Last checked at 
(Updates with health minister confirmation on new variant
cases)
By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Tetsushi Kajimoto
TOKYO, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide
Suga urged the nation on Friday to spend a quiet New Year period
without the usual social gatherings to prevent the spread of
COVID-19, which has been breaking infection records almost on a
daily basis.
Suga also announced a package of $2.6 billion for hospitals
treating COVID-19 patients which have come under strain due to
the rapid rise in cases across the northern island of Hokkaido
as well as large cities like Tokyo and Osaka.
"I want you to spend a quiet New Year," the premier told a
news conference in Tokyo with the government's leading
coronavirus expert Shigeru Omi.
"The infections aren't coming down and if we keep going like
this, we won't be able to avoid further spread of the virus."
The country confirmed its first five cases of the new,
faster-spreading variant of the virus in passengers arriving
from the United Kingdom, Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said
late on Friday.
Suga called for strong quarantine measures at airports and
on those returning from the UK, Tamura said after his meeting
with the prime minister.
Japan has banned entry from UK, with the exception of
returning Japanese nationals and those with residence permits.
Japan does not celebrate Christmas, but the New Year period
is an extended national holiday, with many people usually
travelling back to their hometowns and spending time with family
and friends.
Omi warned that it was critical that "all citizens move in
the same direction," to get a grip on the health crisis.
"If we don't bring infections down now, once they surge
again after the New Year period it won't be easy to change the
downward trend," he said. "It would take time, and would
probably be impossible to control over a period of weeks," he
said.
Omi said shared meals were a major cause of infections and
called on people to refrain from holding large gatherings and to
limit meals to four people one regularly ate with, or fewer.
While Japan has avoided the huge infection numbers seen in
other parts of the world, the number of new daily cases
surpassed 3,000 for the first time this month. Tokyo reported
884 infections on Friday, near Thursday's record 888.
HOSPITALS, VACCINES
Underscoring the strain on the hospitals, five national
groups of doctors and other medical workers made an emergency
request to Suga on Friday, asking for strong anti-pandemic
measures and support for the medical sector.
With hospitals equipped for treating COVID-19 filling up,
other hospitals are being forced to accept patients with the
disease, according to Tsuyoshi Masuda, president of the Japan
Federation of Democratic Medical Institutions.
"These small and medium-sized hospitals, which have been
supporting medical services in their respective regions, are
facing a crisis that is threatening their survival," Masuda told
reporters at a separate news conference on Friday.
He also warned that the risk of in-hospital infections was
high at institutions not specialized in dealing with infectious
diseases.
Japan, with a population of 126 million, has struck deals
to buy 290 million vaccine doses from Pfizer Inc,
AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna Inc, or enough for
145 million people.
A health ministry panel said that people aged 65 or older
should get priority for vaccination against COVID-19, as well as
frontline healthcare workers and people with underlying medical
conditions.
It specified chronic heart disease, chronic respiratory
disease and chronic kidney disease, among others, as underlying
conditions that should determine priority.
The panel's recommendations would mean 36 million elderly
people and 8.2 million people with medical conditions would be
the first to receive shots.
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka, Ju-min Park, Testsushi Kajimoto
and Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Edmund
Klamann and William Mallard)
