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© KYODO/Japan TodayTokyo's COVID alert at 2nd-highest level as capital reports 3,124 new cases
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92 Comments
snowymountainhell
NHK has officially announced THIS is Japan’s 6th wave going into the 3rd year of the global pandemic.
Mat
Oh wonderful, here we go again, close the bars!
Reporting on the number of cases is one thing, but a more informative number would be how many of those people actually feel unwell. How many dead?
Wouldn't a report this this be useful:
I think that would put things into perspective, if we could have the real numbers.
umbrella
At the beginning of December last year, I was beginning to think the Corona Virus thing was all over.....
Kitchener Leslie
Good thing Kishida sealed up the border. Well done.
/s.
bokuda
Now that we know most infected are asymptomatic.
Having 5 straight days of cough and high-fever to get tested doesn't make sense anymore.
Provide easy access to tests is a must.
Mr Kipling
Seems like the omicron cat is now freely out of the bag. It's a shame that Japan wasted its two month run up by not boosting those at risk. Actually more of a disgrace than shame.
Lindsay
Omicron is much more contagious than previous strains. It is true that symptoms are much less severe for most people. However, it is still killing people and putting many in the ICU. Vaccination does help people stay out of the ICU, but it is not a silver bullet. Corona is here to stay for a few years yet. People have to get used to the idea and learn to live with it.
HBJ
@Mat - It’s not about the number of dead. How long will it take for people to stop spouting this?
The more cases there are, the more hospitalisations are needed. The more hospitalisations, the less capacity for other patients who need emergency treatments (surgeries, cancer, heart attacks etc.).
We were told the system was under strain last time when the daily positive rates were so high. I wonder what the people in charge have learned from that, and how they will be better prepared this time round? (I will predict ‘not so much’).
Seth M
@Kitchener Leslie he did, but he forgot the loophole that is the American army bases.
Cheradenine Zakalwe
The problem in Japan seems to be not just the rising numbers of infections but those turned away from hospital admission when conditions worsen who have paid into a national health insurance scheme for their whole lives.
BrainGuyJapan
Yubaru
Of which there are VERY few in Japan anyway, so why mention them!
It's the Marine and Navy bases that are seeing a large jump in the number of infections, mainly down here in Okinawa.
geronimo2006
Anyone know how much of Tokyo"s figure is Omicron? Hopefully not too much Delta going around.
thelonius
Okay, so it's basically 10 times that.
Sandip Katuwal
Nice !
per day 40k only solve the Japanese phobia towards Covid
Sven Asai
That alone already shows their quite outstanding ‘expertise’.
treble4punk
I want to know how many of the infected are elderly or healthcare workers who were vaccinated from Feb to May, but unable to receive boosters yet.
TokyoJoe
Guy in my company got double jabbed last year. Less than 6 months since he got his second jab. He went to England at Christmas to see his relatives. Caught covid and now is stuck in the UK. Vaccinations seem to be ineffective and people are starting to see it.
Mr Kipling
Brainguy? Japan
Yes, it will reduce you chance of being infected. Not by 100% but all data shows a reduction. And yes there would seem to be fewer deaths and serious illnesses from Omicron. The problem the authorities want to avoid is a mass infection where even thought the seriously ill cases are a small percentage of cases the number is still too high for the health service to cope. Spare ICU capacity in Japan is far lower than many other developed countries.
Dave
let's close the borders immediately! ah no wait...
Happy Day
Omicron is pretty mild guys. Even hospitalizations are not much to speak of compared to prior waves.
Meiyouwenti
Only a small percentage of those infected with the Omicron variant develop serious symptoms. High transmissibility means the virus has weakened considerably and now it’s no different from the common flu.
Hervé L'Eisa
If you feel like you have a cold, it's quite likely to be oh-my-crone, but you'll not likely be able to get a test unless you have "serious" symptoms according to whatever conditions set by the govt. The true number of infected people is possibly some factor higher(10X?20X?...)but with most of those either asymptomatic or having such mild symptoms that few get a test.
There is/will be a sharp rise in the numbers of positive test results, then a rapid drop in cases as well, just as has already begun in other countries.
The case numbers and severely sick numbers being disconnected.
Blacklabel
Yes totally realize it when everyone who is missing from our work is vaccinated people who are in hospitals.
Ninja
Please take your vaccine and end the 6th wave soon. Please
yoshisan88
Oh, my god. Please stop this stupid comment. Covid vaccination does not stop you getting covid but it reduces your chance of getting seriously sick and die from it. It is like HBJ says "Just like seatbelts are useless when you don’t have a crash?? What utter nonsense.".
Zaphod
Well, yes of course, seeing how infectious this thing is.
Meanwhile, buried in the article was this:
Four (4) patients in a metropolis of 20 million, unchanged from before. So what is the panic about?
