Japan looks to regions to mount COVID fight as variant spreads

If deaths are on the low side then maybe it doesn't matter?

Seems like Japan is starting to test more thoroughly. What happened to their self touted world best testing criteria of 4 days with fever?

I recall Aso mentioned that the language did not promote spitting and hence the spread of virus was minimal in Japan. Has the Japanese language changed?

@tom doley

Aso is a cretin of the highest order.

Japan is getting punished for being so smug about Coronavirus and lacking any empathy whatsoever for the plights of other nations

In other words, we don't know what else to do and don't want to be responsible for introducing another state of emergency and sink the economy. At least we can blame each prefecture if their ideas don't pan out

High numbers don't mean anything without info on those in critical care without co morbidity factors or the very old and frail. Not sure why they keep trying to frighten people with high infections rates.

Japan should just stop sensationalizing and over-reporting of Covid here and there, and everyone will realize that the earth is actually rotating. Life has to move on with or without Covid. The heck was the point of being vaccinated?

And preventing visitors coming here, that all worked well. 3 jabs, multiple tests, billions lost to the economy.... and Japan is suddenly worst in the world? Good job....

The heck was the point of being vaccinated?

Not sure why they keep trying to frighten people with high infections rates

Mentally stable people don’t get frightened by high infection rates.

The hysterics are coming largely from the anti-mask/vaccination types who think people are as hysterical as they are.

The heck was the point of being vaccinated?

Delirium. Even basic sentence structure has gone to pot.

Japan looks to regions to mount COVID fight as variant spreads

There is nothing productive any of those regions can do at this point. Japan never had a sustainable strategy, and the result is the highest infection rate in the world.

Contrasted with China, which has continually had great success at keeping infection rates and Covid related deaths the lowest in the world, Japan spent the last two years without attempting to figure out a policy to achieve the same, and so we got the banning of tourists, the quarantines, the requests that establishments close up early.

Japan does not report its Covid related deaths the same way as in more transparent countries, like the US, so these numbers we see, although not meaningless, are just a starting point.

What is the amount of daily tests now?

LDP trying to mount the blame on prefectures to save their skins.

Contrasted with China, which has continually had great success at keeping infection rates and Covid related deaths the lowest in the world

You yourself have proved this is completely false, not only other countries have lower death rates, if you adjust the reported numbers to the same way China do (eliminating the 90 to 95% that had any other disease) two other dozens countries are doing better than China. This is the reason no international expert recommends the zero covid policy now, and it has been heavily criticized as counterproductive and unsustainable.

Japan can do better than right now, but it can do also much worse, causing extra deaths because of ruined livehoods and interrupting access to hospitals, destroying the local economies and trampling on human rights just so it could hide the vast majority of the deaths as your example is precisely one way to do worse.

Other than Italy I can’t recall any countries having any empathy for one another. And although Japan has been a bit arrogant occasionally, the deaths per capita stats do show that they fared better than almost all countries in the world while also having no strict lockdowns.

I can’t think of another country besides Japan that I would’ve chosen to ride through this Covid madness.

Japan is encouraging regional authorities to take their own counter-measures against the spread of a new coronavirus variant that has sent cases surging to record levels but there is no plan for any sweeping national measures.

"take their own counter-measures"

The slow and steady admission every single counter measure taken has been absolutely useless continues.

Remember all those people who screamed for more masking?

They are sooooo quiet now...

Good luck with that plan.

Now is the time for the central government to step up to the plate, instead of passing the buck. Who's sailing this ship of fools?

People quit saying living and dying is all that matters 1 in five people get long Covid. Long Covid can lead to disability. This is real stay safe and take long Covid into your risk assessment.

Search for covid-19後遺症 in YouTube you’ll see tons of news videos of people complaining of their long Covid symptoms

Dear god the national government is asking regional governments to step up, this is not going to end well.

The slow and steady admission every single counter measure taken has been absolutely useless continues.

No such thing in fact this would be the opposite, precisely because measures are effective is why they should be enacted according to the local possibilities.

Yup, it seems like: Well, we give up, you guys got any ideas ?

I honestly don’t know why Japan does not team with the US military in Japan to assist with combating Covid. I understand there is a lot of red tape but I’m sure they can make it work. It would be a win win for the forces stationed in Japan it seems.

