Katsunobu Katō

Katsunobu Kato (加藤 勝信) is a Japanese politician, who previously served as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare at three times from 2017 to 2018 and from 2019 to 2020 under Shinzo Abe's cabinet, and again from 2022 to 2023 under Fumio Kishida's first reshuffled cabinet in both Heisei and Reiwa periods. He also served as the Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2020 to 2021 under Yoshihide Suga's cabinet. Belonging to the Liberal Democratic Party, he has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2003.

Born and raised in Tokyo and a graduate of the University of Tokyo, Kato had a bureaucratic career in the Ministry of Finance before going into politics.

Early life, family, and career
Born as Katsunobu Murosaki (室崎勝信) on 22 November 1955 in Tokyo, Japan, his father, Mutsuki Kato, was an executive at Hino Motors. His family came from Shimane Prefecture and his grandfather, Katsuzo Murosaki was a businessman and prefectural assemblyman. He studied economics at the University of Tokyo and joined the Ministry of Finance after graduating in 1979. He held various posts until being assigned as secretary to the Minister of Agriculture Mutsuki Kato in April 1994.

Kato married Shuko Kato, the daughter of Mutsuki Kato (1926–2006). As his family had only four daughters, Kato was adopted by his father-in-law, Mutsuki, to carry on his family name. He retired from the Ministry of Finance in 1995 and became his father-in-law's personal secretary.

Political career
Kato would pursue his political career in Okayama Prefecture, where his adoptive family was based. After unsuccessful runs in 1998 and 2000, Kato was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 2003 general election. He had initially run as an independent as his father-in-law had left the LDP. However, fellow Okayama politician and former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto recruited him for the party and when elected, Kato joined the Heisei Kenkyukai led by Hashimoto. This was significant as Hashimoto and Mutsuki Kato had long been rivals in the political world of Okayama.

Kato became a confidant of Shinzo Abe. This was partially due to a family relationship. Mutsuki Kato had been a close ally of former Japanese foreign minister Shintaro Abe and his wife had remained a close friend of Shinzo's mother, Yoko, and as well as Shinzo's maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who served as the Prime Minister from 1957 until his resignation in 1960. Kato also had close ties to Mikio Aoki, who knew Kato's grandfather from his days in the Shimane Prefectural Assembly.

In August 2007, Kato became parliamentary vice-minister to the Cabinet Office in the Abe Cabinet. He was retained until the end of Yasuo Fukuda's Cabinet.

When Abe was re-elected as president of the LDP in September 2012, he appointed Kato as his special assistant. In December of the same year, LDP has returned to government and Kato was appointed Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary. In October 2015, Kato joined the cabinet for the first time as minister of state with a portfolio including countermeasures against the declining birthrate and women's empowerment.

At the first time on 3 August 2017 when Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet, Kato became as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare, who led the government to take a new measures to prevent the demographic and aging crisis in Japan. But he was resigned on 2 October 2018 due to appointed as the Chairman of the General Council, one of four key posts in the LDP.

At the second time, in the beginning of Reiwa period, on 11 September 2019, Kato reappointed as the Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare. In early 2020, Kato joined Abe's cabinet to oversaw the government's widely response to COVID-19 pandemic. However, on 7 April of the same year, Abe's cabinet declared the first state of emergency admist the ongoing health crisis, which extended for stay-at-home orders until 29 May. After Abe resigned as Prime Minister on 16 September 2020 due to his health reasons, Kato appointed as the Chief Cabinet Secretary under his successor Yoshihide Suga, who served as the 99th Prime Minister of Japan for 12 months. On 4 October 2021, just one month after the end of Suga's cabinet and with the fourth and final COVID-19 state of emergency as the country gears towards to the first endemic phase, Kato became as the chairman of the Social Security Research Commission and subcommittee chairman of the Tax Research Commission within the LDP.

At the third time, on 10 August 2022 when Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his first cabinet following the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at one month previous, Kato appointed as Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare. During the 18-month-period of Omicron time, Kato joined Kishida's cabinet, where the government continued to comply with wearing face masks and social and physical distancing to prevent the spread of highly transmissible COVID-19 Omicron variant and its subsequent subvariants, which claimed the lives of 56,500 Japanese people, a lowest mortality toll in the country, than compared to any wealthy countries. Kato also urged Japanese people, who have yet to get fully or triple vaccinated to do so.

In January 2023 as Omicron cases plummeted, Japanese Health Minister Kato joined Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, and among others to considered the government downgrading COVID-19 to the Category 5, a same category as a seasonal flu, followed by tuberculosis and SARS, of five-tier system under the infectious disease prevention law. However, during the "Omicron endgame", Japanese government plans to reclassify COVID-19 by four months later, following the discussions by Japanese Health Ministry's subcommittee on infectious diseases, notifications of the change to medical institutions and local authorities, and a preparation period. With the reclassification, Japanese government will also consider revising its recommendation on wearing face masks indoors. If COVID-19 is downgraded to Category 5, it will no longer be covered by the law, meaning the central or prefectural governments will be unable to take such measures.

On 27 April of the same year, Japanese Health Minister Kato announced that Japanese government would be downgrade the classification of COVID-19 to be on par with "seasonal flu" by midnight 8 May after the three days delayed during the 8-day holiday period of Golden Week Festival    (as the World Health Organization ends the first three-year-period of global COVID-19 emergency (and then updated estimated reports 20 million COVID-19 excess deaths globally)). Regarding COVID-19 measures, Kato said in a press conference that the highly transmissible Omicron variant and its subsequent subvariants were cause of less severe disease and deaths (during the first 18-month-period) than any previous strains, which indicate there is no need to worry about an increase of public health risks. As of result, daily announcements of COVID-19 Omicron cases will be officially end so far, and then the country will towards to the second endemic phase for the first time since October 2021. Although the public health reports will be simplified to weekly announcements based on information from designated medical institutions.

Kato left from Kishida's cabinet in the next second reshuffled cabinet in September 2023, after which Kato once again became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission, and as well as Secretary-General of the LDP Headquarters for Realizing Constitutional Revision.

Katō is affiliated with the conservative organization Nippon Kaigi.

Honours

 * 🇳🇱 Netherlands: Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau (29 October 2014)