Japan faces bed shortage in ICUs if pandemic peaks: study

Apr 27, 2020 | News On Japan

Apr 27, 2020 (Japan Today) - Most of Japan's 47 prefectures are likely to face a shortage of beds in intensive care units for treating severe coronavirus patients under a peak scenario envisaged by the government, a Kyodo News study shows.

In 21 prefectures, the number of severely ill patients with the COVID-19 disease would be more than double the number of ICU beds available, the study found, underscoring the vulnerability of the nation's medical system against the rising virus threat.

Experts urged the government to consider using high care units for less severe patients and increasing the number of medical professionals to treat COVID-19 patients so as to avoid the collapse of the medical system.

While the number of ICU beds totals about 6,000 in Japan, that of HCU beds stands at about 5,000, according to the Japan Medical Association.

Assuming that a COVID-19 patient infects an average of two people with the pneumonia-causing virus -- a scenario based on formulae used by the government -- Kyodo calculated the number of severely ill patients by prefecture at a peak time.

The news agency compared the latest numbers of ICU beds available based on data provided by the Japan Medical Association Research Institute.

According to the study, Tokyo would have 903 severe COVID-19 patients against 848 ICU beds available, Osaka 666 such patients for 513 beds and Fukuoka 388 such patients for 327 beds.

All of the nation's 47 prefectures except Okayama and Okinawa would have fewer beds than the number of severely ill patients.

Twenty-one prefectures including Hokkaido, Niigata, Saitama and Hiroshima would have more than twice the number of such patients than ICU beds available.

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