02 June 2022

02 June 2022, Thursday — Coronavirus Digest from Japanese Morning TV News Part 1 (of 1): Headlines and (yesterday’s) numbers

Day 766 of doing these daily posts continuously.

See photo captions for stories.

Photo 01

Japan covid-related topics in NHK’s 7am news bulletin today:

The main one from today’s news was 7 people arrested at the regional tax office for defrauding a couple of million yollars in covid support money through a series of fake claims.

The tourism story taken from last night’s 9pm news.

The numbers had to be taken from the website.

[If it had been a slower news day, I would have touched on the “School Club Activities” story which was not covid related but interesting.]

Photo 2a

[From the NHK News website]

22768 new cases confirmed

[vs. 35190 for the same day last week. 42161 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 7 prefectures:

Okinawa, Fukuoka, Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Tokyo and Hokkaido.

35 prefectures in triple figures

5 prefectures in double figures

Tokyo on 2415 [vs. 3929 same day last week]

Osaka on 1977 [vs. 2927 same day last week]

[Tokyo has been down vs. same day previous week for 19 straight days now]

The number of positives at immigration testing was 107

[This number is about to lose its meaning, as border testing will be relaxed from yesterday even as double the number of people are being allowed into the country]

Photo 02b

[From the NHK News website]

The total of current active serious cases stands at 95, up 2 from the previous day.

36 deaths announced yesterday, for a total of 30672

Total recorded cases at 8877216

Recovered cases at 8562667 (around 31,000 recovered cases from the previous day)

Total active cases are at 283,877 (down around 9000 vs the previous day).

Percentage of active cases as a percentage of the grand total of cases is 3.19%.

Photo 03

7 people at the Tokyo Regional Tax Bureau have been arrested.

Photo 04

They set up a Line group and instructed mainly university students to illegally apply for covid relief subsidies.

Photo 05

It is suspected that they invested the subsidies they got into crypto.

Photo 06

Some of the suspects under investigation have admitted that they got around 200 people to file false claims.

Photo 07

The police are proceeding with their investigation with the suspicion that up until now they received a total of around 2 million yollars in fraudulent payments.

Photo 08

[9pm news now and mainly about immigration and tourism stuff]

Worldwide we have gone from a peak of 4 million cases a day in mid-January to 650,000 cases a day on May 31.

Photo 09

On June 01, Tokyo had 22768 new cases, which is 12422 cases down on the same day of the previous week.

Photo 10

Tokyo med prof attributes the current decline in cases to:

High vaccination rates in “advanced nations”
Due to high infection numbers in the population, the number of people with acquired immunity has grown large.
Seasonal reasons

Photo 11

[So yesterday saw Japan increase the cap on entrants to Japan from 10k a day to 20k a day (this includes Japanese people btw, and in fact that interviewed a couple of Japanese coming back from Thailand who were happy to be able to just waltz through the airport.)]

As we have said, Japan has divided countries into risk groups.

98 countries including the US, the UK, China and South Korea are exempted from border testing and quarantine regardless of their vaccination status.

99 countries in the second group are exempted from border testing and quarantine if they are tripled jabbed.

Group 3 consists of only four countries, Albania, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Fiji, and they have to be tested and do quarantine regardless of their vaccination status.

Photo 12

From June 10, foreign tourism will resume from countries in Group 1, limited to guided tours.

Photo 13

Inquiries from overseas travel companies have been pouring in at this Japan travel agency.

Photo 14

The Japanese company is designing tours that can be done amid covid, using outdoor activities and glamping.

Photo 15

Tours have to be entirely supervised, so free time at tourist spots has been eliminated, and meals arranged for all days.

Photo 16

NHK interviewed the woman who accompanied 4 people from Hawaii on their guided tour in Japan.

Photo 17

“[Of course, I have to do my job as a tour guide, but] I also have to look to see whether the group is following the infection prevention rules properly…”

Photo 18

“…and I have to tell off anybody who isn’t doing so.”

Photo 19

She said having clear official guidelines from the government [expected on June 07] will be key.

Photo 20

[She needs to be confident that what she is saying is the correct rules/instructions for the group.] “If one of the tour participants says ‘that’s different from what the other interpreter guide said,’ then trust is lost.”