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© KYODOJapan bars entry of foreign travelers from China's Hubei Province
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Akie
Abe doesn't know what he is doing, as simple as that.
kurisupisu
But a potentially infected Japanese from Wuhan can return and give an interview to numerous reporters in Japan.
Well, that makes sense,right?
sakurala
Seems like the precautions are too late. Hopefully the virus can be contain and people with it prevented from spreading it, but it seems like we should be prepared to hear about the cases increasing over the next couple of weeks. lets hope common sense prevails and those who may have been infected quarantine themselves properly and get the correct treatment.
oldman_13
Terrible response by Japan.
But let's face it had Japan been very draconian from the start and prohibited foreigners from Hubei to enter Japan, they'd be accused of being unnecessarily xenophobic.
But again this coronavirus is all hype. Influenza is far worse. Most people recover from the coronavirus like a common cold. Infection rates are slowing and it hasn't spread outside of China as bad as people thought it would.
sensei258
Now that we have all of our Japanese compatriots home, let's start being careful about spreading the virus. But that's a little too late, after you already transported hundreds of people from the center of the Contagion into downtown Tokyo. Might as well inject everybody with the live virus and get it over with. Time to start practicing your bow and apology.
Sebaschan
ehhh, so what about foreign residents ?
No mentioning of us. So when I leave Japan for business travel (not china) and I cough during immigration when returning ... I will be declined entry and then what?
I hope its just the lack of reporting the details.
sensei258
Even though this virus is obviously very contagious, and will make you sick, statistically it's not that deadly. Even though the numbers of infections and deaths are increasing, the fatality rate remains about 2%. And a number of those are old, or have compromised immune systems.
sensei258
That means that approximately 98% of people who get sick will recover
Tokyo-Engr
@Sensei - it is a good observation and it is possible the mortality rate is even less than 2% as there are likely many cases which have not been diagnosed due to the non availability of diagnostic kits in China (not enough) and those that are sick but just ride it out at home. My guess is the mortality rate is lower.
On the other hand there are many questions (viable questions) about the death count being reported by China...
Very good information will be available from monitoring those who were repatriated to Japan on the 3 airplanes. We know there were infections on the first one and it would be interesting to see how many become infected and that would give a good indication about how infectious this really is
JonathanJo
At 2% it is 200 times more deadly than seasonal flu, at 0.01%. Still not worried?
otherworldly
You have no idea what you are talking about. There is a reason special Hospitals are being built and the World Health Organization have stepped in. This could easily spiral out of control if not handled effectively.
Vince Black
Fantastic ! About time
MarkX
So the two men who at first refused to be tested agreed to the tests on Thursday, but still no information whether they were negative or positive. You'd think the government would like to get that information out quickly to dispel more fear. We will wait and see if they ever tell us the truth.
kurisupisu
If anyone has news of a vaccine for the NCov virus then please share the link.
In Japan, I can think of three different remedies for the flu, in addition to there being a preventative vaccine.
For the Corona Virus?
Henny Penny
Abe doesn't know what he is doing, as simple as that.
Indeed. Japan would be the envy of the entire world if it was run by the people who post comments here.
GW
One would think that after SARS that countries would have contingency plans made up for the next outbreak...…
But TIJ & here they wing it!!! ………….. and badly at that!
Meiyouwenti
I’m appalled by the Japanese government’s lack of determination to protect its citizens. The virus is spreading around China. Abe should bar entry to all those who have Chinese passports as well as those who have stayed in China in the last two weeks, not just Huber Province.
Fighto!
@ Meiyouwenti - agreed. The Trump administration has wisely done just that, banning ALL foreigners coming from all parts of China, starting tomorrow. The Japan government will likely do the same in coming days.
Do the hustle
Yeah, and what about the human rights of those who have not been to China or have not been infected? They have the right to be protected by their government and not wait and watch a very passive response to a very aggressive problem.
