COVID-19 cases surge in Okinawa, Japanese FM requests curfew for US military bases

TOKYO - The governor of Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa said on Thursday that the daily number of COVID-19 cases is expected to approach the 1,000-mark surging from 623 cases reported a day earlier, local media reported.

Denny Tamaki said the latest number of daily coronavirus cases in the prefecture is expected to reach 980, which if so would mark a record high for Okinawa, surpassing the prior record of 809 cases reported on Aug 25 of last year.

Earlier in the day, the prefectural government requested that the central government place Okinawa under a quasi-state of emergency.

As virus cases including those connected to US bases, surge in Okinawa, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Thursday requested the US bases in Japan impose a curfew amid the rampant spread of COVID-19 cases among US military personnel.

According to the foreign ministry, Hayashi's request was made by telephone to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with Hayashi reportedly telling Blinken that further measures needed to be taken by the US side to prevent the virus from spreading at US military facilities in Japan and further into the community.

The Japanese side has been irked by the US lax approach to administering its military personnel with COVID-19 tests before and after arriving in Japan, leading to a spike in cases and cluster infections at multiple US military bases here.

At the Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, a US Marine Corps air station located in Yamaguchi Prefecture, south of Hiroshima, 182 personnel were confirmed to be infected on Wednesday, official figures showed.

The mayor of Iwakuni said the cluster outbreak at the base was "fueling the rapid spread of (the) Omicron (variant of the virus) in his city".

"We've heard that the genome of the coronavirus from the base workers and those who tested positive at restaurants in the city is the same. It's highly likely that the Omicron variant has spread from the base throughout the city," Iwakuni Mayor Yoshihiko Fukuda was quoted as saying.

In Okinawa, where the vast majority of US bases are located in Japan, meanwhile, 623 new cases were reported on Wednesday, more than doubling its daily tally compared to the previous day.

This marked the first time the US base-heavy prefecture's daily COVID-19 tally surpassed 600 in more than four months, according to the official figures.

Last month, what has been described as a "major cluster of infections" broke out at the US Marine Corps' Camp Hansen in Okinawa, as was widely reported at the time, sparking concerns about the virus' potential rapid spread from the base into mainstream Japanese society.

If the prefectural government's request to the central government to declare a quasi-state of emergency is granted, local officials will be allowed to introduce more stringent antiviral measures.

Other US bases in Japan are also seeing significant COVID-19 cluster outbreaks and have likely been affected by new US military personnel arriving in Japan not being required to undergo COVID-19 testing until five or more days after entering Japan, according to the US forces and as quoted by Japan's public broadcaster NHK.

"The US forces then revealed it did not require new personnel to be tested until at least five days after arriving in Japan," NHK said.

Some 114 base-linked personnel have also tested positive for the virus recently, with Yokota Air Base in Tokyo seeing 57 personnel newly-infected, Camp Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture reporting 41 new cases, while 16 new infections have been detected at Sasebo Navy base in Nagasaki Prefecture, according to the latest official figures.