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Okinawa reports 623 new coronavirus cases; 390 in Tokyo

73 Comments

The Okinawan prefectural government on Wednesday reported 623 new coronavirus cases, the highest number in the island prefecture since Aug 28 last year, and more than double Tuesday's number.

The prefecture has seen an explosive rise in cases due to the Omicron variant, health officials said. Up until Dec 20, the prefecture was reporting less than 10 new cases a day.

Local media reported that Okinawa Gov Denny Tamaki is preparing to ask the central government in Tokyo to declare a quasi state of emergency for the prefecture ahead of the three-day weekend which includes Coming-of-Age Day on Monday.

Under the measures, which would last until Jan 31, restaurants and bars will be asked not to serve alcohol and close at 8 p.m.

In Tokyo, the number of reported infections was 390, more than double Tuesday's 151, and 314 more than last Wednesday.

The number of infected people hospitalized with severe symptoms in Tokyo is three, one more than Tuesday, health officials said. The nationwide figure is 60, up six from Tuesday.

Nationwide, the number of reported cases was 2,491. After Okinawa and Tokyo, the prefectures with the most cases were Osaka (244), Hiroshima (138), Yamaguchi (104), Kanagawa (93), Kyoto (92), Saitama (82), Aichi (73), Chiba (69), Hyogo (59), Shiga (54), Nara (54), Fukuoka (46), Gifu (40) and Hokkaido (34).

One coronavirus-related death was reported nationwide.

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

73 Comments

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I just hope the poor restaurant owners don't have to suffer through another wave of poor government decisions.

24 ( +27 / -3 )

Seriously guys, how you can survive other and other waves. My salary has been cut by half since the last SOE, and now another SOE is around the corner which means I will probably lose my job.

18 ( +25 / -7 )

Must be time to close the bars and so forth early. I wonder if omicron is time sensitive like delta to only spread in the evenings. Lucky testing is so restricted and they don’t do mass testing as who know how many cases they would find then.

15 ( +32 / -17 )

Pretty sure the only way to overcome this new wave is another 10man giveaway. Am I right?

12 ( +14 / -2 )

Zoroto-san, "They haven't learnt anything from last year's failures." Unfortunately the Japanese government doesn't learn. Not from last year's failures, not from anything.

They don't need to learn. They know ALL about it.

NOT!

11 ( +29 / -18 )

Larr Flint, you're spot on. There's no end in sight for this BS. One variant after another, after another, after another, after another...

People who work via computers have minimal fallout from countless lockdowns, state of emergencies but I'd say the majority of people can't get on with this continual state of living. It's. Just. Not. Sustainable.

That's why we just need to get on with it all. Enough is enough. You get it, you get it. You recover, or you don't. As we do with the common cold, flu, etc.

9 ( +19 / -10 )

Kishida has already proven to be an extreme reactionist.

He's worse than that. He hastily shut the border and opened it again. Cancelled the flight booking and opened it again. He's way worse than Suga.

7 ( +15 / -8 )

The reason why this virus is not going away is because idiots do not learn.

Learn what precisely?

6 ( +14 / -8 )

I like how the government is pretending it's shocked by the fact that after Shogatsu, where it implement ZERO new safety measures against Covid and of course never bothered to enforce whatever it had had until now, cases are going up exponentially. Of course, it's ALL due to American troops! And what was funniest about that was hearing the media say things like, "If they get it and stay on the bases and don't go out, fine, but they go shopping, to bars, and they spread it around," and yet they are the same people who had no comment or even stood up for the government allowing Japanese on flights with positive cases to "go shopping, to bars, and they spread it around" with no comment on it whatsoever .

6 ( +13 / -7 )

This is the 3rd or 4th wave, there are going to be many more.......

If everyone just decides what their own personal safety measures they need to take are, and follows reasonable logical steps to stay as safe as possible without any anxiety, then we'll all ride this and future waves out before too long, whilst Never forgetting who the perpetrators of this devastating global plague are, the evil CCP, whose deafening silence of regret and apology continue to confound the rest of the world.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

In Tokyo, “the Omicron variant accounted for 17 of the cases, with all those infected asymptomatic or exhibiting only mild symptoms.” — Included in the Kyodo News report about the increase

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Okinawa has the worst vaccination rate in all of Japan, with only about 62% of the people fully vaccinated.

Next, while initially some of the infections may have come from the military, the overwhelming majority are not, and if anyone looks at the map of Okinawa, behind Denny, you will see the areas in red are the majority of the new cases are popping up, AND most are no where near any base.

The one on the left is from December 28th(?) and the right, from January 4th, the left one, in the "yellow" area on the December 28th map contain Camp Hansen and Camp Schwab, where there were cases that were tied to the military, the one on the right, and all that red..... no bases nearby or bases where there havent been major outbreaks.