Aly Rustom
the gov isn't shouldering ANYTHING. we are. We are literally paying to get infected by this disease. You can't make this stuff up.
rgcivilian1
All I can add is that by seeing the faces on the GOJ this morning, they looked extremely worried and holding back other information they have. Just Monday the count was 5 known, now today it is has risen to 17 and climbing. While the GOJ moved in the right steps, the information available was already out there as to the severity of this virus yet Japan was too late and now it seems Abe and his henchmen are more protecting their own positions come election time. Again why are they not greeting or meeting the people directly as is customary in such case? What are they hiding from us?
mariasjapan
The virus has spread all China regions. Not only from Hubei but all inbound and outbound flights would be wiser.
Aly Rustom
why only foreigners? Does this idiot PM think that Japanese people will not get infected if they have been there?
So this idiot thinks that mandatory testing and quarantine when there is a valid danger of an infectious disease is against human rights?
Bart Fargo
I read the headline three times before it actually made sense to me.
didou
Why so many critics of the J government .
Other countries do not do better or worst. Many countries do not have the capabilities to help their citizens abroad, and let them stranded when abroad. Japan was the first country to actually pull away some of its citizens.
French evacuated from Wuhan were also put in a hotel like Japan did, but only the one with symptoms were going to hospital and get tested. Japan did check all the returnees, like The US and discovered some have the virus without showing any symptoms, which is of a concern as transmission can occur. Not many countries can put their citizens on an isolated island or army base. Actually, I think actually Japan should have chosen a JSDF base,
I am not a supporter of the J govt but it acts as a responsible one, a democratic one in that case.
At that time, only 3 cases of transmission within Japan, and traced. When someone absolutely not related with Chinese tourists or known infected persons in Japan will be positive, and that has not been the case now, it will be time to be worried.
China did wait before releasing information publicly and though China did take strong measures, I know believe they did it when they realized too many people got sick and the situation was starting to be out of control. The stats do show only 40 infected by mid January but first cases appeared in December and are certainly not part of the stats.
dk9000
Ehmm. You could have given it just the slightest thought beforehand and made accepting quarantine and testing a requisite of taking the flight home you muppet. Simply have them sign a contract for accepting the service you provide. Human rights have nothing to do with it.
Seriously, if a government had responded with such incompetence in any other modern liberal democracy, I'd like to think that the media, politicians, and the populace would be all over it. What's the response in Japan? Is there any serious criticism in the mainstream Japanese media?
PS. For those saying the casualty rate is 'only' 2%; keep in mind that you can't just compare current # of infections to deaths in a rapidly developing situation like this, since it takes time to die. Probably more accurate would be to take the number of infections from some time ago, say a few days or a week, and compare that to current deaths. In that case, the casualty rate is starting to look a lot scarier (around 10%).
The good thing is that reported deaths outside of China still seem minimal, but unfortunately so are reported recoveries.
Regardless, this is still a an extremely unclear situation where you don't want to take any unnecessary risks and apply the precautionary principle at all times. Think about upsides and downsides; what's the upside of flying in everyone without requiring testing/quarantine? A small convenience for a small number of people. What's the potential downside? Widespread infection for the entire country. Those are the kind of situations you want to avoid at all costs, but that's exactly what we're seeing in Japan. "Extremely regrettable" indeed.
Concerned Citizen
I'd hate to be a government official who had to decide what to do about this. It's a very tricky situation.
Anyway, I hope and pray they'll act wisely, both here and in China, to contain the spread.
Do the hustle
Completely incorrect! Japan was not the first country to remove its citizens. Furthermore, they still have not set up adequate quarantine and screening stations to control this virus. The fact that twenty odd people have already contracted this virus and a few of them caught it in Japan proves they are not doing enough. Australia was one of the first countries to pull its citizens out of Huwan at no expense to them and set up an offshore quarantine station. Australia is one of the highest risk countries due to the large amount of Chinese flying in and out if the country. However, there is only one confirmed case on mainland Australia. And, that person is expected to make a full recovery after being adequately quarantined and treated. Japan is doing bugger all by comparison.
rgcivilian1
@ Actually, I think actually Japan should have chosen a JSDF base, I am not a supporter of the J govt but it acts as a responsible one, a democratic one in that case.
