16 July 2021 (Friday) – Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of maybe 2): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers

See photo captions for stories.

Photo 01a
No love for yesterday’s Bryan Adams/Tina Turner duet?

Well, here’s something for all you fans of musicals:
I’ve been living to see you
Dying to see you but it shouldn’t be like this
This was unexpected, what do I do now?

Photo 01b
Japan covid-related topics from NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:
– One week till the Olympics start
– Tokyo infection spreading [new daily cases]: 1308
– [One] arriving athlete tests positive
– Kozo has a look around the Olympic venues in a roving report

Photo 02
3418 cases confirmed yesterday
[up vs. 2246 for the same day last week. FYI: 1754 for the same day two weeks ago. And highest since May 29]
[July 16 3418 Solar flare takes out one third of South America.]

47 out of 47 prefectures reported cases yesterday.
[On the positive side, half for those prefectures are reporting single figures.
But surprisingly high numbers vs. size/population in some regional areas such as Ishikawa (21) and Niigata (19)
No new daily prefectural records appear to have been set.

Tokyo was 1308
[up vs. 896 for the same day last week]

Osaka at 324
[vs. 125 for the same day last week]
[highlighted as two days over 300 in the national bulletin]

Joining Tokyo and Osaka in triple figures were Tokyo’s neighbors:
Kanagawa 403 [topping 400 for the first time since Jan 28]
Chiba 253 [first time over 250 since Jan 30]
Saitama 328 [first time over 300 since Jan 30]

The number of positives at immigration testing was 10.

Photo 03
22 deaths confirmed yesterday, for a total of 15033.
[A quick glance suggests that the weekly death total has probably been the lowest since last November]

The total of current active serious cases stands at 396, down 16 on the previous day and dropping below 400 (the first time below 400 since April 02)

Total recorded cases at 831792.

Recovered cases at 792410 (up around 1900 on the previous day).
[Calculator lies there quietly while Simon goes through the motions. How could she have not read the Sines?]
Total active cases are at 24349 (up around 1500 on the previous day).
Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total is 2.92%, rising slightly

Photo 04
Here is the breakdown for Kansai from the regional bulletin.
466 cases for the region
Osaka over 300 for the second straight day
3 deaths reported

Photo 05
Tokyo’s 1309 sees them topping 1000 for the second straight day..
[This is also their 26th straight day of being higher than the corresponding day of the previous week.]

Photo 06
Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba put up hefty numbers, all of which are higher than the corresponding day of the previous week by the amount shown in brackets.
[Just to repeat what I wrote above:
Kanagawa 403 [topping 400 for the first time since Jan 28]
Chiba 253 [first time over 250 since Jan 30]
Saitama 328 [first time over 300 since Jan 30]]

Photo 07
The experts at the Tokyo Monitoring meeting said that if this trend continued, Tokyo would reach about 2406 new daily cases (7-day average) by August 11, higher than the peak of the third wave in January (7-day average).
The highest single day in Tokyo was 2520 on Jan 07.
[Jan 07-09 was somewhat aberrant though, as people were taking tests and getting results after a few days of difficulty doing so over the New Year’s Holiday.]

Photo 08
As of July 14, 79.28% of the over 65s had had their first jab.
52.24% had had their second.

Photo 09
For the entire population (including children who aren’t eligible for vaccination) the totals are 31.59% for first jabs, 19.685 for second jabs.

Photo 10
Kono says that including workplace vaccinations, the current pace nationally is 1.5 million jabs a day…

Photo 11
…and they are on track for their target of fully vaccinating the over 65s by the end of July.
[70% done for second jabs would be enough to reach this target officially, but it seems from the figures in Photo 08 that the uptake among old people is even higher than that.
BTW on last night’s 9pm NHK news, they noted that the uptake among younger people was much lower. In small municipalities such as cities in Kochi, they have pretty much done all their olds, but they have 60% vacancies on their offer of vaccinations to younger generations. The younger the age group, the lower the uptake rate.]

Photo 12
Given the situation with vaccination supply, Kono asked the regions to adjust their pace going forward.
[He apologized for the situation. The chair of the meeting asked the government to provide clear numbers and dates for vaccine supply from now on.]

Photo 13
A somewhat chastened looking Nishimura also joined the meeting to say that the government was discussing the possibility of easing event and eaterie restrictions on an experimental basis for people who have completed their vaccinations or can produce a negative test.

Photo 14
O-Bach-a-san had a conflab with Koike (who was wearing an Olympic patterned scarf): “The risk to the Japanese people is zero.”

Photo 15
“We are all in the same boat,” says man who did three days of quarantine and is driven around Tokyo in road lanes reserved for Olympic VIPs.

Photo 16
“And if we all row in the same direction, we will be able to hold a safe and secure Olympics.”

Photo 17
The organizing committee announced that one athlete who had arrived in Japan had tested positive.

Photo 18
This is the first case of a positive test for an athlete who was on their way to stay at Olympic village accommodation.

Photo 19
The Olympic torch relay happened on an island under Tokyo’s jurisdiction, making it the first time for the torch relay to happen on public roads in Tokyo.
[The road relay is canceled for the Tokyo mainland.]

Photo 20
As mentioned yesterday, the Olympic flame will actually be kept throughout the games at a location that is accessible to the public, but with the organizing committee calling for people to refrain from coming to see it.
However, they have now announced that there will be restrictions in place around it.

[I will remind people that they had a similar situation in Sendai many months ago, and it was chaos.]

Photo 21
However, except for one part of the area, people will be able to enter the area freely.

Photo 22
Local guy who gets it: “If people CAN come and see it, they WILL come and see it. Shouldn’t they shut people out completely?”