Garthgoyle
That's not true. You shouldn't post this false statements.
Zaphod
Ninja
And in what world does the vaccine end the 6th wave? You do realize that Omicron does not differentate between vaccinated and unvaccinated, or did you miss that?
irreconcilable
What are all these anti-vaxxers doing this to us and themselves. Come on suck up a couple of boosters. Take one for the team. Do it for the work. They're going to leave governments and pharmaceutical companies with little money to make the next vaccine cocktail. Besides, anyone who knows anything knows that you might be less likely to catch the virus for a very short window or end up in the hospital, maybe.
yoshisan88
The vaccine cannot 100% protect you from hospitalisation. It reduces your chance of hospitalisation if you are unlucky enough to catch the virus. It is like wearing a helmet while riding a bike cannot 100% protect you from having a accident and suffer serious injuries and even die from it but it reduces you chance of this happening.
falseflagsteve
It’s a virus, it spreads fast, everyone will catch it. The very, the obese and those with health issues should get vaccinated for their own protection, the healthy ones, especially children should decide for themselves. This will peak and be over in a few weeks. Let’s see what happens next, will another variant appear? Will Omicron infection protect from that? Will the vaccines and boosters protect from that?
It’s a wait and see thing, this variant is what the world needed, unlikely to fill hospitals and have minimal disruption.
If the same old people want to keep arguing and pointing fingers at each other keep going. I’ll get on with my life and keep regrowing my business after all the recent worldwide chaos.
shogun36
Level 1 is when people make videos about spitting into a napkin while saying "pen" in English and saying it softly in Japanese.
Level 2 is when they close schools for two days and pretend that it has meaning. But at the same time, holding the Olympics is ok.
Level 3 is when they get really serious and tell people they are moving to the second highest level.
Level 4, the highest level..............you don't want to go there. That's when they get REALLY serious, and start to ask if it's ok if they can "urge" you to do things in a quasi way.
falseflagsteve
zichi
Cant keep vaccinating and boosting all the time mate. Only those at risk should have it now with this variant.
hattorikun
“I'm surprised the border restrictions, mask wearing, high vaccination rate, fever checking at the door, and paranoia didn't work to keep out Omicron......”
me too… we should have like half a million infections and thousands of deaths to fit the narrative
Ninja
@zaphod,
get the vaccine or not. Its upto you.
And I agree with you, Omicron is not deadly as Delta.
Kobe White Bar Owner
Newly 10.000 new hospitalizations nationwide in the last 24 hrs.
https://mainichi.jp/english/covid19
Mr Kipling
Those that go on to be seriously ill do not become ill on day one. Serious illness usually occurs between 2 weeks and a month after infection. So check back in February! Hopefully there won't be a huge rise in serious cases.
hattorikun
“Besides, it sounds pretty selfish if you claim that it's your body - your choice.
Ever thought of others who might get infected just because you didn't get inoculated?“
what? Do I have to offer my body for the “common good”?
how could other get infected if I am not contaminated with the virus? How did over half of the new infections who had been fully vaxxed got infected infected? I am not against vaccines and will get one when ready for it. For you get it if you can but don’t impose it on others. We are grownups and are responsible for our actions and decisions.
hattorikun
“What are all these anti-vaxxers doing this to us and themselves. Come on suck up a couple of boosters.”
i am not antivaccines but your urging here seems to apply to those currently fully vaxxed, mate.
Luis David Yanez
Just like any other respiratory virus does. The South Africa data, a place where the omicron peak already came and went, has a very low vaccination rate, shows that the number of actual hospitalization because of Covid, and Covid related deaths are a times of magnitude lower than other variants.
The case rate of South Africa for omicron was about the same as with Delta, but the death rate was 1/5.
And even places like the CDC are starting to admit that the number of hospitalizations and death are overinflated for Omicron, since many of those are incidental infections, and the people are not in the hospital for Covid, they just tested positive while in the hospital for something unrelated.
But this narrative of fear continues endlessly. I mean, as long as there is a single death from Omicron, we can continue to use exactly the same language you are using.
Mark
Get Vaccinated people, the reason Japan is doing much better than other nations is because 78% of the people are vaccinated. meaning 78% of the people are doing their MORAL Duty, and the rest are just living off their back.
hattorikun
“Get Vaccinated people, the reason Japan is doing much better than other nations is because 78% of the people are vaccinated. meaning 78% of the people are doing their MORAL Duty, and the rest are just living off their back.“
Thank you Mark for brilliantly pointing that out. Am grateful to be in Japan and for those vaccinated folks. I am unvaccinated.
daito_hak
BS! This statement is not supported by the data. The quote you refer to is more based on ideology than science and it’s very regrettable that WHO is doing politics more than trustable science.
