20200706 (Monday) Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of probably 1): Main News
Kyushu flooding and landslides took up most of the first 30 minutes of the news this morning – 24 dead, 16 in cardiopulmonary arrest, and another 10-12 missing.
Covid numbers were given at 7:34.
See photo captions for stories.
Photo 01
Today’s Japan Covid-related NHK morning news topics:
– Tokyo Governor Koike was reelected.
– Tokyo has its fourth day of over 100 cases
[Keeping up big numbers like that on a Sunday would have been an impressive feat in the past. I don’t know whether this means they are doing more testing on weekends, or whether they spread out the weekday test results for a smoother curve…]
PG: According to the Tokyo COVID-App, the total number of tests is still lower on the weekends, esp. on Sundays. Though this data doesn’t really seem to fit the number of positive test results. I’m still trying to figure out, how these numbers correlate.
I feel like the number of conducted tests reflects the actual number of tests on the particular day. The test result, however, is spread over a number of days, depending on whenever the results come in, including the weekend (seems like the labs are now also open on Saturdays and Sundays). Thus, there is similar number of positive test results during the weekend, despite lower numbers of actually conducted tests. Does that make sense?
(Note that these numbers were last updated on the 7/3 and the seemingly lower number is tests conducted on the 7/3 and 7/2 is due to preliminary publication)
Photo 02
208 new cases yesterday.
111 in Tokyo
21 in Kanagawa, 21 in Saitama, 7 in Chiba
9 in Fukuoka, 13 in Kagoshima
6 in Osaka
1 in Kyoto, 2 in Hyogo, 2 in Nara
12 in quarantine after coming back from overseas [that’s the most I’ve seen in this category for a while]
[By the way, no one died yesterday. In fact, I don’t think anyone has died for several days.]
Photo 03
111 in Tokyo with 73 of them (66%) in their 20s and 30s.
Photo 04
53 cases from unknown sources.
JW: And yet they are not promoting the contact tracing app. Has anybody seen it mentioned in any news since it was launched? I haven’t.
Photo 05
Again, over three quarters of the cases were from Tokyo and the surrounding area.
The governors had a videoconference with Task Force guy Nishimura.
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Nishimura-san says: “People who feel there’s something not quite right with their throat, or something unusual about their sense of smell or taste…”
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“…I would really like them to not move about between prefectures.”
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Incumbent Tokyo governor Koike got reelected with a solid margin.
[“Corona is just a cold” guy got 5000 votes by the way.]
SW: Ultra-racist hate-speech queen Sakurai got 178,000 votes. ffs
JPD: She’s terrifying. Japanese politics are terrifying. Extreme rightists everywhere, yikes.
Photo 09
Once again reading the popular mood well, Koike held an online conference and decided to forgo the traditional victory banzai.
Photo 10
When speaking about the infection situation, she says she won’t be looking at a blanket closure of businesses like that we saw under the State of Emergency…
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…but rather pinpoint where and what the problems are and deal with them.
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Re the Olympics, she will hold discussions to look at what form of opening and closing ceremonies to hold, and whether they should go with something simple [and downscaled].
Photo 13
She wants to link up with the IOC and the national government to discuss various ways of doing things with a view to making progress towards being able to hold the games.
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She also said that she wants to create a Tokyo version of the CDC…
For your reference: https://www.cdc.gov/
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…but not by building a new building; rather she would use existing facilities and tie them together.
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[In the studio, discussing Koike’s “pinpoint” remark, the commentator notes that she still has to decide and indicate what those localized actions would entail.]
MA: I find it interesting how they will pinpoint anything accurately if they are only testing nightlife scenes….
JT: More testing needed to pinpoint for sure.
SW: It’s all just talk. Unless there is a proper level of testing, it is meaningless.
YQ: Note that there are discussion about the fact that Japan may have been more successful than expected at tracing infections and localizing super-spreading clusters. That has been the national strategy, and it could have been pretty effective during first wave. I am wondering why she feels the need to duplicate national efforts with a Tokyo CDC though. Sounds like a jab at Abe.