20 May 2022, Friday — Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers
Day 753 of doing these daily posts continuously.
See photo captions for stories.
Photo 01
Japan covid-related topics in NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:
Government to announce its thinking on masks
This morning’s show even had the numbers.
Photo 2a
39642 new cases confirmed
[vs. 41741 for the same day last week. 20779 the same day two weeks ago.]
47 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
No new daily case records.
Nowhere with five digits
Quadruple figures in 12 prefectures:
Okinawa, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Hyogo, Osaka, Aichi, Shizuoka, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba and Hokkaido
35 prefectures in triple figures
0 prefectures in double figures
Tokyo on 4172 [vs. 4216 same day last week]
Osaka on 3156 [vs. 3290 same day last week]
The number of positives at immigration testing was 57
Photo 02b
The total of current active serious cases stands at 110, down 15 from the previous day.
36 deaths announced yesterday, for a total of 30229
Total recorded cases at 8524359 [topping 8.5 million cases, about 7% of the population]
Recovered cases at 8097484 (around 46,000 recovered cases from the previous day)
Total active cases are at 396,646 (down around 6000 vs the previous day).
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total is 4.65%
*250k case benchmarking
That’s 8.5 million historical cases now. We were at 1.7 million on Jan 01. 6.8 million cases have happened in just over 4.5 months in 2022.
Let’s do a rough 250k benchmark (looking only that the figures for this year)…
We reached 1750k on Jan 09
We reached 2000k on Jan 21 (12 days)
We reached 2250k on Jan 26 (5 days)
We reached 2500k on Jan 29 (3 days)
We reached 2750k on Feb 02 (3 days)
We reached 3000k on Feb 04 (2 days)
We reached 3250k on Feb 07 (3 days)
We reached 3500k on Feb 10 (3 days)
We reached 3750k on Feb 12 (2 days)
We reached 4000k on Feb 16 (4 days)
We reached 4250k on Feb 18 (2 days)
We reached 4500k on Feb 22 (4 days)
We reached 4750k on Feb 25 (3 days)
We reached 5000k on Mar 01 (4 days)
We reached 5250k on Mar 05 (4 days)
We reached 5500k on Mar 10 (5 days)
We reached 5750k on Mar 14 (4 days)
We reached 6000k on Mar 19 (5 days)
We reached 6250k on Mar 26 (5 days)
We reached 6500k on Mar 31 (5 days)
We reached 6750k on Apr 06 (6 days)
We reached 7000k on Apr 10 (4 days)
We reached 7250k on Apr 16 (6 days)
We reached 7500k on Apr 22 (6 days)
We reached 7750k on Apr 28 (6 days)
We reached 8000k on May 06 (8 days)
We reached 8250k on May 13 (7 days)
We reached 8500k on May 20 (9 days)
Looking at 500k increments, it might be slightly more accurate to say it took 8 days to go from 2000-2500k and 5 days to go from 2500-3000k, 6 days to reach 3500k, 4000k and 4500k, 7 days to reach 5000k, 9 days to reach 5500k, 9 days to reach 6000k, 10 days to reach 6500k, 10 days to reach 7000k, 12 days to reach 7500k, 14 days to reach 8000k and 16 days to reach 8500k.
Looking at 1 million case increments: 2 million to 3 million took 13 days. 2.5 million to 3.5 million took 11 days, 3 million to 4 million took 12 days, 3.5 million to 4.5 million took 12 days, 4 million to 5 million took 13 days, 4.5 million to 5.5 million took 16 days, 5 million to 6 million took 18 days, 5.5 million to 6.5 million took 19 days, 6 million to 7 million took 22 days, 6.5 million to 7.5 million took 22 days, 7 million to 8 million took 26 days, 7.5 million to 8.5 million took 30 days.
Photo 03
The MHLW’s expert panel discussed the issue of mask wearing yesterday.
Their feeling was that “Outdoors, as long as you aren’t talking to much, it is not always necessary to wear a mask [even without proper distancing]”
Photo 04
They also think that it is no longer necessary to uniformly ask pre-school children of two years old and up to mask up.
Photo 05
The government will announce its official thinking on the subject of masks as early as today.
Photo 06
4th booster shot vaccinations will begin for the over 60s as early as next week.
Photo 07
A group representing the nation’s care homes has submitted a request to the government to also include staff of care homes who wish to have the booster.