Perhaps you should be in the DIET, not a bad idea and taken a page out of the US.
Responsible, better late than never, not quite comforting to those of us trying our best to take as much precautions possible given the quick rise in new case exposures, where it is an emergency severe pandemic. No the GOJ had the information but chose wrong and now trying to cover up themselves and how to win election. No conspiracy theory there just historical proof by their actions in the past. For now Abe and his crew they be a rolling, patrolling trying to catch us ridin dirty..but one last tidbit, those who have the flu shot, err wrong your not immune..not to coronavirus that is..
Akie
Two wrongs don't make it right, but worse. Instead of send in teams to fight the virus with Chinese people and learn experiences to handle emergency situation, in preparing for the Olympics, Abe govt cowardly isolates Japan from the world. Yes, between Japanese and humanity, Abe has to choose Japanese, it doesn't make him patriot. The missed opportunity to learn, to be passionate, is missed opportunity to be great.
Viki Kovilakath
From SCMP - around 9000 people from Wuhan landed at Narita Airport between December 30 and January 21 before the lockdown . Tokyo is compromised already.
Kazuaki Shimazaki
@Do the hustle Today 10:55 am JST
That probably means Australia is luckier, or its population density is less, or it is warmer (it's summer right in Australia IIRC) and so people are fighting off this coronavirus without even getting symptomatic.
In terms of results, the only real "downside" of Japan's plan is that TWO people have walked about. Given the timeline, even if they were infected AND did infect someone, there is no time (yet) for it to show up on the statistics of sick people.
dk9000Today 10:26 am JST
Oh, the power of euphemisms. As soon as the word "quarantine" is used, people can actually forget that what is really happening is a deprivation of liberty. It's for a different reason, but the deprivation is there.
As for the contract idea, you can either say it is permissible or impermissible to deprive people of liberty (for weeks) using contracts. If you say it is permissible, all 100 million plus residents of Japan will have to live with today's choice, long after this coronavirus has receded.
dk9000
@Shimazaki-san
Thank you for your input, but I think your interpretation of the situation is far from correct. By 'service' I was referring to the airplane transportation service. Testing could very simply have been made a requirement for boarding that plane. If people don't want to get tested, they can choose not to board the plane. The liberty to decide to board the plane or not is always maintained, of course.
As for your other point, I'm not even really sure what you're saying the problem is. This does not apply to all 100 million plus residents of Japan. Only to those in the midst of a foreign high-risk virus exposure zone who were given the option of flying back.
showchinmono
Which country was the first? If it matters to you, it was Japan. The 1st flight had returned already on 29th of Jan 8:44am, the day Australia just announced their plan to quarantine evacuees in Christmas island
https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-christmas-island-quarantine-australia-2020-1
You mentioned....* *Australia is one of the highest risk countries due to the large amount of Chinese flying in and out
*So is Japan, and more or less the same for the other countries. So Australia and US and all others* must have compulsorily quarantined all Chinese and others who entered the country directly/indirectly from Huwan since the beginning of the year, or at least during last 2 weeks too.
dk9000
Funnily enough, a recent article on the situation describes a 'public outcry' to the government's handling, and then proceeds to refer to two twitter posts and the comments on Japan Today as prime examples. Are we really the best available example of criticism? Democracies need independent and critical media to speak out on cases like this, so I hope that the article simply overlooked all Japanese-language news.
source: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3048384/japan-bans-coronavirus-infected-after-outcry-over-lax
rgcivilian1
Leaps forward for the GOJ, but last week during their weekly meeting when the rest of the world was already aware of the potential impact, they GOJ was too busy with the "cherry blossom" funding issues instead of this more serious crisis that was heading our way. Guess everyone forgot about that.
Kazuaki Shimazaki
@dk9000 Today 12:40 pm JST
First, they were examined on board the plane. There's no problem there. The problem is more detailed examination with all the instrumentation post-flight, complete with quarantine while all that gets sorted out.
