Tokyo reports 17,331 new coronavirus cases; nationwide tally 91,051

The downward trend continues.

So a now third of reported cases are school-aged, so let's .... close bars. It hasn't worked for all this time we've done it, so let's just keep on doing more of the same.

They completely shut down schools without proper scientific grounds in 2020, yet now there are scientific grounds for targeting schools and daycares, and Covid is letting rip in those workplaces, with children taking the virus home, infecting school staff, and yet they do nothing. Strewth!

Here we go - 20K by weekend.

The photographers for these virus number reports love a photo of a crossing.

This IS flu season, and many old people succumb to it, every year.

Time to downgrade this thing to common seasonal illness, dispense over the counter cheap, effective meds, and

let’s get ready for hanami season.

let’s get ready for hanami season.

Why? It's hardly the centre of life.

Previous two Wednesdays: 18,287 cases and 21,576 cases

To those who downvoted me, does this not represent a continuing downward trend, (i.e., things getting better?)

I didn't downvote you @Commodore, but maybe people are tired of the samey-type of posts?

I didn't downvote you @Commodore, but maybe people are tired of the samey-type of posts?

If that's the case, fair enough. I do feel that the fact case numbers have been going down over the past two weeks is something worth pointing out.

I wish people would understand this:

The virus doesn't ebb and flow like waves. When the numbers increase, people get more serious about precautions and take actions (wearing a mask correctly, avoiding gatherings, getting vaccinated) that reduce the probability of transmission. When the numbers decrease, people relax, go back to normal behavior which is reflected by increasing the probability of transmission and then the next wave hits.

Time to downgrade this thing to common seasonal illness,

Why, because we had a record number of deaths yesterday?

@CommodoreFlag

If most of your posts are against lockdowns and restrictions, people on here will downvote your comment irrespective of the content - as if anybody cares anyway!

Have the boosters not been rolled out yet? Or are Japanese people cynical about the jabs?

Only 81 hospitalizations?? Can we stop this madness? This is not a real public health threat! When will the scaremongers be satisfied? Zero hospitalizations? Sorry that’s just not possible for any virus!

The media should also report normal influenza infection rates and hospitalizations. They might even be higher! Or are the covid PCR tests also catching influenza patients? It’s like the regular flu magically ceased to exist.

It’s just ridiculous. There is no endgame, apparently.

If most of your posts are against lockdowns and restrictions, people on here will downvote your comment irrespective of the content - as if anybody cares anyway!

That does seem to be the trend on this board so I suspect you're right. :)

Kids/Schools: For the last 2 weeks about every day my daughters school announces 1 to 3 new COVID cases among students. And each time they say that they have precautions of masks and some open windows, so they dont think anything needs to be done. School continues / the spread continues.

They dont even tell you in which grade the cases occurred, so not much a parent can do.

(Her school is about 400 students)

Have the boosters not been rolled out yet? Or are Japanese people cynical about the jabs?

I was notified today that mine will be in late March. Want me to get an extra one for you?

I love how they try and downplay it, especially in the J-media, going on about how "it's the ~th day since being lower than a few days ago.... (when it was higher than it's ever, ever been!)". It's like if gas goes down one yen next week they'll be talking all about that instead of that it's up 150% from not long ago and has been for some time.

Velius Today  05:32 pm JST

Only 81 hospitalizations?? Can we stop this madness? This is not a real public health threat! When will the scaremongers be satisfied? Zero hospitalizations? Sorry that’s just not possible for any virus!

The media should also report normal influenza infection rates and hospitalizations. They might even be higher! Or are the covid PCR tests also catching influenza patients? It’s like the regular flu magically ceased to exist.

It’s just ridiculous. There is no endgame, apparently.

Indeed your comments are no endgame apparently.

More than 1500 people in ICU nationaly because of Covid and also thousands of people also hospitalized for medium symptoms (you would not like to have it).

so they dont think anything needs to be done. School continues / the spread continues.

@JMin

You've hit the nail on the head there. Same where I was working yesterday in a high school, but with no open windows. There is a stupid widespread belief that people can't get sick here if they wear a mask..

Whatever here is sinking or decreasing or not, but wouldn’t it make some sense to urgently begin concentrating and reacting on those higher and rising death tolls?

yet now there are scientific grounds for targeting schools and daycares, and Covid is letting rip in those workplaces, with children taking the virus home, infecting school staff, and yet they do nothing.

This is incorrect, if a child or teacher catches covid the whole nursury and all of the children are sent home and the place is closed for 7 days. I know this as it happened two weeks ago at my son's nursury, no government provision, no help just expected to look after your child and work at the same time for a week.

