Suga to make decision on state of emergency on Thursday

Officials of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said the risk of infections spreading through schools is low given limited coronavirus infections among children to date. They also pointed to the relatively small number of cases in which children have developed severe health complications related to COVID-19.

Errr - first, they do almost no testing - so how can they know, if there are infections among children, or not?

Second, kids CAN and WILL spread the virus around, even if they're asymptomatic, to their possibly vulnerable parents and grandparents, who then again spread it further to their colleagues, neighbours and friends.

Call the S of E NOW.

Ramp up testing in Tokyo to at least 50,000-100,000 per day to get an indication of the spread.

Regarding the classes not being suspended...even if children are not being hit that hard by the virus, in order to keep a school running there are vulnerable adults involved (teachers, etc). Plus they have to commute to school, spreading the virus even further (no matter they are asymptomatic).

Was there not a report of a cluster in a Tokyo school yesterday with 46 pupils falling sick?

...forcing working parents to take time off to look after children.

The wording here made me smirk, it's as if the parents loathe taking care of their kids. Kidding aside, ain't Suga a little bit slow on the draw? There are already cases of the new CV-19 strain and the regular CV-19 strain cases are still rising. Call it now. You can revive an economy but you can't resurrect a corpse.

Since the virus keeps business hours and picks certain victims, children won’t get it “seriously” since only “serious cases” matter, right? But don’t worry about all the adults working at the schools, they’ll “Ganbatte” and be “Daijobu” since risking their lives is no problem to the government. (sarcasm)

By all accounts, Suga and the Education minister must have not done well in science or just fall asleep in those meetings now for them to be saying what they are now. Also, there’s money still being invested in the Olympics when it should be going to small business owners...

This emergency affects only few number of people thanksfully, not like the one before.

More bumbling, fumbling, a dawdling.

*Suga said he will consult health experts on Thursday before making a final decision, adding he wants the members of an advisory panel to *"set a direction."

That is to admit, they are utterly rudderless.

I understand and empathize with the plight of students, but this is an extraordinary situation that requires extraordinary measures, including directing funds to the everyday people who need support.

Enough hand wringing. Divert Olympic Billions to supporting the public. Get on with it.

Suga is completely out of his depth. The man is lost. The panic is in his eyes. He is clueless and rudderless to paraphrase another poster.

At least he could approve the vaccins of Pfizer and Moderna but his pharma backers are stopping him. The proof of that will come end of February when a Japanese vaccine will show up and get approved with the 2 foreign ones.

Thousands will die needlessly.

What many fail to recognize is that the accuracy of the PCR test itself is dubious. As has been reported elsewhere, it is prone to a significant percentage of false positive results and has been identified by the creators of the test as NOT a reliable diagnostic tool.

What many fail to recognize is that the accuracy of the PCR test itself is dubious. As has been reported elsewhere, it is prone to a significant percentage of false positive results and has been identified by the creators of the test as NOT a reliable diagnostic tool.

That is false, there are many different ways to control for specificity for the reaction, which obviously increase the accuracy, the creators of the test only warned about first generation primers, which are improved continuously, if the test uses fluorescent probe chemistry, or melting curve analysis, or a correlated multiplex reaction, etc. etc. systematic background positivity can be eliminated so only very few reactions will be false positives.

There is no reason to think the positive results obtained by qRT-PCR in Japan are not reliable.

Suga, oh Suga-boy.

In February last year, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe requested a nationwide school closure prior to the state of emergency declaration for the capital and six prefectures in early April.

The school closure lasted as long as three months in some areas, causing disruption to students and forcing working parents to take time off to look after children.

More significantly, the feedback study found that the last school closure did NOT contribute to curbing the spread. We should learn something from the past. Look, it's already been almost a year.

Was school closure effective in mitigating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? Time series analysis using Bayesian inference

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30598-1/fulltext

Omg find some assertiveness and do something finally please ....

So, he held a conference Sunday to say he'd hold a conference Monday, in which he said it's not necessary to declare a state of emergency like before, and now he's holding a conference to say he's going to hold a conference on Thursday?

Wow he’ll make a decision! Will it be a decision about a decision or the actual final decision?

Wonder how many lives would have been spared if he did it for December 29th.

The government will not ask schools and universities to close even if a state of emergency is declared for Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa, the education minister said Tuesday.

Kids are the number one supper spreaders as they have almost zero symtoms and they dont know where daddy was the night before and how many izakaya he hopped across every Friday with there co-worker and managers. They need to close down the schools too!!!!

The indecision is through the roof. I can't even with Japanese leaders.

Based on today’s data there is no reason to wait

This type of state of emergency makes no sense...another farce from the old men in Government! It’s better not to declare the SOE since what they plan to do is basically ineffective! Also as someone mentioned above as well that kids and teenagers are the number 1 super spreaders as they are almost without symptoms if infected but are highly contagious!

*Suga said he will make a decision Thursday on a plan to declare another state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures as the areas continue to see record numbers of new corona virus cases. *Ok I get it but people do travel from neighboring prefectures. It impossible to stop the movement of that many people.

The government also plans to suspend the entry of business people from some countries, including China and South Korea, as well as Taiwan

Now this is hilarious ok you can suspend entry from other from other countries but still you have people from within who are spreading the virus. The only way this makes sense is a total lock down. Yes I know it will hurt the economy but what good is an economy if everyone is sick or half dead

This virus is very very selective in who it chooses to infect, it doesnt seem to go for children or uni students or those who teach them or come in contact with them, or people travelling by trains to and from work, but it will most likely severely infect those who seek to eat or drink out in the evening, those who want to spend their leisure enjoying them selves , partaking in sports except olympic things, and it will severely be spread during weekend activities and other out of work events.

So go to work , work hard,, lead a dull life with no social gathering or enjoyment and no having any happy feelings while going about your mundane life. The virus is lurking and waiting to pounce.

Listen to your govt they are here to protect and serve you and they would never ever lie or do injustice to you.

Submit and comply, please line up for the vaccine in a orderly manner, no pushing and shoving.

sf2k: "Wow he’ll make a decision! Will it be a decision about a decision or the actual final decision?"

Not so fast! I have no doubt he'll just decide to ask "health specialists", like the economic leaders he spoke to before, again.

You know what? America has waaaay more cases and deaths but Japan is so indecisive it is appalling. They will continue to think their virtue is what contributed to the low mortality rate but I say it was sheer dumb luck. The most inept leaders reside here for sure.

Suga should have declared a state of emergency before the New Year holidays began. If he had done so, everyone would have been able to make better countermeasure against the spread of COVID-19 during the holidays.

Kids education and well being should always be the priority.

If your a teacher and are worried quit your job, health over the economy.

If you have an elderly parent at home, pay for a hotel for either them or you/wife and kids, again health over economy.

Problem solved.

Thursday!!!!

At this point of the trajectory, a few days (even hours) can be crucial.

No sense of urgency.

Errr - first, they do almost no testing - so how can they know, if there are infections among children, or not?

excellent point!

Second, kids CAN and WILL spread the virus around, even if they're asymptomatic, to their possibly vulnerable parents and grandparents, who then again spread it further to their colleagues, neighbours and friends.

Exactly!

Kids are the number one supper spreaders as they have almost zero symtoms and they dont know where daddy was the night before and how many izakaya he hopped across every Friday with there co-worker and managers. They need to close down the schools too!!!!

Absolutely! Having the schools running in an SOE makes it absolutely useless and the spread will not be curbed.

More working and studying from home. More assistance to those hit financially by the virus, and for those who HAVE to go and work like the essential workers, working and studying from home alone will do ALOT for them to be able to work more safely outside.