12 June 2022, Sunday– Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers

Day 776 of doing these daily posts continuously.

See photo captions for stories.

Photo 01

Japan covid-related topics in NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:

High hopes for “Tokyo citizen discounts” [i.e. a Go To Travel type campaign for people living IN Tokyo to travel IN Tokyo.]

Photo 2a

But first the numbers:

15351 new cases confirmed

Stated as 2800 down on same day last week.

[vs. 18252 for the same day last week. 25759 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 3 prefectures:

Okinawa, Osaka, Tokyo

37 prefectures in triple figures

7 prefectures in double figures

Tokyo on 1526 [vs. 2071 same day last week]

Which they characterize as 540 cases down on same day last week.

Osaka on 1255 [vs. 1493 same day last week]

[Tokyo has been down vs. same day previous week for 29 straight days now]

The number of positives at immigration testing was 12

[Border testing was relaxed even as double the number of people are being allowed into the country from June 01.]

Photo 02b

The total of current active serious cases stands at 69, down 8 from the previous day.

15 deaths announced yesterday, for a total of 30896

Total recorded cases at 9042203

Recovered cases at 8825673 (around 25,000 recovered cases from the previous day)

Total active cases are at 185,634 (down around 10000 vs the previous day.

Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total of cases is 2.05%.

Photo 03

Tokyo dwellers discount

For overnight stays costing 6000 yen or more, the subsidy is 5000 yen per person.

For day trips costing 3000 yen or more, the subsidy is 2500 yen.

(For persons born after April 02 2014, add 1000 yen.)

Photo 04

This bus tour of downtown Tokyo for Tokyo people [designed with this discount specifically in mind] got inundated with so many reservation requests that it laid on an extra bus.

[You need to show proof of triple vaccination or a negative test to participate and qualify for the discount.]

Photo 05

It was possible to join this tour, which took in iconic Tokyo tourist spots such as Tokyo Tower, for 3000 yen [after discount – i.e. the list price was 5500 yen].

Photo 06

The tour even featured cruising in Tokyo bay (featuring Rainbow Bridge) and Odaiba.

Photo 07

Tour participant: “I was able to rediscover those little nice things about Tokyo.”

Photo 08

This Ryokan-style hotel in Asakusa had the misfortune to open in December 2019…

Photo 09

…and be aimed at meeting inbound tourism demand. It has had a hard time amid covid.

Photo 10

One of its “suite rooms” has a view of Tokyo Skytree. The hotel has made this a focus on its discount campaign package that aims to enable Tokyo residents to enjoy the “view of downtown.”

Photo 11

Within an hour of the campaign going live, they’d had about 10 reservations, so “it is definitely having an impact” says the front desk guy.