The children of Japanese medical professionals are being shut out from day care centers, or being asked for proof they aren’t infected with the coronavirus, adding to the burdens of an already stretched work force on the front lines of the pandemic.
Most schools and centers are closed to prevent the spread of the pathogen, but a few remain open. Sagamihara Central Hospital said some staff took time off after losing access to child care. At Gifu University Hospital, a caller claiming to be from a parent-teacher association asked that their workers be told to keep their children away from school.
Japan has yet to reach the mass infections seen in other developed nations, with just under 12,000 cases as of late Thursday. While discrimination hasn’t escalated into the violence seen in India, depriving people of child care risks reducing staffing even as hospitals in the worst-hit areas struggle to cope. Discrimination against victims of trauma or disaster is nothing new in Japan. Survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, and more recently, those who were near the nuclear plant meltdown following a earthquake and tsunami in 2011 were also shunned by society.