05 July 2022, Tuesday — Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers
Day 799 of doing these daily posts continuously.
See photo captions for stories.
Photo 01
Japan covid-related topics in NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:
Covid actually made the headline list and had a little feature today, which is highly unusual for Tuesday as it’s traditionally the lowest figures of any given week and largely ignorable.
Typhoon, KDDI, Ukraine and voting difficulties for people with challenges were the other main topics.
Photo 2a
16808 new cases confirmed
[vs. 9572 for the same day last week, 7800 the same day two weeks ago.]
[Tuesday a.m. (i.e. Monday) figures are traditionally the lowest of the week, but the big jump made today’s numbers noteworthy.]
The week-on-week increase rate for the country as a whole was 1.46 for the 7 days up to July 04 vs the previous 7 days.
47 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
No new records for daily cases today.
Nowhere with five digits
Quadruple figures in 4 prefectures:
Fukuoka, Osaka, Kanagawa and Tokyo [only Tokyo same day last week]
32 prefectures in triple figures [25 prefectures same day last week]
11 prefectures in double figures [21 prefectures same day last week]
Nowhere in single figures
Tokyo on 2772 [vs. 1517 same day last week, quite a bit up]
Osaka on 1150 [vs. 586 same day last week; so Osaka up too]
The number of positives at immigration testing was 17.
[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 62, up 1 vs. the previous day.
14 deaths announced yesterday, for a total of 31345
Total recorded cases at 9421322
Recovered cases at 9180479 (around 14,000 recovered cases up from the previous day)
Total active cases are at 209,498 (up around 3000 vs the previous day).
[For the past few Tuesdays, this number has gone down as discharges have outnumbered new cases (before going back up for the rest of the week), but not today.]
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total of cases is 2.22%.
Photo 03
Tokyo’s 2772 for Monday…
Photo 04
…is over 1200 cases up on the previous day, and the 17 straight day of increases.
[The more significant point is surely that it is 1.8 times up on the same day of last week…]
Photo 05
Prof. Tateda puts this down to the effects of third jabs gradually wearing off…
Photo 06
…and the increasing community spread of BA.5 (which is said to be more infectious – but not necessarily more virulent – [than ordinary omicron]) going forward.
Photo 07
Tateda: With increased opportunities for people to come into contact with each other over the Obon holidays, if the current situation continues, there is a possibility that it could lead to a “7th Wave”
Photo 08
People need to balance heatstroke precautions against infection prevention measures.
If you are feeling hot outside, you shouldn’t feel obliged to keep your mask on all the time.
But if you are inside or with a lot of people, you should wear it.
[Picture’s subliminal message: Women are weak. Men in suit and ties are imperturbable.]
Photo 09
Ventilation is still important: you should aim to ventilate [a few minutes every hour – without letting the room get too hot].
Photo 10
Tateda: “We will have to accept a certain number of infections,…”
Photo 11
“…while taking steps to avoid an explosive increase in infections like we saw in the 6th Wave.”
Photo 12
“It is important for us to take measures to protect old people, people with pre-existing conditions and the immune-compromised.”
Photo 13
“It has become imperative for each person individually to practice ThorPreMe.”
Photo 14
Typhoon lashing Kyushu now with extremely heavy rain on Shikoku also.
[Look out for typhoon, wind, flood and landslide warnings in West Japan before venturing out tomorrow.]
Photo 15
KDDI on the one hand are claiming that “most” of the private and commercial communication and data services are back, but the pres will take a decision on whether to bring the system fully back online THIS EVENING.
[Basically, they still don’t really know what caused this and if they suddenly bring the system fully back online, the surge in people calling and texting etc. could cause the system to fail again, so they are still throttling things for now.]