01 July 2021 (Thursday) – Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of maybe 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers
See photo captions for stories
Photo 01a
Maho is enjoying a scrummy dream about horses.
[For the uninitiated, this is a reference to something the queen says in the British comedy show Blackadder II.]
Photo 01b
Japan covid-related topics from NHK’s 7am news bulletin today.
– Over 700 new daily cases in Tokyo
– Concerns about Olympic border measures
– 2000 people infected at a Euro match
The CCP is 100 years old, Donald Rumsfeld died, Mitsubishi Electric has been faking QC and safety inspection data since the 80s, including air compressors involved in operating train doors and brakes.
DE: Didn’t this story come out but about other companies too? A steel company?
SY: Yep, that one included elevator cables…
AP: I need to rustle up the link, but a friend in the US had a news story link in their IG stories mentioning that some of the athletes from 6 different countries entering have tested positive thus far.
SY: https://mainichi.jp/…/arti…/20210624/p2a/00m/0na/026000c
Photo 02
1821 cases confirmed yesterday
[slightly up vs. 1779 for the same day last week. FYI: 1709 for the same day two weeks ago.
[1821’s news is largely dominated by the Greek War of Independence.
But May 30 1821, James Boyd patents Rubber Fire Hose.]
41 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
No new daily prefectural records appear to have been set.
Tokyo was 714
[up vs. 619 for the same day last week.]
Osaka at 108
[vs. 125 for the same day last week]
Joining Tokyo and Osaka in triple figures were all of Tokyo’s neighbors:
Kanagawa 209
Chiba 156
Saitama 109
The number of positives at immigration testing was 10.
Photo 03
41 deaths confirmed yesterday, for a total of 14797.
The total of current active serious cases stands at 523, down 29 on the previous day.
Total recorded cases at 800513, topping 800k and triggering my 25k benchmarking.
It has taken 17 days to go from 775k (June 14) to 800k (July 01)
It took 12 days to go from 750k (June 02) to 775k (June 14)
It took 7 days to go from 725k (May 26) to 750k (June 02)
It took 6 days to go from 700k (May 20) to 725k (May 26).
It took 5.5 days to go from 675k (May 15 was 673k, May 16 was 680k) to 700k (May 20).
It took approx. 7.5 days from 650k (May 08) to 675k (May 15 was 673k, May 16 was 680k)
It took 5 days to go from 625k (May 03) to 650k (May 08).
It took 5 days to go from 600k to 625k.
It took 5 days to go from 575k to 600k.
It took 5 days to go from 550k to 575k.
It took 6 days to go from 525 to 550k.
It took 7 days to go from 500 to 525k.
It took 9 days to go from 475k to 500k.
It took 15 days to go from 450k to 475k.
It took 24 days to go from 425k to 450k.
It took 16 days to go from 400k to 425k.
It took 8 days to go from 375k to 400k.
It took 6 days to go from 350k to 375k.
It took 5 days to go from 325k to 350k.
It took 3 days to go from 300k to 325k.]
Recovered cases at 767275 (up around 1700 on the previous day).
[fabs calculator]
Total active cases are at 18441 (UP around 80 on the previous day) – first rise in quite a while
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total is 2.3% (UP 0.01% on the previous day)
Photo 04
Tokyo’s 714 is the first time over 700 since May 26’s 743.
Photo 05
That’s now 11 straight days of the day being higher than the corresponding day of the previous week.
Photo 06
Sources within the govt. say: “If the infection situation continues like this, they will have no choice but to consider extending the Manbo period for Tokyo+3.”
Photo 07
55 people yesterday in the capital were found to have the L452R variant (first confirmed in India) for a total of 349 cases so far.
Photo 08
The speed from confirming the first case to reaching 300 cases for L452R has been 72 days.
This is over a week faster than in the case of N501Y (first confirmed in the UK), the speed was 80 days.
NHK notes that 9 days after reaching 300 cases of UK variant, cases had topped 1000.
Photo 09
The MHLW panel of experts thinks that the Delta variant now accounts for 30% of cases in the capital and is continuing to replace other types of cases.
Photo 10
Koike was discharged from hospital yesterday, and will be doing her official duties via telework for a while.
[If only she had set this example before…?]
MK: I really suspect she had a dose of COVID, it is not gossip or an invasion of privacy to discuss this: She is a leader and the public have the right to know if she was tested (more than once) and what the results were. The UK hid Prince William becoming infected and consider the global optics if she did announce she was infected. The comments about her working hard to recover suggests fighting an illness as opposed to dealing with fatigue (which is also a COVID symptom).
