09 July 2021 (Friday) – Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of maybe 2): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers

[Part 02 will be about ThorPreMe on Mount Fuji.]

See photo captions for stories.

Photo 01a
So let them say your hair’s too long
Cause I don’t care, with you I can’t go wrong
Then put your little hand in mine
There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb…

Photo 01b
Japan covid-related topics from NHK’s 7am news bulletin today.
– State of Emergency for Tokyo decided
– Olympics to be held without spectators in Tokyo+3
– Analysis: The SofE – why now? An expert explains
– Special report: Mt Fuji reopens for climbing after two years, with prevention measures

Photo 02
2246 cases confirmed yesterday
[up vs. 1754 for the same day last week. FYI: 1676 for the same day two weeks ago.]
[09 July 2246 PlayStation 57 launched. It’s the most immersive experience yet, with nanobots creating the physical game landscape in your living quarters.]

43 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
No new daily prefectural records appear to have been set.

Tokyo was a substantial 896.
[up vs. 673 for the same day last week.]

Osaka at 125
[vs. 108 for the same day last week]

Joining Tokyo and Osaka in triple figures were Tokyo’s neighbors:
Kanagawa 322 [wow]
Chiba 200 [wow]
Saitama 155
[Tokyo+3 account for 1573 or about 2/3 of today’s total]

The number of positives at immigration testing was 7.

Photo 03
17 deaths confirmed yesterday, for a total of 14933.

The total of current active serious cases stands at 464, down 16 on the previous day.

Total recorded cases at 814533.

Recovered cases at 780670 (up around 1500 on the previous day).
[cradles calculator in his enveloping arms]
Total active cases are at 18930 (up 710 on the previous day), rising slightly
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total is 2.32 %, rising slightly

RMW: 17 deaths and 464 serious cases in a country of 126,000,000. How wonderful! I’m guessing the sad faces are people who have zero idea of risk.

JN: Yes, I’m sure the families of those 17 people are thrilled about such favorable statistics… Don’t be so insensitive.

RMW: You have lost your common sense. Go and check how many people died of other causes in far greater numbers, without altering the way everyone lives! Of course, deaths of any number aren’t nice, but only fantasists expect zero deaths. In the UK 550,000+ people die each year. In the last two months, 258 children between 1 and 19 (inclusive) died, but it’s incredibly good news that only 1 of them had a positive covid19 test, which of course, doesn’t mean they necessarily died of covid19. When you are looking at laws and society level occurrences then you can’t be over-sensitive at each death, that’s something for the family and friends of the deceased.

Photo 04
Tokyo’s 896 is not far behind yesterday’s total and their 19th straight day of being higher than the corresponding day of the previous week.

Photo 05
Kansai figures on the regional bulletin:
221 for the region.
Third straight day of over 100 for Osaka.
3 deaths confirmed.

Photo 06
The government has officially decided to impose a fourth State of Emergency on Tokyo from July 12 to Aug 22 in order to prevent the resurgence of infections in Tokyo and the possibility of people spreading it all over the place during the 4-day July holiday and during Obon.

Photo 07
Osaka will keep Manbo measures, and these will apply to all 33 cities within the prefecture’s borders.

Photo 08
The prefectural government will continue to request that the eating and drinking establishments in the area to close at 8pm and stop serving alcohol from 7pm

Photo 09
But will allow groups of up to 4 people to drink together instead of the current limit of two.

Photo 10
And they will allow department stores to open until 9pm.

Photo 11
Hyogo will allow alcohol to be served on weekends and national holidays (it is currently only allowed on weekdays).

Photo 12

The Hyogo prefectural government will continue to request that the eating and drinking establishments in the area close at 8pm and stop serving alcohol from 7pm in ten cities and towns.

Photo 13

From July 12 to 25, the Kyoto prefectural government will ask eating and drinking establishments in the whole prefecture to close at 9pm and stop serving alcohol from 8:30pm.

Photo 14

From the 26^th, this request will only apply to Kyoto city.

Photo 15

The decision at last night’s meeting of the big Olympic stakeholder groups (announced at around midnight) is that all Olympic events will be held behind closed doors in Tokyo+3.

Photo 16

Hashimoto said that this decision was made in order to get the understanding of as many people as possible as to the holding of the games.

Photo 17

Bach says he will support whatever decision is taken to ensure a safe and secure games [as long as his personal gravy train is not rocked too much].

Pictured; the face of a man who cares about your safety and security, and whose quarantine ends on Sunday(?)]

Photo 18

There will be 339 events held in 33 disciplines.

Photo 19

The red zones are Tokyo+3 where there will be no spectators.

The blue(?) zones will be 50% capacity up to a cap of 10,000 (for example, the soccer at Miyagi stadium).

The green(?) zone is Ibaraki where they will only let in school groups.

And purple(?) is Hokkaido which will host the marathon and some soccer: they haven’t yet decided what they’re going to do about spectators up there.

Photo 20

The organizing committee will now have to scramble to massively revise plans for the distribution of volunteers, the buses that were planned to take spectators to and from certain events and plans for the medical system too.

Photo 21

Hashimoto said that the very fact that they will have managed to hold the Olympic games during this pandemic will be “a big part of its legacy”…

Photo 22

…and she hopes that as many people as possible will grasp the significance and value of holding the games under these circumstances.

Photo 23

The SofE period swallows up the whole games and even messes up the Obon holidays.

Photo 24

When they asked their expert why the SofE was being imposed now, they showed this graph which indicated that if no measures were taken, we could be seeing 4000 new cases a day in the capital by the close of the games.

Photo 25

And why Obon too? Because shit got real in May when people traveled about in Golden Week.

This is a graph of how many people from outside Okinawa prefecture were in Naha at the various times in March to May and the line shows the number of infections that followed each spurt in visitors.