The state of the State of Emergency

20200427 Corona updates Part 2: The state of the State of Emergency

See photo captions for story.

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Tokyo governor Koike is continuiing to push people to stay home. In her Friday address, she said that Golden Week was Stay Home Week this year. She also asked people to reduce grocery shopping trips to once every three days.

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There does seems to be a visible drop in activity in the capital. This is Shibuya crossing of course, as of 10am on Sunday.

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86% reduction in footfall compared to before Corona.
The billboard in the background is a bit Stay Home poster. There are signs around other neighborhoods too, and soundtrucks going around blasting the Stay Home message.

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Yoyogi Park on Sunday,

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Almost no activity at Haneda airport despite it being Golden Week.

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Almost no activity on the shinkansen platforms of Tokyo station.

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The non-reserved seats of the main Shinkansen line are seeing only about 10% uptake. At this time of year, these cars are usually at 150% of capacity.

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All this compliance has led to questions of what will it take to end the State of Emergency. This professor suggests that the baseline would be keeping daily new infections down to 20 a day for a week.

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But since a lot of hospitals will be closed during Golden Week, we might not get accurate numbers, so the numbers after Golden Week finishes will be important.

Comments stuff

EM: Hospitals will be closed??? Or doctor clinics/offices?

SY: Doctors offices and clinics may be closed. Hospitals generally run a reduced staff, won’t be doing general consultations and admissions, and perhaps testing facilities will be not open or working at less than capacity

CW: lol this thing is going way into next year.

Yeah… somebody explain to me how we go back to normal without a vaccine or treatment. Forecasts of a combination flu and COVOID 19 virus outbreak in the fall are pretty dire. Also there are conflicting results on whether you get immunity from having made it through a case of corona virus so those who had it already may not be immune. Lets be honest. The people who have the money are going to demand that people suck it up and die until this thing burns itself out. They won’t come right out and say that but they will slowly indoctrinate the shoganai in people. Same in ‘Mericuh.

PV: Hospitals closing ?? Is that a joke ??

See my reply to EM above. Not literally shutting down but not open for daily stuff. You’d have to go to the emergency-only out-of-hours door or be BROUGHT by ambulance.to get in on national holidays so the number of people seen dips… 

DM: Yeah, this was always WTF for me, from my early days in Japan when I had a terrible case of bronchitis and couldn’t see a doctor because the clinics were all closed for a week at New Years.

SS: It has always astounded me how hospitals in japan always close on public holidays. I do not know of any other country that does that.

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This guy doesn’t put a figure on it, but says we would need to see a steady decrease in serious cases, and some easing in capacity at institutions where ICUs are currently nearly full.

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Gotta look carefully at the numbers and consider carefully whether to extend the SofE.

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Meanwhile, please file under “That is some bullshit right there” the fact that there were actually some by-elections held yesterday for the lower house of the Japanese Diet, with voters turning out.
The results were reported without comment on the same show that had just spent several minutes criticizing surfers, campers and joggers for being out and about on Sunday.

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This isn’t the best photo for it, but just a note that if your business needs to talk to a bank about an interest-free emergency loan, etc., the government has asked banks to remain open during Golden Week for consultation. Not all branches, but some in major cities will be doing so.