at one or two in the morning, and go to bed only to be awakened by a phone call at three or four."
7) Medical professionals with firsthand experience of Osaka's struggle with the pandemic take a negative view on holding the Tokyo Games, set to run from July 23 to August 8.
8) "The Olympics should be stopped, because we already have failed to stop the flow of new variants from England, and next might be an inflow of Indian variants," said Akira Takasu, the head of emergency medicine at OMPUH.
9) "In the Olympics, 70,000 or 80,000 athletes and the people will come to this country from around the world. This may be a trigger for another disaster in the summer."
10) Minami said a supplier recently told him that stocks of propofol, a key drug used to sedate intubated patients, are running very low, while Tohda's hospital is running short of the ventilators vital for severely ill COVID-19 patients.
11) Caring for critically ill patients in the face of infection risk has taken a serious toll on staff, said Satsuki Nakayama, the head of the nursing department at OMPUH.
"I've got some intensive care unit (ICU) staff saying they have reached a breaking point”
"I've got some intensive care unit (ICU) staff saying they have reached a breaking point”
12) Osaka is seeing a surge with mostly #B117 from the UK. But want to know what is even faster and more dangerous than B117? #B16172 from India that is now dominating and replacing even the UK variant in UK. See thread 🧵
https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1396397770924232704
13) The pressure to keep the Olympics going is strong. Yet Japan is only 4.4% fully vaccinated. And Olympians will only be 80% vaccinated they estimate. Hmmm… it’s risky but I feel for both sides. I just worry…. forbes.com/sites/joshuaco…
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