02 June 2021 (Wednesday) – Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of up to 3): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers
See photo captions for stories
Photo 01a
Love,
Love will keep us together
Think of me, babe, whenever
Some sweet talking girl, comes along, singing her song
Don’t mess around, you just got to be strong
Just stop
Cause I really love you
Stop, I’ll be thinking of you
Look in my heart
And let love keep us together
Photo 1b
Japan covid-related topics from NHK’s 7am news bulletin today.
- Vaccinations at workplaces and universities from June 21
- Live: We ask an expert what should be done about the Olympics
- Extended SofE’s impact on mental health
- Special report: Hard times for buses, trying to protect regional access to transport
Photo 02
2643 cases confirmed yesterday
[vs. 3901 for the same day last week, and 5230 for the same day two weeks ago.]
[an excellent downward trend, half of what it was two weeks ago]
45 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
No new daily prefectural records set.
Tokyo was 471
[vs. 542 for the same day last week.
[Nineteen days of declining numbers vs. corresponding same day of the previous week]
Osaka at 201
[vs. 327 for the same day last week.]
Triple figures for:
Aichi at 305
Hokkaido at 254
Okinawa at 223
Kanagawa 159
Saitama 114
Hyogo 112
The number of positives at immigration testing was 2.
Photo 03
101 deaths confirmed yesterday. That brings us to 13174 in total.
The total of current active serious cases stands at 1323, down 26 on the previous day.
Total recorded cases at 750098.
[This triggers my 25k increment benchmarking.
It has taken 7 days to go from 725k (May 26) to 750k (June 02)
It took 6 days to go from 700k (May 20) to 725k (May 26).
It took 5.5 days to go from 675k (May 15 was 673k, May 16 was 680k) to 700k (May 20).
It took approx. 7.5 days from 650k (May 08) to 675k (May 15 was 673k, May 16 was 680k)
It took 5 days to go from 625k (May 03) to 650k (May 08).
It took 5 days to go from 600k to 625k.
It took 5 days to go from 575k to 600k.
It took 5 days to go from 550k to 575k.
It took 6 days to go from 525 to 550k.
It took 7 days to go from 500 to 525k.
It took 9 days to go from 475k to 500k.
It took 15 days to go from 450k to 475k.
It took 24 days to go from 425k to 450k.
It took 16 days to go from 400k to 425k.
It took 8 days to go from 375k to 400k.
It took 6 days to go from 350k to 375k.
It took 5 days to go from 325k to 350k.
It took 3 days to go from 300k to 325k.]
Recovered cases at 681280 (up around 4700 on the previous day).
[Jabs calculator]
Total active cases are at 55644 (down around 2200 on the previous day).
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total is 7.41% [dropping below 7.5%]
Photo 04
Here are Tokyo and Osaka’s numbers graphed
Photo 05
Here is the breakdown for the Kansai region.
400 new daily cases.
Photo 06
35 deaths confirmed for the region.
Photo 07
Osaka’s serious bed case occupancy rate was 64.8% as of yesterday.
230 out of 355 beds in use
[with 7 serious cases being treated in beds designated for mild or medium cases]
Photo 08
This doctor says that while numbers are falling, hospitals are still in “disaster mode.”
Bonus article:
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210601/p2a/00m/0na/016000c
Photo 09
[He said to avoid a failure [i.e. another big wave triggered by ending the SofE too early] the government needs to consider three areas:] The medical situation, the level of vaccinations and the level of spread of the Indian variant.
[BTW not mentioned on the news today, but the WHO is going to use Greek letters for the variants from now on, to avoid discrimination by place.(Can’t wait till we get to the Omega strain…).
Also, not mentioned on this morning’s NHK, Kobe found a local person with an entirely new variant that appears to be stronger than the UK one.]
Photo 10
The website is now live for making appointments for Osaka city’s own large-scale vaccination site at Intex on June 07 (open to Osaka city residents of 65).
Photo 11
Osaka’s big dept stores reported big fall’s in May revenues vs. May 2019.
Hankyu Umeda and Mens, Takashimaya and Kintestu Harukasu down 83%, 75% and 74%.
Photo 12
And down 30-40% on April of this year.
[This is of course due to Osaka’s request that department stores close all but their “essential” floors (e.g. food) last month.]
