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▼ Japan Intentionally Omitted COVID-19 Variant News From Olympic Press Briefings
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Japanese health officials deliberately omitted any mentions of the highly contagious lambda variant of COVID-19 in official communications to the press during the Tokyo Olympics, according to a new report.
A woman from Peru who landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on July 20, three days before the Olympics kicked off, tested positive for coronavirus that day and was reportedly flagged as a possible carrier of lambda.
The woman was confirmed to have that variant on July 26, but the health ministry did not cite the case in its regular news releases on July 30 or Aug. 6, the Daily Beast reported Tuesday.
“We worked around the clock to make the call and sound the alarm, and the Ministry kept quiet — and had no intentions of announcing until today — when the minister of health had his scheduled press conference,” an employee of the country’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases told the news outlet.
The employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said Japan’s health officials were immediately concerned that the 30-year-old woman was carrying the strain because most COVID-19 cases in Peru, where that variant was first detected late last year, are due to lambda.
“When the sample came and we knew where the woman was from, logically we were already looking for the Lambda variant and expected to find it,” the person reportedly said.
In a press release issued Aug. 6, just two days before the end of this summer’s Olympic Games, Japan’s health ministry listed all coronavirus variants detected in airport quarantine centers around the country. The press release mentioned the alpha and delta variants, but there was nothing about lambda, the Daily Beast reported.
The ministry only confirmed the detection of the lambda variant on the evening of Aug. 6, according to the outlet. Officials told the site it had not classified the case as having “landed” in the country because it was detected and isolated at the airport.
The lambda variant, formerly known as C.37, has spread to more than two dozen countries, but it’s not clear how aggressive it is compared to other strains.
The World Health Organization has designated it as a “variant of interest” — as opposed to “variant of concern,” which is how alpha, beta, gamma and delta are classified. Vaccine efficacy against lambda has not yet been determined, though a New York University study last month suggested that vaccines do work against the variant.
A woman from Peru who landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on July 20, three days before the Olympics kicked off, tested positive for coronavirus that day and was reportedly flagged as a possible carrier of lambda.
The woman was confirmed to have that variant on July 26, but the health ministry did not cite the case in its regular news releases on July 30 or Aug. 6, the Daily Beast reported Tuesday.
“We worked around the clock to make the call and sound the alarm, and the Ministry kept quiet — and had no intentions of announcing until today — when the minister of health had his scheduled press conference,” an employee of the country’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases told the news outlet.
The employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said Japan’s health officials were immediately concerned that the 30-year-old woman was carrying the strain because most COVID-19 cases in Peru, where that variant was first detected late last year, are due to lambda.
“When the sample came and we knew where the woman was from, logically we were already looking for the Lambda variant and expected to find it,” the person reportedly said.
In a press release issued Aug. 6, just two days before the end of this summer’s Olympic Games, Japan’s health ministry listed all coronavirus variants detected in airport quarantine centers around the country. The press release mentioned the alpha and delta variants, but there was nothing about lambda, the Daily Beast reported.
The ministry only confirmed the detection of the lambda variant on the evening of Aug. 6, according to the outlet. Officials told the site it had not classified the case as having “landed” in the country because it was detected and isolated at the airport.
The lambda variant, formerly known as C.37, has spread to more than two dozen countries, but it’s not clear how aggressive it is compared to other strains.
The World Health Organization has designated it as a “variant of interest” — as opposed to “variant of concern,” which is how alpha, beta, gamma and delta are classified. Vaccine efficacy against lambda has not yet been determined, though a New York University study last month suggested that vaccines do work against the variant.
- August 11, 2021
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