Things are moving quickly and according to the prefecture they COULD rise to over 1,000 per day within the week, and Okinawa could very well go back to the "State of Emergency" within the next couple of weeks.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

Omicron is far too easily transmitted and is not going to be stopped by a clock. If there are symptoms, it's like a 3-day cold with a scratchy throat and fatigue for people with normal immunity. For others on chemo, with diabetes or other diseases, it can of be serious. Those would be the tiny percent of people needing hospitalization.

The bad thing in the US is that people overreact and panic. ER's are overwhelmed with people who need to be told to take couple of aspirin and go to bed for a day, but instead think they're going to die from a scratchy throat.

The good thing is that omicron stays in the upper respiratory tract, so no breathing problems. Burning through omicron quickly very likely bring this to an end.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

The reason why this virus is not going away is because idiots do not learn.

That it's an airborne virus. Any air filtration or air exchange will suck it out of indoor air, but hand sanitation does exactly nothing to it. Hand sanitation is still good for some other infections.

I think Shinkansen has airplane-quality air exchange/filtration though?

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Welcome Omicron! It was only a matter of time.

Honestly, this variant may be our way out of this from what’s been discovered so far. Delta will likely be quashed by the omicron variant.

4 ( +10 / -6 )

Like the rest of Japan, Okinawa should have made good use of the times with super low infections and start buildimng up hospital places. They didn't do it and now we have this mess. the same is seen all over Japan. Covid will never go away and waves will come periodically, Japan is very well vaccibated and did a good job there but man man how they've wasted the good times..... Japanese politicians alwasy plan with best case scenario in mind, tha Japan, Okinawa should have made good use of the times with super low infections

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Any mathematicians can extrapolate the approx number of fully vaccinated people getting infected?

You're trolling right? Vaccines help prevent against hospitalization and death. Even with omicron.*

Whether vaccinated people are still getting a runny nose or not is entirely irrelevant. Vaccines = good.

*https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270?query=featured_coronavirus

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Knowing that the Omicron variant gives none or mild symptoms and knowing the japanese testing strategy, we can assume the number of infected persons is a hundred times more.

3 ( +10 / -7 )

If both vaccinated and non-vaccinated can transmit the virus than both must follow the same rules.

once again for the ignorant , unvaxxed are most likely to end up in hospital and ICU , by a factor of about 10, meaning medical resources are being used for covid patients, when they should be used for life saving surgeries like heart , liver, kidney , car accidents etc. My mother inlaw had this exact same problem in July 2020

why should vaxxed individuals be treated the same as unvaxxed when theyve done their part to reduce their chances of hospitalization and death, you know helping society get through this pandemic with minimal suffering.

Japan should go the way of Singapore, unvaxxed individuals that end up in ICU should have to pay for their own hospital fees

3 ( +17 / -14 )

1000 new cases per day in Tokyo by Saturday?

3 ( +10 / -7 )

That's right. They changed the definition.

That is disinformation, vaccines have always been used against the disease, not the infection. That happens with Polio, with Measles, with Rabies, etc. etc. only antivaxxer propaganda says vaccines were supposed to prevent infection, even when the scientific consensus explicitly contradcits this.

And according to Pfizer, more people died in the vaccinated group than in the placebo group before the placebo group was abruptly discontinued after only 2 months.

Discontinued because it was demonstrated the protection from the vaccines was already clear enough to make it unethical to refuse it for the members of the control group, exactly as they were told it would do in the informed consent because this was expected and part of the details required by the ethical approval of the clinical trial.

Mischaracterizing something pre-accorded as if it was something unexpected or negative is disinformation.

3 ( +11 / -8 )

These numbers simply are the product of more testing. The press love these eye popping numbers, but I'd venture that the vast majority are asymptomatic and require no hospitalization. Let's wait a week and see.

2 ( +14 / -12 )

If both vaccinated and non-vaccinated can transmit the virus than both must follow the same rules.

Not really, try again. Look up the meaning of "conditional probability" and "prosecutor's fallacy".

As a member of the RSS, I will always speak up against this sort of nonsense. Open a book and study or just avoid spreading unneeded nonsense.

Your logical, commonsense responses are not welcome in this forum of people who would rather lock themselves in their parents' basements until its safe to come out.

I don't think anybody wants to live like a hikikomori, but I do not understand why some people want to take unnecessary risks for a freaking beer at the pub. Is having a beer worth catching covid?

2 ( +15 / -13 )

Kishida has already proven to be an extreme reactionist. Given how hastily he shut the border and mandated strict government quarantines to be seen as the anti-Suga who "does things", I don't think he will have much choice but to enact another needless state of emergency in response to these increasing case numbers.

I do hope I'm wrong.

