Abstract

All patients and persons with immune health problems require greater care, in clinical and public health practices, because infectious diseases such as COVID-19, attack their immune system. The risk to be a victim increases many-fold compared to healthy people. Because of increased morbidity and mortality, they face anxiety of uncertainty every day. In this paper I focus on informants who are organ recipients and candidates who are in the waiting list, and elderly persons who are in elderly homes which are associated with current Japan’s rapidly super-aging society. I argue that during the pandemic period, the government has been struggling how to protect Japanese people’s health but not enough for immune-compromised patients and elderly persons. Organ recipients have to take immunosuppressant drugs to avoid rejection of transplanted organs every day, so their bodies are always immunologically compromised. Organ recipients have to avoid all kinds of infectious diseases with protective vaccinations, avoiding raw food, wearing masks, avoiding people, the cold and dry environment and so on. Among organ recipient candidates, those waiting for a kidney are dialysis patients, and their number two killer is infectious disease. Another high risk group are elderly persons, especially those who stay in elderly homes. Elderly people whose immune system is weakened are at risk of care home acquired infections by residents, caregivers, official visitors and family members. In the pandemic, most administrators prohibit to bring foods and refuse all visitors, however, elderly persons’ loss of motor function with being physically separated from the outside world can produce bedfast elderly people, who progress to dementia related to isolation, poor communication and social connections.