Society

Japan sees higher percentage of deaths at home in pandemic's 2 years

TOKYO, Oct 04 (NHK) - Japanese government statistics show the percentage of people who died at home rose over the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health ministry statistics released last month show 1,439,856 people died in Japan in 2021.

Most deaths were in hospitals, accounting for 65.9 percent, followed by individuals' homes at 17.2 percent and homes for the elderly at 10 percent.

The percentage of people who died at home had been hovering around 13 percent between 2000 and 2019.

But the figure rose to 15.7 percent in 2020 and 17.2 percent last year. This marks a 3.6-point increase since 2019. ...continue reading

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