02 July 2022, Saturday — Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers
Day 796 of doing these daily posts continuously.
See photo captions for stories.
Photo 01
Japan covid-related topics in NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:
70% [of election candidates say “[The government should] emphasize socio-economic activity [over covid19]”
There is more stuff on the heat, electricity crunch and water shortage. And a typhoon coming.
[Last night on Channel 10, they ran a piece on the increase in covid cases and how a chunk of heatstroke cases (5 out of 60, said one hospital) are also testing positive for covid, with BA.5 spreading rapidly in the capital. I don’t think I’ve heard NHK mention BA.5 at all yet…]
Photo 2a
[Numbers taken from yesterday’s 9pm bulletin]
23156 new cases confirmed
[so this is solidly up vs. both 15815 for the same day last week, 14709 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 9 prefectures:
Hyogo and Chiba rejoining the party with Okinawa, Fukuoka, Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Saitama and Tokyo
29 prefectures in triple figures
9 prefectures in double figures
Nowhere in single figures
Tokyo on 3546 [vs. 2181 same day last week, quite a bit up]
Osaka on 2135 [vs. 1365 same day last week; so Osaka up too]
The number of positives at immigration testing was a solid 25
[Border testing was relaxed even as the number of people being allowed into the country has doubled from June 01.]
Photo 02b
[Numbers taken from yesterday’s 9pm bulletin]
The total of current active serious cases stands at 52, no change vs. the previous day.
21 deaths announced yesterday, for a total of 31315
Total recorded cases at 9356329
Recovered cases at 9136022 (around 13,000 recovered cases up from the previous day)
Total active cases are at 188,992 (up around 10000 vs the previous day).
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total of cases is 2.01%.
Photo 03
So with the upper house election coming up, NHK has been asking candidates questions on various topics all week: revising the constitution, upping military spending, etc.
With regards to today’s topic: covid19 response measures, 72% of candidates said that the recovery of socio-economic activity should be emphasized (34% clearly and 38% if they had to choose between that and preventing the spread of covid infection).
JC: Simon Yates, how would you (and others in this group) answer the question now? At this point in time, I would also have to favor socio-economic activity if having to choose (so I am with the 38%). That does not mean that some reasonable prevention measures cannot also be taken I suppose.
Photo 04
On the question of whether the government should revise and strengthen laws to give the government more power to force hospitals to take patients and to enforce lockdowns…
Photo 05
57% said the law should change, 30% were in favor of maintaining the status quo.
Photo 06
Roughly speaking, Ishin and LDP were on the left side, favoring changes, the JCP and CDP were for the status quo.
Photo 07
A lot of this morning’s bulletin was about the weather.
Six places in Japan recorded temperatures over 40C yesterday. That’s the first time for Japan to record over 40C in six places on the same day.
Photo 08
Here is a graph of the temperatures. The red line is the last seven days vs. an average year (blue line). This week has been 7-9 degrees higher than a typical year.
Photo 09
And yesterday made four consecutive days for Tokyo to have over 200 people taken to hospital with suspected heatstroke.
Photo 10
In June, Tokyo had 17 deaths and 1517 hospitalizations for suspected heatstroke.
[The highest for at least a decade.]
Photo 11
Water shortages are continuing in various places.
This dam in Kochi is very low, leading to a 50% reduction in water supply to Kagawa.
[Electricity is also dangerously close to the safe operating threshold. They need 3% slack vs. demand. I think they mentioned it being forecast to fall to 3.7% today.
One family was shown all living and sleeping in the living room under one air conditioner. The mother commented that it was inconvenient but nowhere near as inconvenient as it would be if they had a power cut and their fridge freezer went off.
BTW both the evening and a.m. bulletins began by saying they had turned down the lighting in the studio.]
Photo 12
Schools are trying various things to reduce heat-related discomfort for students.
This school is trying a “No Randoseru school commute” – kids coming to school carrying an ordinary rucksack instead of the standard leather backpack.
[Surely the problem is the 7kg of books they have to bring every day, not the container?]
ZA: The rucksack itself is pretty heavy though.
LC: Yeah, the backpack itself is heavy. One of my oldest’s friends cried because it was so heavy, so his parents got him the light-weight version. I believe that version swaps out a lot of the leather (or faux leather) with nylon or something.
Photo 13
Sales are up for parasols for men. [I am seriously thinking about getting myself one.]
JC: Simon, here you go …
Photo 14
On the plus side, in some places beaches opened yesterday for the first time in three years.
[July 01 is kind of official beach opening day, you will be told off for going in the water when it’s not “the season”.]
[Also, Mount Fuji opened to climbers from yesterday.]
Photo 15
A typhoon is going to be coming through, hitting Okinawa on the third and drenching Kyushu on the 5th.
Photo 16
And apropos of nothing in particular, I thought people might want to know that Apple quietly put up the price of an iPhone 13 by 19,000 yen and raised the price of its cheapest iPad by 25%.
[No official explanation was given, but it is thought to be due to the current weak yen.]
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