14 June 2022, Tuesday– Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers
Day 778 of doing these daily posts continuously.
See photo captions for stories.
Photo 01
Japan covid-related topics in NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:
Nothing specifically covid in today’s headlines, but the piece on the polarized mental health problems of young people is linked to covid stress
Photo 2a
But first the numbers:
7956 new cases confirmed
[vs. 9106 for the same day last week. 12207 the same day two weeks ago.]
[Tuesday a.m. (i.e. Monday) figures are traditionally the lowest of the week.]
47 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
No new daily case records.
Nowhere with five digits
NOWHERE WITH QUADRUPLE FIGURES EITHER!
23 prefectures in triple figures
23 prefectures in double figures
Shimane in single figures! [That’s their lowest number since Jan 06]
[PCR rates are still mostly in the 10-20% range around the country, so we are probably not catching anywhere near all the cases, but even those weekly averages are improving.]
Tokyo on 960 [vs. 1013 same day last week] [Under 1000 for the first time since Jan 11]
Osaka on 424 [vs. 461 same day last week]
[Tokyo has been down vs. same day previous week for 31 straight days now.]
The number of positives at immigration testing was 11
[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 61, down 5 from the previous day.
21 deaths announced yesterday, for a total of 30926
Total recorded cases at 9063549
Recovered cases at 8861439 (around 16,000 recovered cases up from the previous day)
Total active cases are at 171,184 (down around 8000 vs the previous day.
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total of cases is 1.88%.
Photo 03
So mental health problems among children have been exacerbated by the stress of covid.
This school has teamed up with a university to offer support to both students and parents.
This in-class worksheet is used to help identify children with potential issues.
Photo 04
Even though school life is getting back to some semblance of normality, e.g. the Sports Day was held for the first time in three years…
Photo 05
…there are still students reporting stress, fatigue, lack of sleep, depression-like symptoms, etc.
Photo 06
School nurse: “Students come to the nurse’s office complaining of physical ailments,…”
Photo 07
“…however, even now we are still getting cases where the background is mental problems.”
Photo 08
These two graphs show a snapshot of mental health during their first survey on May 11-12 2020 during the first SofE, versus May 13-30 during their fifth survey.
The x-axis is a scale of strength of depression symptoms. Scoring over 10 on this scale indicates depression. The y-axis is % of people.
In the first graph the peak of 15% of people had no symptoms, and the scale slide quite smoothly after that. In the second, 24% had no symptoms while people with numbers over 10 are similar or higher than the first survey.
This is described as a polarization of students’ mental states.
[Just to note: We are not talking about bipolar disorder here, just saying that a bunch of students are apparently a-ok, while others are not, vs. before where stress was spread more equally across the group.]
Photo 09
Of the people over the depression threshold, 1 in 4 said they wanted to die.
Photo 10
Prof guy says that the more that you experience mental health problems, [the easier it becomes to have problems again in the future].
Photo 11
So if you have mental health problems when young, and they have a tendency to become chronic…
Photo 12
…these can recur over and over again, i.e. “juvenile chronic illness.”
Photo 13
What to do?
This class is practicing how to respond to friends reaching out to them.
Photo 14
[Role play]
“I can’t concentrate on my schoolwork. And I get the feeling that everyone is avoiding me.”
Photo 15
“You haven’t seemed yourself lately. I’ve been worried.”
Photo 16
“If you’d like to, when don’t you tell me a little more about what’s going on with you?”
Photo 17
The advice is to not dismiss the other person’s words, and to listen while doing listening responses (nodding, “yeah”, “right” etc.)
Photo 18
It is also important for adults to be involved in talking to the students.
Photo 19
So this school is laying on information sessions for parents too.
Photo 20
School and home cooperate to share any perceived changes in mood or behavior and if necessary refer cases to experts, medical institutions and welfare centers.
Photo 21
Student writing: I am glad I was able to talk this through.
Photo 22
School nurse says its important to set up an environment where the message is:
“You can talk to me at any time.”
“If you’re having problems, you can always say, ‘Help me!’”
Photo 23
Prof guy: Mental illness is not just an illness that adults experience. Half the people who have mental problems experience onset of these before they turn 14.
Photo 24
Examples of signs of mental health problems:
Headaches and nausea
Can’t get out of bed in the morning
Irritable or tending to get angry
Losing weight
Having more incidents of trouble with friends
Not speaking as much
Lacking in [facial/body] expressiveness
Photo 25
Moving on, just to note that a group of “freelance drivers” who work for Amazon in all but name, are going to court demanding “work conditions that take into account their humanity.”
[Take a look at John Oliver’s piece on truck drivers in the US to get a sense of the situation of drivers employed as freelancers. And then realize that it is happening in Japan too.]
Photo 26
Kishida is continuing to enjoy a decent level of approval for his performance, in numbers that are the exact opposite of the trajectory of the not-much missed Uncle Reiwa.