A recent large study under review done by people at Berkeley and the CDC shows that people infected with Omicron were half as likely to be hospitalized, about 75 percent less likely to need intensive care, and around 90 percent less likely to die compared to those infected with the Delta variant. And this was regardless of prior immunity from vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection, proving that Omicron is intrinsically less severe than Delta. Several similar studies in UK and South Africa have shown the same results. So enough with this disinformation.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.11.22269045v1.full.pdf
Luis David Yanez
Who could think that acting out of fear, with a "we need to do anything" mentality for a problem that has existed for humane since they evolved to think about it, wouldn't actually solve the problem.
But people love a good theater to keep the illusion of control.
People at this point are more willing to just destroy society than to admit that they are not in control, never were, and start to think about rational strategies to deal with this world.
Hiro
To give the government credits, they already expected this wave to happen anyway. They did spend weeks even before omicron talking about preparing to expand the hospitals beds to receive a increase of patients during winter. Is nothing new. At least we are better prepared than previous times. We just gonna have to weather it out. Stay strong and get recover quickly. Is best to take some vitamins too to keep the immune system strong.
ian
Assuming all this is true, doesn't make the statement that 'unvaccinated are more likely to end up in hospital or die comparef to vaccinated' false.
Sanjinosebleed
The Pfizer boss said double vax does nothing for omicron! Stop spouting the crud about get vaxxed! They don’t work for omicron but luckily for Pfizer surprise surprise they have an omicron vax coming out in March….
Natural immunity with omicron is the best defence and based on the fact from Okinawa studies 90% of people have mild to NO symptoms more will survive than a mild flu season!
ian
Anyway I don't mind much antivaxers not getting vaccinated still at this point because we still don't have enough capacity.
Those who want the vaccines still can't get it fast enough so no real loss really.
daito_hak
BS! Japan is not doing more than a million tests per day like “other nations”. There is therefore no way to compare here. That’s one thing. The second is that several countries in Europe have larger proportions of the population vaccinated than Japan but are seeing hundred of thousands of positive cases per day. All with even more restrictions than Japan including mandates of mask wearing. And I can also do some comparisons by telling you that on the other hand most countries in Africa for example are poorly vaccinated and have never seen any large incidence of the virus.
So no, please stop to just simplify the situation by poor understanding. This is more complicated than that. And just stop with the us against them rhetoric with the unvaccinated people. This is ridiculous and pointless. The vaccines although a valuable tool to prevent severe complications in the vulnerable population do not stop the transmission. This is largely accepted now in the scientific community regardless whether the hysterics and vaccine extremists like it or not.
ian
Tragedy for countries though which do have surplus / enough capacity but people don't want to get it
Luis David Yanez
Just a little bit more of context, the death rate for Japan and Australia has always been low, even before vaccines.
Vaccines protect you mostly for SARS-like serious infection, so it is good for vulnerable populations against the original wild type, Alpha and Delta variants.
Against omicron, it doesn't make much more sense, since Omicron no longer causes SARS-like Cytokine Storm because of its lack of TMPRSS2 expression for infecting host cells.
We are at the point of the pandemic where the whole point that made people fear SARS-CoV-2, which was its ability to cause sudden Cytokine Storms on some rare cases, putting suddenly some people in a very serious condition, and usually killing them, is no longer that big of a concern.
But because of the last 2 years of complete madness, it seems we no longer fear SARS-CoV-2 because of this fact, but just by the fact that it exists in this world.
daito_hak
Well it does because there is no strong data supporting that. And what more likely means? 10%, 50%, 80%? Means nothing. It’s empty rhetoric unneeded right now.
ian
You merely need to look at the data you do have to verify that
yoshisan88
If Omicon is really the one that ends the pandemic. That is good! I really want to visit Japan again. However, is it mild enough to be spread through the population and the small number of people who need hospitalized does not strained the medical system? Let's say 1 in 10,000 people infected with Omicon needs hospitalized then in a country of 125.8 millions is 12,580. Is the medical system good enough to handle it in a short period of time?
yoshisan88
I may have mis-interpret your comment. Sorry, mate.
Luis David Yanez
It is pretty mild. Coronavirus are mostly mild viruses.
Unlike influenza, Stage 1 of the Coronavirus isn't that "toxic" to the body, so most of the time it is fought just without the need of antibodies, while Stage 1 influenza is a pretty toxic virus that most of the time does require antibodies to fight it.
Stage 2 Coronavirus, which is when the your body wasn't able to get rid of virus without antibodies, is the point when your body starts to create Coronavirus specific antibodies, which is when it shows symptoms like fever. The body, if it had a previous infection of a coronavirus, will have less problem creating antibodies because of T-Cell memory. The thing with SARS-CoV-2, is that previous T-Cell memory from human coronavirus wasn't as effective, so many people that were never infected before by this virus, had a longer and stronger Stage 2 Coronavirus infection.
