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Jan 21 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
1) Despite record high pandemic hospitalizations and deaths, Japan on Friday is believed to have become the first jurisdiction in the world to announce plans to downgrade #COVID on a par with the seasonal flu. In this thread, I will examine the implications of this decision.
2) First, though, it's worth reviewing the state of the #pandemic in the nation of nearly 126 million. Japan Today is reporting that ambulance workers are struggling to find hospitals to admit patients for the 4th week in a row amid the country's latest wave of #COVID infections.
3) And Japan is not merely struggling with its highest resurgence in #COVID hospitalizations since the pandemic's start. It's also recording its highest number of fatalities, as the chart below shows. Japan's COVID death rate is likely now the world's 2nd highest after China's.
4) Notes The Japan Times: "Exactly how the nation transitions to a post-pandemic normalcy remains uncertain, as it continues to see hundreds of daily deaths from COVID-19 and hospitals are packed with patients amid an eighth wave of infections." So why is Japan downgrading COVID?
5) Japan is not immediately downgrading #COVID, but is considering doing so this spring, reclassifying it from the current Class II to Class V under that country's Infectious Diseases Control Law. This would place COVID-19 on a par with the seasonal flu.
6) Japan's health minister, Katsunobu Kato, explained that the reclassification would lead to more hospitals accepting #COVID patients. “People who have argued for the category change say that the hospitals and clinics accepting COVID patients (now) are very limited," Kato said.
7) Still, Japan's announcement on Friday risks causing a domino effect of other nations around the world effectively declaring the #pandemic over even though the World Health Organization has not yet do so. And this policy change could have far-reaching negative implications.
8) The #Omicron variant of concern is still spawning highly immune-evasive sub-variants like XBB.1.5, or Kraken. Under such circumstances, government declarations that the #pandemic is over — or downgrading #COVID on the level with seasonal flu — send the worst possible message.
9) Booster vaccine uptake is low in many countries around the world. Many people refuse to mask up in public. And now Japan is telling the world that #COVID is somehow growing milder — so mild that it will become like the seasonal flu — even as it faces record #pandemic deaths.
10) Japan is either indulging in wishful thinking or tempting fate with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's announcement Friday. Nations around the world would be wise not to follow suit but wait to see what happens next. End of thread. Please get your booster and mask up in public.

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More from @Aaron_Derfel

Aaron Derfel Profile picture
Jan 14
1) As the world approaches the third anniversary of the #pandemic, it's worth nothing that two nations — China and Japan — are now observing their highest number of fatalities since the crisis began. And Sweden is also recording its highest #COVID death toll in almost two years.
2) On Friday, the research firm Airfinity updated its #COVID forecast for China, predicting the world's most populous nation will hit a peak of 25,000 #pandemic deaths per day in 10 days. Ultimately, China's death toll is projected to soar to 1.7 million by the end of April.
3) Meanwhile, Japan has declared record highs in the number of #COVID deaths in recent days, calling into question that country's plans to end its #pandemic measures. The country reported 489 SARS-CoV-2 fatalities on Thursday, but officials are now playing down those numbers.
Read 9 tweets
Aaron Derfel Profile picture
Jan 11
1) One of the apparent signs of progress in the #COVID pandemic some observers like to point out is the decreasing intensive-care burden in many countries around the world. In this thread, I will delve into this phenomenon and argue that one can't rely solely on this indicator.
2) First, it's worth noting that #COVID ICU stays did soar during the first #Omicron wave last winter in many Northern Hemisphere jurisdictions, contradicting the impression conveyed by some experts that this variant of concern was somehow mild. See the chart below for Quebec.
3) During the first #Omicron wave, Quebec authorities considered activating a protocol to decide who would live and who would die in the event that ICU capacity was breached. Thankfully, that never happened and since then the #COVID ICU burden has been much easier to manage.
Read 10 tweets
Aaron Derfel Profile picture
Jan 7
1) Three years into the #pandemic, health-care systems around the world are reeling from rolling waves of #COVID hospitalizations, leading to desperate talk of reforms that often push for more privatization. In this thread, I will survey the damage done to these health networks.
2) In the U.K., the publicly-funded National Health Service, founded in 1948, is in crisis. "With shocking scenes in emergency care as ambulances queue outside hospitals...it’s little surprise the NHS crisis is rising to the top of the Westminster agenda," reads one account. Image
3) “The one thing (the NHS) had over all other systems was access – free at the point-of-use access, common universal access,” a Tory MP said. “It’s now lost that, as access is now rationed according to waiting times. It’s an existential threat to the NHS.” Image
Read 11 tweets
Aaron Derfel Profile picture
Jan 6
1) Breaking: It's now official. Quebec last year recorded 76.21% more #COVID deaths than in 2021. What's worse, the province's #pandemic death toll in the latter half of 2022 was nearly 230 per cent higher than the latter half of 2021. Again, how is that progress in the pandemic? Image
2) When tracking #COVID19 fatalities in the #pandemic in Quebec, a pattern of seasonality emerges — at least for the first two years. The chart below by Quebec's public health institute shows deaths dipping during the summer months. The exception was last summer, of course. Image
3) As I've already noted in previous threads, seven Quebec children under age 10 died from #COVID19 last year, compared with 1 in the #pandemic's first two years. And at the other end of the age spectrum, those in their 80s and 90s were disproportionately hit hard, too, in 2022.
Read 11 tweets
Aaron Derfel Profile picture
Jan 2
1) As #Omicron subvariants like XBB.1.5 continue to cause major resurgences in #COVID hospitalizations, it's time that jurisdictions update their vaccination guidelines for 2023. In this thread, I will cite the province of Quebec as a particularly dubious example.
2) Under Quebec's previous COVID vaccination policy, you could get a booster after waiting at least 3 months from your last shot. However, since bivalent doses became available, that's no longer the case. You must now wait at least five months. But the new rules are confusing.
3) People have contacted me complaining they've been rejected for bivalent #COVID dose at Quebec's vaccination clinics. And the new rule that "you cannot get a new booster dose if you received a booster dose after August 15" gives no date in 2023 as to when you can get one.
Read 10 tweets
Aaron Derfel Profile picture
Dec 31, 2022
1) As 2022 draws to a close, #COVID hospitalizations are once again rising in many countries, as this chart by Our World in Data shows. Conspicuously absent is China, which has stopped publishing data amid a massive wave. China's hospitalizations rate likely towers above others.
2) How has this latest resurgence hit hospitals? Let's start with China. "There are not enough IV beds," one doctor told Sky News. "Before we had a doctor-patient ratio of 1:4 or 1:5, now it's more like 1:10." There are so few beds available, some ER patients must lie on floors.
3) But China must be the horrible outlier, right? In England, where #COVID hospitalizations are sadly once again rising, some emergency room patients are "lying in pain on the floor, waiting hours to be seen by a doctor," according to one account.

Read 10 tweets

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