2 ( +12 / -10 )

How many are seriously ill or dead in Japan lately? Very few.

daah because of vaccines

Hopefully Kishida doesn't overreact and start copying the draconian led countries of the world.

and that is exactly why Australia is slowly removing their lockdowns, as their population is nearing 80% vaxxed, down side is infections will rise, but most likley the number of hospitalisation and deaths will be reduced dramatically compared to 2020 when there was no vaccine.

wow all those immunologists that predicted this were actually right! science for the win again.

2 ( +13 / -11 )

I would be interested to know how many of this number of hospitalized people are from Omicron and how is the condition of those who got this since many people say Omicron is not dangerous like others.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The good thing is that omicron stays in the upper respiratory tract, so no breathing problems. Burning through omicron quickly very likely bring this to an end.

THIS is what I hope happens, it could be possible that with the omicron variant that the virus could be burning itself out!

Getting vaccinated seems to be the right path!

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Clippetyclop asked:

Learn what precisely?

1 Wear a well-fitting mask indoors and when required outdoors.

2 Wash (or sanitize) your hands often.

3 Stay home when you are sick. If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you should isolate, talk with a doctor, and get tested.

4 If you are moderately to severely immunocompromised, you should continue to take extra precautions.

I live near Yokosuka. I know for fact that it is not happening when I see American soldiers, American personnel and some Japanese leaving the base without wearing any masks.

If it is happening on the mainline; the bubble that is Okinawa is probably even more rampant.

1 ( +15 / -14 )

@Rob

 how many hospitalizations and deaths were saved?

I can explain the math of this to you, but you need to promise you'll have an open-mind.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

If the numbers of tests done are not available it is impossible to ascertain how prevalent omicron is.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

I wish Japan immediately reported the PCR S-gene-negative aka omicron results with the total results like UK does.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Alcohol does actually increase loud-voiced blabbing aka aerosol production, so alcohol and late-night restrictions are primitive but do have an effect.

Requiring HEPA air purifiers would be a 20th century response, but 21st century is "back to Middle Ages" era.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

And today Okinawa is already reporting that there will be around 980!

https://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/articles/-/890341

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I think you are literally the first people on these forums who ever accused the system here with too much testing (that wasn't a joke)...

You're reply to my comment doesn't DISPROVE what I said. It only PROVES that you have poor reading comprehension skills. "More testing" doesn't mean "too much testing." If the govt had done this from the beginning there wouldn't have been CT that they were hiding the data. But now they are doing mass testing the numbers will increase dramatically.

But as Dr. FAUCI said recently, the focus shouldn't be on infections. It should be on hospitalizations.

-1 ( +9 / -10 )

Relatively few have received the booster in the U.S. Yet, few are in the hospital due to Omicron and, still, no deaths.

-1 ( +10 / -11 )

Okinawa Gov Denny Tamaki is preparing to ask the central government in Tokyo

...is thinking of preparing to plan to ask the central government to start considering planning the preparation for deciding whether to consider preparing a plan for deciding a state of emergency.

There I fixed it.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

The Okinawa problem is caused by the false belief that vaccinated people were "safe" and didn't have to follow the same rules that non-vaccinated people do.

If both vaccinated and non-vaccinated can transmit the virus than both must follow the same rules.

@Bronco has the most rational comment on this post, yet they have the largest number of downvotes.

The reason why this virus is not going away is because idiots do not learn.

-2 ( +14 / -16 )

These numbers simply are the product of more testing.

More tests means smaller margin of error on the points estimate for the proportion of the population affected by covid. If you don't test, your confidence interval is gigantic and tells you nothing about the true proportion of the population affected by the disease. Having more tests and larger numbers is reassuring. This is what should have been done since the very beginning.

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

Like the rest of Japan, Okinawa should have made good use of the times with super low infections and start buildimng up hospital places.

As far as I know, it's more a case of training ICU nurses and personnel shortages. No idea if they've been doing this either as this would require significant investment and when the pandemic ends, they would be left on the hook for the increased workforce.

Anyway, this wave may not be so bad as to warrant increased investment seeing as omicron doesn't seem as severe as past variants and 80% of the population are now vaccinated which staves off the serious hospitalizations. Sometimes the best policy is to just to ignore the reactionists and let things be (e.g., extra testing would be a meaningless waste of money so don't do it, lockdowns would have killed businesses and produced negligible results so don't do it).

It might do us all well if the government would only release the number of severe hospitalizations rather than list every single patient with a cough or sore throat going forward.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

This is likely to be a tiny fraction of the people who are walking around with the virus in their system, but are asymptomatic.

No need to panic, just get on with life and let this thing mutate into an even milder variant. Get the booster if it makes you feel safer and/or more virtuous, but leave the rest of us alone.

-3 ( +22 / -25 )

I'm confused, but not surprised. People have given up caring and have never stopped being selfish during the pandemic years.

