Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak Measures for protection and response for infection Updated on May 14, 2020.

May 14, 2020

Hokesen Letter, No 206 (English ver.), May 14, 2020.
Health Care Center, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Yasuhiro Yamauchi, MD, PhD.

　Even now, the outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide continues, and the end of this pandemic is still invisible. However, urban lockdowns and　‘self-restrain request’ from going out in various countries around the world, securing social distance, and thoroughness of individual basic infection prevention to oneself and other people caused a certain effect on spread of infection, and several countries and regions acquired a trend of decrease in newly confirmed cases.

　In the future, there is a trend toward easing urban lockdowns and demands for self-restraint in order to revitalize economic activities with a view to improving the tightness (medical collapse) of medical care and securing medical resources. Similarly, in Japan, the requests of ‘self-restrain’ and ‘business suspension’ including 「Stay home, Save lives」and the thoroughness of individual basic infection prevention brought a significant decrease in newly infected cases after the emergency declaration by the government of Japan. From now, the government is going to end the emergency declaration for many regions.

　On the other hand, from the view of health and medical care, there is no effective specific treatment for COVID-19. Although some antiviral drugs have been suggested to be effective and have been approved by the government or introduced as a clinical trial, they are not widely prescribed for many patients as a therapeutic drug for new corona infections. In addition, several research for development of vaccine have been progressing, but unfortunately, there are no effective vaccination right now, so we cannot prevent COVID-19 by our immune systems. Therefore, there are no remarkable developments in medical treatments, compared to before outbreak.

　Therefore, the number of infected persons can be expected to increase again due to the relaxation of self-restraint requests, thus, it is important to continue to perform individual basic infection prevention to oneself and others, and it is desirable to act to protect oneself and family (precious people) continuously, until the effective treatment for COVID-19 will be available.

　In order to prevent the spread of infection over the long term, we recommend you to perform the measures for protection of droplets and contact transmission and to avoid the “three Cs” , and also we encourage you to keep in mind.to practice the “new lifestyle” to fit in your daily life.

　About the “new lifestyle”, please see the following file.
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000628611.pdf

　Furthermore, for the spread of infection, if you have any suspicious symptom of COVID-19, if you are diagnosed with COVIC-19, or if you come in close contact with an infected person, please follow the guidelines for COVID-19 at TUFS.
https://www.tufs.ac.jp/english/institutions/facility/hoken/covid19.html

　If you feel concerned about COVID-19, please see the following web page to consult.
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/flow/

　If you have any concerns, please contact the Health Care Center, TUFS.