Photo 13
With the extension of the SofE, these restrictions have now been eased.
All floors reopened as of yesterday.
Photo 14
They are open till 8pm on weekdays, but all but “essential” areas are asked to close on weekends.
[I posted an article the other day about how there were conflicts over how widely “essential” is being interpreted in various stores.]
Photo 15
Movie theaters in SofE areas reopened on Monday with ThorPreMe and half capacity, etc.
Photo 16
As mentioned yesterday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato announced that it would be possible to start vaccinating at workplaces and universities from June 21.
[From what I can gather, if your company organizes a vaccine drive, the government will just give you some of their vast stock of Moderna to use. It seemed to imply that they companies would source their own doctors. (For example, my company has a relationship with a local clinic for flu jabs, so would probably ask them to handle this.) The government has indicated flexibility about this: companies may even be able to offer vaccinations to part timers, business clients and employees’ family members.]
Photo 17
Kato told a news conference that the starting date could be brought forward for local authorities who expect to complete the ongoing vaccination of those aged 65 or older ahead of the initial goal of the end of July.
[This is one small area of confusion for me, as local authorities have been told they can start jabbing the under 65s at their own discretion if they can do the 65s and over by the end of July; that would be a Pfizer thing and would continue to be done at current local authority vaccination sites. The workplace and uni thing seems (from TV info) to be a separate thing, but both the TV and the Mainichi article reflect Kato’s remarks which seem to conflate the two.]
Photo 18
Anyhoo, JAL is making arrangements so that it can do group vaccinations of its employees from June 21.
Photo 19
ANA has not set a timeframe but is working towards arranging vaccinations starting with pilots on international flights and cabin crews.
Photo 20
JR East has indicated it would like to set up vaccinations for station and train staff as a starting point.
Photo 21
Yesterday, Japan started vaccinating 1600 domestic athletes and coaches yesterday.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210601/p2g/00m/0na/065000c
Photo 22
The captain of the handball team says:
“At first, I wasn’t intending to get vaccinating, but they told me that even if I turned it down…”
Photo 23
“…the doses wouldn’t be supplied instead to old people and other people who [I think] ought to be vaccinated first.”
Photo 24
The Australian softball team arrived in their host town of Ota in Gunma yesterday after all tested negative in Antigen tests.
[Although they are in theory restricted to their hotel and their training ground, a wide show reported bizarre comments from the local mayor who said he would let them go to the local shopping mall to buy underpants, and they shouldn’t be locked up like prisoner. Damn, I wish I could find footage of that.]
Photo 25
[Recently on social media, there has been some anger and a petition activity to “save the trees” after it emerged that tree branches were being pruned back to improve sightline access to an Olympics public viewing spot in Yoyogi park.
Although the negative social media coverage was not covered, it has emerged that…
Photo 26
Koike thinks that “at least during the Olympics”* the public viewing area in Yoyogi park will have to be foregone.
[*Not sure if this means they will still carry on with it for the Paralympics, or simply keep it for other events later in the summer…]
Photo 27
[Anyhoo, you may remember the other day that police and fire service personnel would not be able to get second jabs at the old Tsukiji fish market site due to Olympic vehicle parking? Well,]
It has emerged that Koike is thinking that Yoyogi park could be one site at which to hold the injections for police and fire service personnel.
Photo 28
The expert they talked to about whether the Olympics should be held was on live, so very little available in terms of captions to get.
This guy consulted on the reopening of J-League soccer and NPB baseball so you can assume he is quite “pro” holding sports events.
I’ll just give two points he raised:
- Can we really monitor all the athletes on the scale needed?
[Was there a whiff of foreign athletes can’t be trusted to follow rules? Just a tiny smidge, perhaps.]
- Transparency is the key. For example, if (as has recently been proposed) domestic spectators can attend the games if they can provide a negative test or show they have completed vaccinations, then Tokyo bars and restaurants will want to know why they can’t get the same treatment.
Photo 29
Just a quick mention that the UK reported no covid deaths yesterday for the first time since last July.
Photo 30
Things have been moving towards a complete removal of lockdown restrictions in the UK, however there are growing concerns about the India variant, which is not only highly virulent but seems to reduce the effectiveness of vaccinations.