Then, SARS-CoV-2 has a nasty Stage 3 infection in some rare cases, which is the well known SARS-like Acute Respiratory Infection, which happens because of a mechanism SARS type virus have for infecting cells, which end up creating Cytokines, and can end up as a Cytokine-Storm.
Most of the original reports back in March 2020 of people dying suddenly on the streets, and people who were all right all of the sudden having to get to the hospital was because they developed this Stage 3 infection.
If you get to the Stage 3, then you chances of dying go up pretty high, and your chances of developing sequalae after this infection also go high, which is the real "Long-Covid". Without stage 3 infection, SARS-CoV-2 is pretty much just another coronavirus.
The vaccine, as it is antibody base, tries to stop the virus at the 2nd stage of the infection, and if you had the jab recently, it could very well stop it at Stage 1, because there are already a high number of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in your blood, which is why the Vaccine is good at avoiding serious infection, because it avoids the 3rd stage.
Thing is, Omicron lacks for the most part this Stage 3, because the method it uses to infect cells is completely different, and it no longer creates Cytokine storms, and as a result is actually a more efficient way of infecting cells, so that's why the infection rate also went up.
Looking at the Pathogenesis of the virus, is pretty clear that Omicron is something completely different to what the other SARS-CoV-2 variants were, and it is way more similar to a regular Human coronavirus.
So, how mild is it? About as mild as human coronavirus are. There is still a very rare chance of a TMPRSS2 expression, and therefore the possibility of a SARS-like Stage 3 infection, but since it is not the most efficient way of infection, statistically speaking is really not that much of a concern, since the Cytokine Storm usually happen because of a lot of TMPRSS2 expression.
Luis David Yanez
Because SARS-CoV-2 is classified in its own weird infection classification, Japan's way of counting hospitalizations that are not serious include people who are under treatment in their own home.
Look at what the page you wrote says about Hospitalizations:
Hospitalizations = People with positive PCR tests who need hospitalization **or other treatment***
kurisupisu
Don’t need an injection for Omicron-my own immune system is enough…
2020hindsights
Luis David Yanez
There was indeed a further 9,750 hospitalisations since yesterday.
So are you saying that there are increases in people requiring other treatment?
Hospitalization records are being seen in the US (hence, Biden is deploying military medical staff to worst hit states), and most of those people are unvaccinated. The best way to reduce the stress to the hospital system is to get vaccinated.
stormcrow
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the subway.
Luis David Yanez
What it means is, virtually everyone who tests positive will appear in the "Hospitalization" statistic, since it is a bad translation of the already obtuse terminology the ministry of health is using.
A more accurate translation, which is the one used by Toyokeizai, is "Active Cases".
In the case of the US, most "hospitalizations" are actually incidental. They are mostly people already in the hospital for something unrelated who got tested and appeared positive.
The CDC itself has lately admitted as much.
SDCA
This time seems different. Literally no one seems to care and still goes to the office despite having the sniffles and coughs. sigh I should look for another employer who would allow working from home.
Steve
The Japanese Govt. moves way to slow on all their decisions it’s appalling!
Aaron J
It seems like every argument using Japan’s reported number has a hole it because of Japan’s unique policy’s and reporting. Recall that a little over a year ago every case had to be hospitalized. They also redefined “serious cases”. They also only report selected test results. Basically the news is useless at this point.
Omicron is different enough and so transmissible that neither Japan’s policy makers nor news sources won’t be able to keep up until it’s all over. (Unless they look outside the closed borders).
Yukijin
I got a cold in Tokyo last weekend. Ive been sick all week with symptoms just like omicron, I was sure I had it but tested negative.
So the common cold is still kicking around.
2020hindsights
Luis David Yanez
Hospitalization records are being seen in the US
That doesn't make sense. If all the cases are for something unrelated, then there either must be a surge in unrelated illnesses (unlikely) or it's due to a surge in Omicron. Hospitalizations are higher than last winter's peak.
Iron Lad
Somehow I'm not worried at all.
Japan is strong.
Sven Asai
It’s all the wrong discussion. In sum it is about much higher and exponentially rising virus loads. So we don’t need a discussion about a mask here or there or a few vaccinations more than at a place anywhere else, no, what is needed is a debate about how to treat those big virus loads, spreading and affecting the whole body and organs also under long term considerations. It’s been all the time only about letting the viruses take over and us being diminished or vice versa, we taking over again and diminishing the viruses. So, personally I still don’t see any efforts to try some efficient attempts to bring us back onto a winning path. Just all humans now to only rely on waiting if some errors occur and the viruses really make them when replicating or not reaching their evolutionary optimum of distribution maximum, that is not even a strategy and pure hazardous gambling behavior.