Japan: Number of people dying due to Covid ‘16 times’ higher than last year, says report
File photo of Covid-19 PCR test.
A report has said that the number of people dying due to Covid in Japan over the last three months is around 16 times higher than during the same period last year. According to the report by the Mainichi Daily on Friday (December 30), there were 11,835 virus-related deaths from October 1 to December 29 compared to 744 deaths during the same period last year.
From December 23 to December 29 last year, the daily deaths were three (on December 23), zero (on December 24), one (on December 25), zero (on December 26), zero (on December 27), two ( on December 28) and four deaths (on December 29).
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However, data released by Japan's health, labour and welfare ministry said that deaths over the same week this year have been — 315 (on December 23), 339 (on December 24), 306 (on December 25), 217 (on December 26), 271 (on December 27), 415 (on December 28) and 420 deaths (on December 29).
The Mainichi Daily said it also looked at Covid deaths by age group from August 31 till December 27 this year. During this period, 40.8% of the deaths were of people in their 80s; 34.7% of people in their 90s and 17% of people in their 70s. The report said that these three age brackets accounted for more than 92% of the deaths, adding that elderly people in Japan need to be very cautious about Covid.
Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Japan has recorded more than 27.7 million cases and 54,365 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The current virus outbreak in Japan is the country's eighth wave of infections. An earlier report said that Japan had the highest global number of infections in the past week.
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In October, the Japanese government had scrapped Covid related curbs that halted tourism. And in November, visitor arrivals to the country jumped to nearly one million, according to the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO).
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