Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga attends a meeting in Tokyo on Feb. 10, 2021. (Mainichi)

       TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Japan has secured enough "antibody cocktails" to prevent COVID-19 patients in the country from developing severe symptoms, as he visited a Tokyo hotel on Monday that is conducting the treatment amid an increasing strain on hospital beds.

       Patients with mild symptoms are staying at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel in Minato Ward and undergoing the treatment, which according to overseas clinical trials lowers the risk of hospitalization or death by about 70 percent.

       "We want to prevent at any cost patients from developing serious symptoms as we arrange for hotels like this one to serve as medical facilities for administering the medicine," said Suga.

       Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike who accompanied Suga and health minister Norihisa Tamura during the visit said she hopes the use of such hotels will spread not just within Tokyo but also in other areas.

       The antibody cocktail treatment uses casirivimab and imdevimab developed by U.S. firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Swiss health care company F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. and is administered intravenously. It was famously used to treat former U.S. President Donald Trump for COVID-19.

       Suga has announced his plan to create hubs to conduct the treatment soon, hoping to reduce the number of patients with serious symptoms that has been on the rise with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of the novel coronavirus in Japan.

       The official number of COVID-19 patients with serious symptoms hit record high of 1,603 as of Sunday, up 40 from the previous day and marking a record high for the fourth straight day, according to the health ministry. They include people in intensive care units and those on respirators or life support.

       On Monday, vaccination for Diet members, their secretaries and officials of both chambers began at the Diet building.

       Of the more than 700 Diet members targeted, only about 100 have made reservations, apparently as many have already been vaccinated at their places of residence.

       The Diet was initially planning to start the on-site vaccination in July, but it was pushed back due to a delay in applications for the program.

       While some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have called for prioritizing lawmakers' vaccination from the standpoint of crisis management, it was never realized in the face of concerns that the public would deem it as exercising their privilege.

       Even after the ruling and opposition parties agreed to hold the on-site vaccination under the same schedule as other private companies and universities, the timeframe for starting inoculations was clouded by a shortage of vaccines.

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