The Tokyo metropolitan area’s health care system is rapidly becoming strained, as a shortage of medical staff is making it increasingly difficult for hospitals and quarantine facilities to take in more people with COVID-19.
Following a monthslong drive to increase hospital beds and quarantine facilities for COVID-19 patients, securing enough staff to treat and monitor them seems to have fallen by the wayside.
As a result, the system meant to alleviate pressure on hospitals is beginning to fail, and an increasing number of patients are given little choice but to isolate at home, where they risk infecting the people they live with.