May 05, 2020 (Nikkei) - Japan's coronavirus testing has been insufficient by international standards as the nation lacked the capacity to respond to a new epidemic outbreak, the government conceded Monday, recognizing a serious roadblock to reopening the economy.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that "personnel-related bottlenecks" have hindered broader use of polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, screening for the virus. "I recognize that testing has been inadequate."
Japan has conducted 187.8 tests per 100,000 people, while other major economies have done more than 1,000 tests per 100,000, a report released Monday by a government expert panel found.
"Japan's efforts to increase PCR testing have been slow," said panel member Shigeru Omi, who participated in the news conference with Abe.
The lack of testing prevents experts from grasping a full scope of COVID-19's spread, making planning a exit from the stay-at-home request difficult. The inadequate testing has become the government's biggest obstacle to reopening the economy.
Monday's report attributes this slow increase partly to the near-exclusive use of public-sector institutions, such as the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, for PCR testing. In particular, local public health institutes usually handle testing for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and measles.
"Large-scale screening for a new pathogen was not envisioned, and sufficient systems were not put in place," the report said.
Though the spread of the virus in the Chinese city of Wuhan was reported in January, Japan did not form a panel of experts to steer its response until late February. As a result, "long waits for testing were widely reported" in late March and beyond, "mainly in urban areas where cases had surged," the analysis said.
The panel suggested that the insufficient testing among patients stems from factors including overworked local health offices, which handle recent arrivals into Japan and people who have come in close contact with coronavirus patients. It also cited staff shortages at public health institutes and delays in acquiring masks and other protective equipment.
