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Almost half of Japan's 47 prefectures have not yet added extra hospital beds for patients infected with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as requested by the central government, a latest survey showed on Thursday.
According to the survey conducted by Kyodo News from Feb. 20 to 26, 24 prefectures said they are yet to prepare more beds, while 15 prefectures said they are strengthening capacity to test for the coronavirus.
The survey also showed that 16 prefectures are ready or are nearing readiness, while seven did not respond to the survey or give valid answers.
The central government on Tuesday adopted a basic policy to help combat the domestic spread of the coronavirus, with some of the measures aimed at ensuring enough medical facilities are available to deal with cases of newly infected people.
A government panel comprising medical experts has said that the next one or two weeks would be "critical" in assessing the extent the virus has and could spread in Japan. They added that if a further spread of infections could be curbed or slowed down, then medical experts would have more time to better prepare to treat infected patients.
