20200710 (Friday) Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of probably 1): Main News

So the main Covid news is the eye-watering numbers for Tokyo that were released yesterday afternoon.
Last night’s News Watch 9 furrowed their brows and even had an interview with a Tokyo University epidemiologist who wiggled in his seat at questions like, “At what number would you say we would have to start worrying?” But this morning, it was a cursory 3-minute segment halfway through the show, as Kyushu once again understandably took up much of their time. (The media do all seem to be concentrating on the same 100m stretch of river down there though…)
While NHK is sanguine, I think the “wide shows” will be having a field day today

See photo captions for stories.

Photo 01
Today’s Japan Covid-related NHK morning news topics:
– Tokyo new cases, the most ever
– Spectators to be let into sports events from today
– Breast milk tests positive for Covid
– Creating guidelines for vaccination

I only stuck around for the first one.
The breast milk thing was also on the Kansai bulletin. I will try to find an article.

SY: Breastfeeeding article in Japanese:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200710/k10012507391000.html?fbclid=IwAR1eI6R2XSSNnHzdACp7Mzvz72-P7I4vGsOnA–2HDoClN26-r-kuOMP0Bo

The docs recommended avoiding breastfeeding in this case, but WHO recommends continuing…

JB: Breast milk serves as an external immune system for babies, so if the mother is producing antibodies for something the baby gets them too. Considering children—even infants—seem highly resistant to the contagion (or at least the serious side effects), my extremely non-medical opinion is that the WHO is probably right on this one as long as mother and child are otherwise healthy.

In any case, by the time the mother tests positive, surely the issue is academic.

Photo 02
355 new cases yesterday. [last Friday: 194]
224 in Tokyo [the most ever, and more than double last Friday’s total]
25 in Kanagawa, 22 in Chiba, 22 in Saitama
30 in Osaka [The most since April 29 if I remember rightly.]

SNC: + at least 8 more in Okinawa that are not being reported officially and numbers will no longer be given to the prefecture. They’ve said they are no longer going to let anyone know what is going on. Tensions are very high here right now due to this.

SY: BTW the highest single day total was just under 700 during April.

Photo 03
224 in Tokyo
[Did I mention this is the biggest single day total for them ever?
But then again, about 25 mins worth of a typical day in Florida]

Photo 04
Koike says that the increase in the number of tests done might have something to do with the sudden increase in case numbers, but they will need to be even more wary of the infection trends.

PG: Her statement is simply not true. The positive rate of tests is at a two months high. It’s now at about 5.8%, which is up from around 1% in May and about 2% in the beginning of June. This indicates that there might be many more unidentified cases despite more tests being conducted recently:

“また、検査を受けた人のうち感染が確認された人の割合「陽性率」も上昇しています。5月中旬以降は1％前後で推移してきましたが、先月に入ると2％前後となり、先月25日に3.1％、今月1日に4％、5日には5％と上昇が続いています。

現時点でまとまっている最新の7日の陽性率は5.8％に達しています”

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200709/k10012505871000.html

Photo 05
Tokyo medical university guy says we are starting to see more cases of people in their 40s and 50s very recently, as well as in-family and in-workplace infections.

Photo 06
So there is a possibility that the situation is shifting to community-acquired infections.

Photo 07
NHK then said that there a lot of cases in the Evening Entertainment sector.
But they didn’t give any specific numbers.

DE: Drake meme panel 1: Doing something useful.

Drake meme panel 2: Scapegoating an already marginalized group.

Photo 08
The government’s comment was that the medical system is still holding steady, so today’s relaxation of restrictions on events [up to 5000 people allowed] will go ahead as planned.

[They never have a talking head for this. I am beginning to think that there is simply an answering machine set up for inquiries with this quote recorded on it.]

Photo 09
Recent trends:
Infections confirmed at gatherings of young people (drinking parties at izakayas, etc.)
Cases where the route of infection cannot be traced. [104 of Tokyo’s 224 were untraceable.]

Photo 10
The immediately switched to sports, on came the upbeat music and the sports announcer excitedly introduced the fact that baseball and J-League soccer games will be letting in spectators from today. [Up to 5000 at the moment]

Photo 11
From August 1, up to half of stadium capacity.