News

Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine Delays Issue Due to Possible COVID-19 Infection

Shueisha announced on Wednesday that it has delayed this year's 21st issue of its Weekly Shonen Jump magazine by one week. The publisher will instead include the contents of this issue in a combined 21st and 22nd issue on April 27. Shueisha had originally planned to ship the 21st issue on April 20.

Shueisha explained that there is a possibility that an individual in their 40s within the magazine's editorial department has been infected with the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19). An employee had reported on Thursday, April 2 that they had a fever and refrained from going to work. The employee instead went to a hospital and is being ordered to stay at home while awaiting the results of a PCR test. Shueisha emphasized that this employee was not employed in a position where they directly interacted with manga creators.

In response, Shueisha ordered its employees to work from home beginning this past Monday, April 6. In addition, Weekly Shonen Jump's editorial department has temporarily halted all work to further lower the risk of spreading the infection to manga creators and other people involved in the magazine.

The magazine's 20th issue will still ship as scheduled this coming Monday, April 13. The magazine's 19th issue (pictured above) shipped this past Monday.

Publisher Shogakukan announced late last month that one of its employees was diagnosed with COVID-19, and then reported a second employee diagnosed with the disease only a few days later. Shogakukan announced a work-from-home order for all its employees from March 27 through April 10.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a state of emergency in the prefectures of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo, and Fukuoka from this past Tuesday until May 6. Shueisha's Shonen Jump editorial department is in Tokyo.

The first reported cases of COVID-19 were in Wuhan, China in December, and then the disease began to spread in varying rates and intensities across many parts of the globe through incubation in human hosts. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a world health emergency on January 30, and announced on March 11 that it is classifying the outbreak as a pandemic. As of Tuesday, the WHO reported that there are 1,279,722 confirmed cases worldwide. 72,614 individuals have died from the disease.

As of Tuesday, the WHO reported that Japan has 3,906 cases of COVID-19 with 80 deaths. These numbers do not include the number of cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama. That cruise ship had 712 infected passengers with 11 deaths.

Source: Weekly Shonen Jump's Twitter account, The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, Anime! Anime! Biz (小野瀬太一朗)