20200531 (Sunday) Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of maybe 2): Main news
At the time, I said:
“This may be the last day I do this in its current form as I need to prioritize some other things going forward. I won’t make myself stick to daily updates, and I am going to be more ruthless with the stories; it is likely I will only post things that really catch my eye. The “wide shows” generally have the more interesting stories but as I have full-time work, I don’t really get to watch daytime TV. Anyway, I’ll just see how it goes.”
But I carried on posting daily for over two years after this.
See photo captions for stories
Photo 01
Today’s Japan Covid-related topics on this morning’s NHK news:
- It’s the first weekend after the State of Emergency was lifted in Tokyo and people are out and about
- Kitakyushu “the rise in cases is also connected to a change in testing”
- New business style for struggling restaurants
- Rainy season outlook
Photo 02
45 new cases where you’d expect to find them: Tokyo, Kanagawa, Kitakyushu and Hokkaido
Discharged patients now make up 85% of total cases.
Photo 03
No new cases in Kansai yesterday, and on death of a woman in her 70s.
Photo 04
The Shotengai in Ueno, Tokyo yesterday.
The crowd always looks big from this kind of angle (and of course is big relative to some countries, but a fair bit of distance between people at ground level).
Photo 05
And this is the main shopping drag of the younglings of Harajuku yesterday.
Photo 06
“I came to drink tapioca”
Photo 07
14 new cases in Tokyo yesterday.
6 of them from untraceable sources.
But three of those cases are from a dodgy hostess club that is not supposed to be open.
5 straight days of double figures.
Photo 08
They looked at the numbers for triggering a “Tokyo Alert” (though what a Tokyo Alert actually involves remains unclear despite a lot of attention on the phrase and the numbers; does it really just involve lighting up Rainbow Bridge?)
Now I quoted an old Japan times article yesterday that talked about a threshold of 50 cases. I had thought it was 20, and this TV grab confirms that (I have updated yesterday’s entry accordingly, but not changed the quote, as that is in the source article).
So the number of new infected cases should not exceed 20 new cases a day, taken on the average of the last seven days. Today’s number is 13.4
Untraceable cases are slightly over the 50% threshold (on a seven-day average) at 53.2%
The weekly rate of increase must be lower than that of the previous week: The figure is 2.29, which is higher than last week.
Photo 09
Tokyo government says untraceable cases and weekly infection increase comparison are currently just numbers for consideration. [cough]
Photo 10
And there is no need to issue a Tokyo Alert immediately.
Photo 11
Governor Koike says: Please avoid the 3Cs…
Photo 12
…and exercise proper caution if you’re going out at night.
Photo 13
Here we see a Kitakyushu elementary school getting disinfected…
Photo 14
…because a boy under 10 was one of the 16 new infections in Kitakyushu yesterday, brining their total for 8 days to 85, of which 31 had untraceable sources.
Photo 15
“One probable reason for the increased in confirmation of infections is that we have revised our PCR testing policy for those who have been in close contact with the infected person.”
Photo 16
Before they were only testing people who appeared symptomatic.
- Now they are testing all the people who had close contact with the infected person even if they don’t have symptoms.
Photo 17
Head of the Kitakyushu health and welfare center: “We understand that if we test more close contacts, the number of infected might rise, and we are braced for that possibility.”
Photo 18
Meanwhile, back in Osaka, Tsutenkaku Tower has reopened with the usual hand sanitizers and temperature testing. At the top of Tsutenkaku Tower is Billiken. You are supposed to rub his feed for good luck but..
Photo 19
…at the moment you are asked to just do “Air Touch”…
Photo 20
…as shown here.
Photo 21
With schools reopening, some lessons are happening on Saturday, like at this elementary school in Kurashiki.
Photo 22
Meanwhile the special report today was on a Restaurant space-sharing scheme where struggling restaurants share their space with other restaurant chefs to help cover the rent, and the space offers several types of food menu for both the eat-in space and delivery. I may go into it in Part 2 today, but it’s not earth-shattering stuff.
Photo 23
Rainy season has officially started in a couple of bits of Kyushu and is forecast to start on the mainland around June 7. For the first half, temperatures are expected to be higher than an average year and in Kansai, rainfall is expected to be higher too.
In Kansai news (not pictured), Kobe city has issued new guidelines for evacuation sites – hand sanitizer, temperature, more spacing; I have covered this before – but a new concrete detail was that pregnant women and the physically challenged would be offered a 7000 yen subsidy to go and stay in a hotel.
Photo 24
Meanwhile, the next three pics are actually from yesterday’s news and are not particularly Covid-relevant, but there is some stuff related to my colour-blindness and also one new sensible detail.
As of October last year, the country adopted a 5-level warning system for rain and flooding.
Photo 25
But there was no standardization of the colour-coding of those five levels. So the government has stepped in and standardized it with a single system with colours that are supposed to be easy to differentiate for people who can’t see colours well.
[A bit like D’Addario guitar strings, eh, Steve Ulicny]
Photo 26
Here it is: Black, purple, red, yellow, white
I had to be told it’s purples of course, but I can certainly differentiate that from black and red.
And the important sensible detail: Up until now, if you lived in a given Choume, they would tell everybody there to evacuate regardless of whether you were in fact in any danger of floods or landslides in your particular bit of it. They will now tell people to evacuate if they are in a dangerous PART of an affected area to reduce the number of people who have to congregate at evacuation sites.