Wilkins KingToday  07:05 pm JST

Now is the time for the central government to step up to the plate, instead of passing the buck. Who's sailing this ship of fools?

Well put.

WA4TKGToday  07:47 pm JST

Yup, it seems like: Well, we give up, you guys got any ideas ?

Nice one.

Brian William MeissnerToday  07:36 pm JST

Dear god the national government is asking regional governments to step up, this is not going to end well.

I wonder if the central government can see the same humor in this that we see.

No such thing in fact this would be the opposite, precisely because measures are effective is why they should be enacted according to the local possibilities.

Wrong--you have it backwards. This is the country with the highest number of infections in the world.

Blame shifting - a national pastime.

Wrong--you have it backwards. This is the country with the highest number of infections in the world.

At a point where measures have been relaxed and other priorities taken over, the article is precisely about an effort to put the measures in place again. As the article clearly points out the risks from the infection have been greatly reduced from previous waves, which is also something that happens thanks to measures like the effective vaccination that protects specially the vulnerable population.

There goes my thought of a trip to Japan this winter!

Japan looks to regions to mount COVID fight as variant spreads

The Japanese government and many citizens have painted themselves into an intellectual corner and cannot cognitively accept that it is now endemic and adjust their world view to reality without some sort of mental break.

I hope the people have realized that they will have to live with it. Every country that put up draconian restrictions on travel and business has had to reverse their stance. I do hope that they use this opportunity to destress central Tokyo and re-distribute a lot of the clerical work to the country side.

J Gov: Great idea guys. Pass the buck to regional authorities. Whatever that is.

J Gov toadies: Yeah, great idea. Next item on agenda.

The number of infected people hospitalized with severe symptoms in Tokyo is 26, down one from Thursday, health officials said. The nationwide figure is 376, up 30 from Thursday.

376 people are having it rough in the hospitals.... 376 on a population of 125-ish million.

Baffling...

In America this is known as “passing the buck”. Here it’d be “円を渡す”

Remember everyone there are many people that should be in the hospital that are being made to recover at home. I don’t trust the reported hospitalizations.

Remember all those people who screamed for more masking?

They are sooooo quiet now...

No we’re not. We’re right here ready to take you anti-maskers, anti-VAXers Anti-science people on

If deaths are on the low side then maybe it doesn't matter?

Yeah, or as someone posted on another thread recently, we could look at this latest wave as a mass vax campaign.

Yeah, or as someone posted on another thread recently, we could look at this latest wave as a mass vax campaign.

For that you would have to be extremely lax about the safety and efficacy of the "natural vaccine" because omicron is very poor in both things.

A vaccine that requires people to run the full risks, and that comes with increasing number of reinfections is much worse than the available vaccines.

A vaccine that requires people to run the full risks, and that comes with increasing number of reinfections is much worse than the available vaccines.

Reinvention are possible, but the protection is better and much longer lasting than the mRNA ones, which only offer a couple of months of protection and after which the protection is negative!

If treated early, a natural infection is not more dangerous than a mRNA vax, especially for the young.

Reinvention are possible, but the protection is better and much longer lasting than the mRNA ones,

No, it is not, first of all because it comes with the full risks that you are supposed to be protecting for, which makes no sense, second because new variants of omicron have easily sidestepped the immunity from previous variants even when not even that much time has passed between them.

only offer a couple of months of protection and after which the protection is negative!

That is completely false, just a complete misrepresentation of a scientific paper (very obviously because the authors of the paper actually end their report recommending the vaccines and boosters)

If treated early, a natural infection is not more dangerous than a mRNA vax, especially for the young.

Yes it is, by several orders of magnitude, not only complicates more frequently it also causes more dangerous problems and can even kill.

 because new variants of omicron have easily sidestepped the immunity from previous variants even when not even that much time has passed between them.

Not as easily as they sidestep the "immunity" of the vax.

Second, natural infection actually reduces the spread. The vax just decreases the chances of severe symptoms, for a couple of months, afterwards it actually increases the chances. That is what the data says, I am not making this up.

So if you want to be protected from severe symptoms from this mild virus, you have to get the vax every couple of months, each time with the significant risk of severe adverse effects.

If you get an infection, with this mild virus, you are protected for at least a year not just from severe symptoms but also from actual infection; not 100% but much more so than by the vax.