Preventing the dysfunction of public health centers responding to COVID-19 by focusing on public health nurses in Japan.

: With the outbreak of COVID-19, maintaining the healthcare system is a crucial issue. In Japan, the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing rapidly day by day with a risk of overshooting initial estimations (WHO, 2020a). Public health nurses (PHNs) working in public health centers in prefectures and designated centers in cities or core cities, play a critical role in controlling COVID-19 (Yoshioka-Maeda, Honda, Iwasaki-Motegi, 2020). Providing care for COVID-19 patients, their families, and the community, the workload of PHNs has been reaching the maximum limit.