I'm impressed by the logic and pragmatism displayed by the Japanese. Most are living without fear, as indeed they should. We don't see crazy delusional behaviors such as queueing up for 5 hours to get a test while asymptomatic, as evidenced in Australia.

-3 ( +11 / -14 )

“1 Wear a well-fitting mask indoors and when required outdoors.

2 Wash (or sanitize) your hands often.

3 Stay home when you are sick. If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you should isolate, talk with a doctor, and get tested.

4 If you are moderately to severely immunocompromised, you should continue to take extra precautions.”

yes. Simple etiquettes but seem difficult for many (outsideJapan) to understand

-3 ( +8 / -11 )

One million with SARSCoV-2 in the USA. Hospitalizations on the rise. The variant spreading among school-age children and the unvaccinated Resistance and mild cases among the vaccinated.

Vaccinated individuals with either asymptomatic or mild cases - there is absolutely no proof that omicron is less virulent than delta, however it is exponentially more contagious. What is apparent: vaccination is key to reducing the impact be it omicron or delta.

Those with booster shot(s) exhibit greater or total immunity to omicron. Let alone previous and ongoing variants.

Spread and hospitalization is mainly among anti-vaxxers and those unvaccinated.

Not following protocols and being unvaccinated spreads SARSCoV-2 no matter what the strain. The rise of omicron does not preclude the existence and spread of previous variants.

The gross ignorance and bizarre denial of what is evident and again & again reiterated by science and medicine, indicates that those who deny proven scientific and medical facts have a complete lack of education, slight mental illness and a particular inability to comprehend the common good and social compact which results in numerous malfeasant behaviors. Even weirder is the claim that acting for the greater good is an impingement to an odd notion of liberty.

The diminishment of SARSCoV-2 and its eventual elimination is possible in Japan, as it is one of few global isolates. However, it requires the population act in concert and follow established protocols and all & any are vaccinated except those with genuine medical exceptions. Boosters are also key. Which can be administered within a six month time frame after received initial vaccination. Everything else is rhetoric and basely meaningless twaddle. Which seems expressly prevalent among foreigners living as guests in Japan. One of the larges groups being U.S. military personnel, who one might assert are expressly recruited because of an acute lack of awareness, in consideration of the ultimate aim of their occupation. Though many are those among the civilian cohort who exhibit a lack of respect to their host nation and it citizens and justify a basic lack of manner with cockamamie rationales.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

Bronco...

The Okinawa problem is caused by the false belief that vaccinated people were "safe" and didn't have to follow the same rules that non-vaccinated people do.

No. The Okinawa problem is caused by US service men and women not following the same rules as the Japanese population.

-5 ( +7 / -12 )

mental health are none the worse for it.

lol, yeah right. If I weren't allowed to go the gym, eat out, or visit my friends, I'm pretty sure it would be detrimental to my mental health. Silly example.

-6 ( +9 / -15 )

Moderna And Pfizer Vaccines Prevent Infection As Well As Disease: Key Questions Remain

https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/03/30/moderna-and-pfizer-vaccines-prevent-infection-as-well-as-disease-key-questions-remain/

As late as end of March 2021 vaccines prevented infection. Since then we now get that they don’t, with people now claiming they never did.

that sound? Goalposts moving.?

-7 ( +4 / -11 )

Japan should go the way of Singapore, unvaxxed individuals that end up in ICU should have to pay for their own hospital fees

What % of fully vaccinated have to get infected and get severely ill relative to the % of unvaxxed before you admit to yourself the Big Pharma vaccines don't work????

In most countries it's already a larger % than % who are fully vaccinated meaning the vaccines are negatively effective. They make one more susceptible to the disease.

-8 ( +4 / -12 )

Vaccines help prevent against hospitalization and death.

That's right. They changed the definition.

If they don't prevent infection and illness, how do they determin how many hospitalizations and deaths were saved?

And according to Pfizer, more people died in the placebo group than in the vaccinated group before the placebo group was abruptly discontinued after only 2 months.

-8 ( +3 / -11 )

CDC:

Covid-19: Moderna and Pfizer vaccines prevent infections as well as symptoms, CDC study finds

BMJ 2021; 373 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n888 (Published 01 April 2021)

-8 ( +3 / -11 )

Yesterday in France just shy of 1/4 of a million infectious in one day. Will go well over a mil for the week. Population about 60mil. Over 90% fully vaccinated. Any mathematicians can extrapolate the approx number of fully vaccinated people getting infected?

-9 ( +2 / -11 )

“yep its called a vaccine and it actually works. works great for anxiety alsI”

wtf? It works for you, maybe not for others… and it might kill as well… so don’t prescribe it to everyone !

-10 ( +5 / -15 )

Larr Flint

SOE would be a waste of time, this should be allowed to spread as fast as possible. Without restrictions the peak will be in a few weeks.

Boosters are not the answer except for the vulnerable.

-28 ( +18 / -46 )

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