Photo 11
And Covid claims another victim: this public bath in Adachi ward, known as the “King of Sentos” is closing after 92 years amid falling customer numbers due to covid. [The name of the bath was 大黒湯 btw.]
Photo 12
Vax stuff now. The govt. has decided to continue with the suspension of new applications for workplace vaccinations, due to higher-than-expected uptake.
LB: So no one can claim anymore that there’s “vaccine hesitancy” etc in the population. the slow vaccination is solely due to the government mishandling of vaccine procurement and delivery.
EF: Does anyone have any news when they will use Astrazeneca?
SY: Japan has no plans to use the AZ vax. They have shipped off their supplies as gifts to Taiwan and Vietnam. While AZ is approved for use, it has not been included in the medical compensation law. (If someone dies of the Pfizer jab, the family gets big money, etc.) So in practice, it won’t be used on the general population (due to rare but known issues of thrombosis).
Photo 13
There is no schedule pencilled in for when applications may restart.
Photo 14
For the applications up to now, totalling 37 million doses, the government plans to fill these with Moderna doses between now and the end of September.
Photo 15
From now, the government plans to proceed with approval of applications after confirming the necessary amount of doses with each company [i.e. check they haven’t asked for too many].
Photo 16
For local authority mass vaccination centers, if the demand for doses exceeds the govt’s stock of Moderna, they will fulfill these requests using Pfizer doses.
Photo 17
With the Olympic opening ceremony just over 3 weeks away, Olympic arrivals are starting in earnest.
From today the Australian men’s soccer team is coming to Fukushima for training camp, the French men’s volleyball team will be in Okinawa from July 06.
Photo 18
[Following the Ugandan team problems, there have been concerns about border controls and other safety measures.] Here is an “example from a guide to local authorities” of updated measures:
If an infection is confirmed at the airport, people suspected of being close contacts will be separated and taken to a temporary isolation facility by special bus.*
If an infection is confirmed [at the training camp, presumably], all team members will be confined to their rooms and their training suspended. [like the tennis in Melbourne]
[*One of the points of contention for the Ugandan team incident was that it is NOT the airport who decides and designates close contacts, it is the local authority. Close contacts needed to be designated by Osaka’s Izumisano after the team arrived there, rather than at the airport.
This report does not make it clear, but it looks this will change and the decision will now be made at the airport.]
Photo 19
Maho-ly moley!
MK: Ah Maho-san; I would not want anyone else to feed me so much government Olympic propaganda BS… you make it almost palatable…
SY: FYI Mayuko will be covering the opening ceremony and Maho will be doing the closing ceremony.
It’s a bad call, I think, but I guess since Maho has done Kohaku for the last two years, they felt she shouldn’t hog the limelight.
Photo 20
Tokyo Med Uni prof guy: I think that trying to have pre-Olympic training camps is biting off more than we can chew when you consider the current infection situation in Japan.
Photo 21
Many local authorities have had no experience of creating a situation like a “bubble” and haven’t had any drills for it.
Photo 22
I think these kinds of measures needed to be put place a little sooner.
Photo 23
[NHK catching up with discussions being had on the Wide shows of commercial channels a couple of weeks late…]
In the Olympic playbook for the media, it says that foreign media [will be expected to download an app so that] movements can be tracked via the GPS of their smartphone.
SY: BTW the playbooks are actually available for download
Photo 24
Prof guy points out that if you leave your smartphone in your hotel, you cannot be tracked.
[And anyway, a couple of weeks ago it was reported elsewhere that this tracking wouldn’t be done in realtime anyway, just as backtracing if an infection emerged.]
Photo 25
Also the playbook allows that if you can’t eat at the place you are staying, you can go and buy food at the convenience store or use a private booth at a restaurant that has taken the proper precautions.
[This seems to indicate that athletes can leave the Olympic village for example and enter local businesses. The bubble and the supposed penalties for breaking it would seem to become meaningless under those circumstances.]
Photo 26
After the England-Scotland game last month, which had eyebrow-raising scenes of revellers whooping it up in very close quarters, about 2000 covid cases have been confirmed among spectators of the match.
Photo 27
Prof guy: Even if there is a playbook, the question is how far people are prepared to follow the rules.
[To be fair, I would imagine Olympic athletes know a lot about discipline and self-sacrifice more than the average football fan.]