Changes in numbers of COVID-19 cases among residents of sightseeing resort areas before and during the "Go To Travel" campaign: Descriptive epidemiology in Gunma Prefecture.

Uchida, Mitsuo

The "Go To Travel" campaign in Japan, which encouraged people to travel throughout the country, was started in July 2020 to revitalize economic activity that was sluggish due to COVID-19. Although risks of infection spread have been reported for tourists crossing prefectural borders, the spread of infection among residents living in sightseeing resort areas is unclear. This study evaluated the number of COVID-19 cases in residents of sightseeing resort areas in Gunma Prefecture using the descriptive epidemiological method. Data about infected individuals were obtained from open data on the prefectural official homepage. Evaluation of epidemic curves showed that the number of infected cases increased slightly after the start of the campaign, with numbers affected by the occurrence of clusters. Toward the end of 2020, the number of affected cases increased in both resort areas and non-resort areas, with the increase being smaller in resort areas. Thus, the increased occurrence of infection during the campaign suggested a need to take additional preventive measures more so for tourists than for resort area residents.