OK, take this scenario. You are in need of rescue. I, a private citizen, offer to rescue you, but I get to make you my slave. I saw you don't want to meet my condition you can just refuse my offer, so you have "liberty". In desperation you accept my offer. Should this contract be valid and enforceable in private (contractual) law?
There are two obvious objections. First, the strongly disadvantageous nature of your obligation. Second, that the strong pressures of this situation means any reasonable person would be either a fool or malicious to pretend your consent was genuine.
From this we can tell that the obligation you can set in a private law agreement is and should be subject to restrictions, and second the need to protect people from being bound by "contracts" they made under obvious pressure.
Your proposed contract itself is local. The changes to law needed to make it "legal" is global.
@dk9000 Today 01:02 pm JST
The major media seems to be at least understanding, or even supportive, of the stance by the government. If anything, Asahi putting emphasis on reporting the downsides of the compulsory measures taken in Australia and France. Like it or not, the haters here don't seem to represent Japanese thought and priorities - they exist, but they aren't the mainstream.
Akie
Kazuaki Shimazaki, would you please tell us what will Japan do if China impose the same ban someday when Japan is in trouble ?
Can anyone in Japan escape without Chinese help ?
Fate is fate, as simple as that.
Sh1mon M4sada
Do you honestly think Xi would even allow anyone in without 'minders'?
It has been extremely difficult to extract people out of Hubei, because the CCP is worried about information leaking out that it can't control.
Akie
Sh1mon M4sada, what worry ? The total of infected people are less than 10,000, out of 1.6,000,000,000. Give me arithmetics that would bother the world !
Sh1mon M4sada
Is arithmetics appropriate for logarithmic data sets?
Akie
Honestly speaking, it is more safe for Japanese to stay in China, as simple as that.
Sh1mon M4sada
Thanks for your honesty mate. I guess that's why the first batch of US and Japanese evacuees were so dishonestly elated.
The lying 8 doctors who discovered this virus in Huwan and punished by the CCP are also very lucky they got to have got the chance to write an expression of regret too.
Thank you so much comrade, oops, mmparamountisspoke, thatcshoukd be paramount leader Xi.
Akie
zichi, there is already a cure in China, sanitization.
Akie
zichi, you don't need vaccine if you have perfect immune system.
sumikonagoya
zichi, there is already a cure in China, sanitization.
In other words, there is no cure in China, since there no sanitization
Silvafan
@sensei
But now it is the Japanese style coronavirus, so it will be considered ok.
What if those Chinese tourist companies simply change the travel embarkation information, or people travel outside Hubei by car or train then take flight to Japan. Finally, what if the Chinese government simply participates by not documenting where these travelers originally came from.
People from the US have been traveling to Cuba for years by getting around the visa stamps and flight schedules.
Faulty Japanese logic!
WHO says prepare for local outbreaks; China slams US control
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-reports-259-people-died-010409377.html
The US is barring entry to most foreigners who visited China in the past two weeks.
unkopower
One thing Tokyo should do is start doing is using the coin change dish again at the cash register. I don't know if it's a 'get ready for Olympics omotenashi' thing but there seems to be a trend to NOT use the coin change dish and give you change by hand and seems they try to touch hands as an extra show of politeness.
Silvafan
Nonsense! There is no such thing. Are you referring to Japanese uniqueness again?
didou
@Do the hustleToday
As of this morning, 1 February 2020, 9 cases of 2019-nCoV have been confirmed in Australia: 2 in Queensland, 3 in Victoria, and 4 in New South Wales.
The bus driver infected here within Japan was infected around the 12-14th. At that time, coronavirus was not an international topic yet and all countries were doing anything whatever Australia or Japan. Situtation drastically changed when Wuhan was put on quarantine on the 23rd. Countries did start to move and check from that point. Tourists arriving from Hubei before that date are potentially infected, and that is what happen here for the first human transmission.
