08 July 2022, Friday — Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers
Day FM802 of doing these daily posts continuously.
May your day be filled with Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bon Jovi and Lenny Kravitz.
See photo captions for stories.
DE: BRB, listening to some CCR.
SY: Vampire Weekend, Gorillaz and Lauv. Seems a new broom may have swept through 802, although they did just play four B’z tracks in a row.
Photo 01
Japan covid-related topics in NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:
Covid was back among the headlines again this morning with another 8000 case day in Tokyo prompting musings about a 7th Wave.
Today’s report is collated from info from this morning’s 7am and last night’s 9pm bulletins.
And bye bye, Boris.
Photo 2a
47977 new cases confirmed – more than double that of same day last week
[vs. 23447 for the same day last week, 16676 the same day two weeks ago.]
47 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
New records for daily cases today in Tottori and Saga.
Nowhere with five digits
Quadruple figures in 10 prefectures:
Kumamoto still in the quadruple club – all other members have over 2000 cases each today: Okinawa, Fukuoka, Hyogo, Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba and Tokyo [7 prefectures same day last week]
[Hyogo is over 2000 for the first time since April 14.]
36 prefectures in triple figures [32 prefectures same day last week]
1 prefecture in double figures [8 prefectures same day last week]
Nowhere in single figures
Tokyo on 8529 [vs. 3621 same day last week]
Osaka on 4615 [vs. 2193 same day last week]
The number of positives at immigration testing was 16.
[Border testing was relaxed even as the number of people being allowed into the country has doubled from June 01.]
Photo 02b
The total of current active serious cases stands at 67, down 1 vs. the previous day.
15 deaths announced yesterday, for a total of 31392
Total recorded cases at 9551285
Recovered cases at 9228982 (around 18,000 recovered cases up from the previous day)
Total active cases are at 290,911 (up around 29000 vs the previous day).
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total of historical cases is 3.04%.
Photo 03
Tokyo’s 8529 is the 20th consecutive day of rises vs. same day of previous week.
Photo 04
But that’s not as significant as the pace of this rise over the last 5 days, where numbers are double those of the same day previous week.
Photo 05
Tokyo had its weekly monitoring meeting yesterday.
Experts said that if the current pace continues, daily cases will be over 15000 by July 20 and 0ver 54000 by Aug 03.
Photo 06
As of yesterday, Tokyo had 1288 hospitalized cases, this number having doubled in two weeks, and they said that the system of medical provision could be seriously threatened [in the coming weeks].
Photo 07
Tokyo is preparing to increase covid-designated hospital beds from the current 5000, and increase hotel rooms for isolation to 12000 (up 3000).
Photo 08
This Tokyo clinic guy says he has seen covid PCR positive test rates go from a long period of 5% to 10% last week and it will definitely be over 10% this week.
[You will recall they showed a clinic yesterday that was getting 70% positives back.]
Photo 09
Koike says this sudden spike in cases can probably be thought of as the start of a 7th Wave [and she called for people to exercise caution and do ThorPreMe].
Photo 10
The cabinet secretary says they have had no requests from the prefectures for Manbo or SofE and are not thinking of introducing either of these at this time.
Photo 11
[However, late July through August (except Obon) was supposed to see a relaunch of a Go To Travel-style subsidy campaign.] The govt. will take a decision on whether to adopt that by the middle of July, and even what to do about the current so-called “Prefecture Citizens’ Discount” [where the country is divided into six zones for local travel subsidies].
Photo 12
The 9pm news felt they had to remind people what the official rules are if you are infected or showing symptoms:
- Hospitalized or isolating at home or in a hotel till the end of the 10th day.
- Not going outside for non-urgent purposes with the exception of going to see the doctor or voting in the election.
Photo 13
You are considered a close contact if:
You live with an infected person.
You have had contact within 1.5m for over 15 minutes with someone while not taking prevention measures (such as wearing a mask)
This involves quarantining for 7 days.
Photo 14
While quarantine is 7 days for close contacts in principle (and you can get out early if you test negative with an antigen kit on days 4 and 5)…
In cases where a company or school, etc. has an infection:
Previously, the company would determine who counts as close contacts and ask them to stay home. [And before that, I thought this was the Welfare Centers’ job.]
From this year, the instructions are that as a general rule, the infected persons themselves should contact close contacts. [Hope you’re feeling well enough to do this…]
Photo 15
As of yesterday, the govt. says 17.2% of the 5-11 age group has been double-jabbed.