Tokyo Covered Up Arrival of Deadly New COVID Variant Just Before the Olympics

[Job Bautista]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/tokyo-covered-up-arrival-of-deadly-lamda-covid-variant-just-before-the-olympics

> Three days before the Olympics began, on July 20, Japan’s National
> Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) reported to an international
> organization that the highly infectious Lambda variant had been
> detected in an airport test in Japan for the first time, but did not
> announce it widely to the public.
>
> The report was submitted to an international COVID-19 and other
> influenza virus database known as GISAID. According to preliminary
> reports from South American and Japanese scientists, the Lambda
> variant may possess an increased resistance to vaccines. Although
> scientific data on the variant is limited in comparison to prevalent
> COVID-19 variants like Delta, its detection in the airport comes at a
> time when infections in the country are skyrocketing. On Friday, the
> total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Japan passed 1 million
> and the arrival of Lambda can further complicate matters. For the
> time being, there appears to have been only one confirmed case.
>
> The Japanese government would not release details, but a researcher
> at the NIID told The Daily Beast that the variant was found at an
> airport check and not in the wild. The source said there was a plan
> to announce the variant’s detection but not until after the
> Olympics.
>
> The NIID employee said new variant discoveries have previously been
> announced within three days, if they are well-known variants, but it
> can take up to 11 days. This year, on Jan. 2, four travelers from
> Brazil tested positive for the coronavirus. After lab analysis, the
> Ministry of Health determined that it was a new variant and made an
> announcement on Jan. 10, a Sunday. Typically, the Minister of Health
> has a press conference when a major new variant is discovered in
> Japan for the first time. In December, a Japanese woman who arrived
> in Haneda Airport after visiting Britain was judged negative after an
> airport screening. She later became ill and was tested on Dec. 19,
> and found to be positive for the virus. After determining that it was
> a British variant, the health ministry announced it eight days later,
> on Dec. 27.
>
> Government officials had not been willing to tell The Daily Beast
> when the original Lambda variant test was carried out, but it is now
> 17 days since they told GISAID about the discovery.
>
> After discovering the Lambda report on the GISAID website on
> Wednesday, The Daily Beast approached the Ministry of Health, the
> NIID, and publicly requested information. The ministry initially
> stonewalled and then told us to wait for a call back with further
> information on Friday before slipping out the announcement of the
> case to the state broadcaster. NHK reported the news without
> mentioning the long, unexplained delay.
>
> Last month, a team of researchers at Tokyo University released a
> report, not yet peer-reviewed, that found the Lambda variant was
> highly infectious and displays detectable resistance to immunity
> acquired by vaccines. In Peru, where the variant was first
> discovered, more than 90 percent of infections are now traced to the
> Lambda variant. The research team at Tokyo University believes the
> variant “has potential to be a threat to human society.”
>
> Japan’s NIID reported finding the Lambda variant to the GISAID
> database on July 20. The database shared the first complete genome
> sequence of SARS-Cov-2 in early January 2020 and there have been
> nearly 2.5 million submissions logged since. Institutes submitting
> data to the group must have their credentials confirmed and sign a
> database access agreement.
>
> The variant was confirmed by the SARS-CoV-2 testing team at NIID in
> Tokyo and the data submitted by the Pathogen Genomics Center at the
> same institute. Nozumu Hanaoka, a senior research scientist at the
> institute’s Center for Infectious Disease Risk Management, and
> several other scientists signed off on the submission. According to
> GISAID’s Aug. 4 updated transmission tracking data, the variant is
> believed to have been brought to Japan by an infected patient
> traveling through the United States.
>
> The woman in her 30s traveled from Peru to Japan’s Haneda
> International Airport on July 20 where she tested positive for the
> variant, according to sources close to the Health Ministry, who said
> the NIID ran tests and confirmed it was the Lambda variant the same
> day.
>
> There are reportedly no direct scheduled flights from Peru to Haneda
> or Narita International Airport in Tokyo, with passengers usually
> making two or more stops in the United States. Travellers from Peru
> often route through Los Angeles International Airport, California,
> John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, or Seattle-Tacoma
> International Airport, Washington, before making their final
> departure to Tokyo.
>
> The NIID has not yet responded to requests for further information
> about the discovery of the variant. For example, was it brought to
> Japan by a participant in the Olympics? Where was the carrier of the
> virus quarantined?
>
> An employee of the NIID who spoke to The Daily Beast on conditions of
> anonymity said, “I’m not authorized to speak on the record but to my
> knowledge the variant was detected at an airport checkpoint and has
> not been in the wild [exposed to the general populace].” The employee
> said that normally when a new variant is found, the information is
> promulgated quickly, but not this time. “There was a consensus at the
> Ministry of Health that this information would best be reported after
> the Olympics were over. Whether that is because they felt that it
> would be better to heighten public awareness when the news cycle
> slows down or whether this is because it might tangentially be
> associated with the Olympics, which is embarrassing—that I don’t
> know.”
>
> A representative from the Ministry of Health told The Daily Beast
> that the Lambda variant has not “arrived” in Japan, as it was
> detected and quarantined at an airport circa July 20. “This means the
> proper testing protocols work,” they said.
>
> The representative elaborated that there is limited scientific
> information on how contagious, how viral, and how responsive to
> vaccines the Lambda variant is.
>
> “We are always monitoring the spread and behavior of variants.
> However, due to limited data, it is hard to say how dangerous the
> Lambda variant is. For this same reason, it is difficult to compare
> it to the Delta variant.”
>
> Kei Sato, a virology researcher at the University of Tokyo, one of
> the co-authors of the paper “SARS-CoV-2 Lambda variant exhibits
> higher infectivity and immune resistance,” confirmed to The Daily
> Beast that he was aware of a case of the Lambda variant being
> reported in Japan, but said he was not privy to further details.

--
Job Bautista

An XUL fanatic, and an add-ons developer. I also do some simple
userscripts and bash scripting.

I like Cyndaquil. He's obviously the best Pokemon starter. Every Johto
Pokemon is cool too.

http://rw.rs/~job/