So this makes non sense as everything known now is the result of infection before the 23rd. The third woman infected here, a case announced yesterday, had a cold since the 20th and was in close contact with the bus driver. It could be much more cases for sure. All cases are people coming back from Wuhan. No spreading yet within Japan or any other countries except China. Here, 17 cases in total for 128 million people. Do the math.
I keep personnaly well inform and stay on alert.
didou
@rgcivilian1
Quick rise in new case exposures ?
Officialy here 17 cases in 8 days in Japan, for a population of 128 million. that is not what I would qualify as a pandemic. Only China is critical at that time.
I have not changed any habit, expect washing more my hands. Many are overeacting all over the world. If anything is done, it will be a world pandemic, and that is what government have realised and they are now taking. It was a fuss in 2009 with the H1N1 flu, but now it is just a normal virus nobody among common people do care. This coronavirus could be the same, or worst, we do not know yet so no need to overreact. At least, I do not
JCosplay
@sakurala very well put. Only one thing though, about the precautions being “too late”. As someone else had already sent the comments, if they would have acted any faster, they will be accused of being xenophobic. Not to mention probably being accused of being paranoid, as well as jumping the gun.
They wanted/needed to make absolutely sure that this was the type of virus that they thought that it was. Because you can just imagine the massive blowback that they would get, if they got it wrong.
Bububu4
I think it was the right thing to bring back the Japanese citizens who were trapped in Wuhan. However, the fact that 2 of them were able to walk away without even having been tested for the virus is completely unacceptable. How many unsuspecting people came into contact with these two during the time that they were outside of the quarantine? It’s a disgraceful situation that should have never been allowed to occur.
Asking someone who has been exposed to dangerous virus to take a simple health test and stay at a hotel for two weeks to qualify for a taxpayer funded recuse from a quarantine zone is a far from trying to make them a slave. What a ridiculous comment.
quercetum
You have more important things on the agenda to worry about than what other countries are doing.
dk9000
Interesting study that appeared in the Lancet yesterday, one of the foremost scientific medical journals:
Followed by:
If this is anywhere near accurate, then you can certainly add Tokyo to the list of large cities overseas with close transport links to China that could become outbreak epicenters.
Asymptomatic transmission has also been confirmed in multiple cases, and incubation times can be up to 14 days. If travel from major cities in China proceeds unhindered, I find it therefore hard to imagine a scenario in which Tokyo does not become a major outbreak center.
Given the upcoming olympics and the disaster that a potential cancellation would entail, now is the time to follow in the wake of the USA, Australia, and Singapore and temporarily bar all foreigners who have recently visited China. It sucks, but it may well be the only public health intervention that could prevent this from spreading in Japan.
source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30260-9/fulltext
theFu
Permanent residents must be allowed back. Period. That applies regardless of what country is on their passport.
If they've been in any high-risk area of the world during the infectious time period, then they need to agree to govt mandated quarantine and testing.
Travelers who have been from any high-risk area, should only be allowed to travel to their country of permanent residence.
Doing these things should reduce the areas with active cases, constantly shrink the high-risk areas, until 3 weeks from now, only people in hospitals and quarantines are left with concerns.
As Barney says, "Nip it in the bud."
Henny Penny
Duh…
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/evacuated-aussies-to-go-to-christmas-island-for-quarantine/news-story/a16c6a55b31bdf6cccbdb029f7816b2c
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australians-will-need-to-pay-1000-to-be-evacuated-from-wuhan-20200130-p53w71.html
Was this fake news? Has Australian policy been changed since it was first announced?
Have Australians actually been evacuated? I think that if you check, Japan was actually among the first, not Australia.
Looks to me like some people are doing bugger all when it comes to reading about what other governments are doing in terms of evacuation and even less when it comes to fact checking.
Dirk T
Xi Jinping was seen in a crowded marketplace early on saying "All is well." He has since disappeared and is probably in an "undisclosed location." He is taking it seriously now.
International borders will continue to be closed to the Chinese. Some may worry about the Chinese & global economic impact of that but what would Japan or America look like if 10s of millions of workers couldn't go to work for weeks at a time?