Press Conference by the Prime Minister regarding His Visit to a Temporary Accommodation Facility for Recuperation in Kanagawa Prefecture

 (Regarding his visit to a temporary accommodation facility for recuperation in Kanagawa Prefecture)

Earlier today, I visited a hotel accommodating COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms, where Kanagawa Prefecture Governor KUROIWA Yuji briefed me on the "Kanagawa Model" that has gained a high reputation. I hope that, modelled after this excellent example, the capacity of beds for COVID-19 patients will be ensured throughout the country. I greatly appreciate Governor KUROIWA for his informative and detailed explanation. The hotel also serves as a site for a clinical trial of an orally administered drug for COVID-19, and Dr. TESHIROGI Isao, president and CEO of the pharmaceutical company Shionogi, gave me an explanation of how the clinical trial is conducted. He told me that the clinical trial will be in the final stage from September and that further efforts will be made to initiate an application process as early as the end of this year. Such initiatives for oral drugs will be a major decisive factor in tackling COVID-19. As of September, more than 130,000 COVID-19 patients were recuperating at home across the country. I am keenly aware that this should never happen again. And that is why I believe that this initiative for oral drugs is so significant. We would like to work on efforts to ensure the availability of such oral therapeutic drugs.