Only 81 hospitalizations?? Can we stop this madness? This is not a real public health threat! When will the scaremongers be satisfied? Zero hospitalizations? Sorry that’s just not possible for any virus!

What is it exactly that you want stopped? All covid mitigation measures, including personal like mask wearing?

The reason we only have 81 hospitalized with severe symptoms in Tokyo and 1444 nationwide is because of and despite those measures.

Don't you think they would be orders of magnitude higher if measures are stopped?

Yesterday there was a record 236 deaths, previous high was 227 last may.

And that despite all the preparations, measures, treatments, vaccines and all knowledge learned about the disease so far.

More people are dying now than when we knew next to nothing about the virus.

Yet you say this is not a real public health threat

Isn't that madness?

Ah, the daily numbers... Are we all gonna die now?

Ian

Commodore is correct, this is not a real public health threat. Not to your average person anyway, symptoms are mild. The average age of death is over 80. Even in under 80’s the majority of deaths were from those with serious health issues. A small amount of healthy people will die to, that’s the same with flu or pneumonia.

Lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccines are ineffective against Omicron. Everyone will catch it and have excellent protection from Covid, natural immunisation is better than vaccination.

Ah, the daily numbers... Are we all gonna die now?

Lol what are you talking about?

Ah, the daily numbers... Are we all gonna die now?

Juvenile.

Sadly, the number of deaths is rising - but the heartless could not care.

Rest in Peace to the 236 dead.

Only 81 hospitalizations?? Can we stop this madness? This is not a real public health threat! 

For some reason this post hasn't been 'moderated' away, so I guess it's fair game to respond.

You do realise that '81 hospitalizations' only refers to the most severe cases i.e. those requiring ICU?

There are currently more than 500,000 people recovering at home. One reason for this is that the hospitals simply cannot cope with 500,000 patients, and they have decided to keep capacity available for only the most severe cases. This number is currently increasing by tens of thousands everyday.

The more the virus spreads, the more likely new strains will come into being. People think that a new strain means a more diluted strain, but this isn't necessarily the case. A next strain could easily be more contagious and more dangerous than Omicron.

This is very much a public health threat. I can only presume you are trolling by making such a comment.

Natural immunity is better than that provided by the vaccines, scientifically proven fact.

This is a great example of people saying stuff that doesn't mean what they think it means.

HBJ…. Stop with all that factually correct information. You’re gonna give a few people a coronary.

Steven

You did understand that link you posted? It clearly states that natural immunity was stronger against Delta than 2 vaccinations. The rest is speculation and maybe this maybe that.

How about something unbiased and science based?

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1

You've hit the nail on the head there. Same where I was working yesterday in a high school, but with no open windows. There is a stupid widespread belief that people can't get sick here if they wear a mask..

You gotta open the windows yourself. I always opened the windows at my old workplace in 2020-2021. It pissed everyone off, but I was right the whole time as I understood infections occur by aerosols.

I’m not into junk science . Just the facts . You stated that Omicron provides better immunity. No variant of Covid provides immunity. They give exactly what the vaccines do . A better chance at survival. Immunity means completely protected from. So no …. Once again you’re 100% factually WRONG.

You did understand that link you posted? It clearly states that natural immunity was stronger against Delta than 2 vaccinations. The rest is speculation and maybe this maybe that.

No, that is false.

directly from the link

One important takeaway from all that pre-omicron research: Infection-induced immunity and vaccine-induced immunity are pretty similar

and

Still, vaccine-induced immunity is a better choice, not because it produces a stronger immunity, but because it enables you to get the immunity without the side effects and risks that come along with illness — like a greater risk of stillbirth if you’re pregnant, or long COVID, hospitalization and death in general. 

It explicitly says that vaccine immunity is better.

How about something unbiased and science based?

The article you are trying to contradict is also unbiased and science based, and It is even better because it includes data from twice and trice vaccinated, which is important against different variants.

One thing you seem to be trying to ignore about your own source.

Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.

So according to something you consider trust worthy, vaccines are beneficial and should be used even for people that were infected previously.

Virusrex

Factcheck

Please stop spreading disinformation and twisting my comments. I said natural immunity is stronger than 2 vaccines and that is proved. Whether natural immunity combined with vaccines is stronger is irrelevant and was not part of the discussion.

Steven Mccarthy

I never said anything about full immunity, please try harder.

Kids/Schools: For the last 2 weeks about every day my daughters school announces 1 to 3 new COVID cases among students. And each time they say that they have precautions of masks and some open windows, so they dont think anything needs to be done. School continues / the spread continues.

That is what is happening all over the country, you can imagine the number of people with light or no symptoms that go untested and spreading the virus. The official numbes are just a fraction of the real numbers of which only the almighty. The so called experts have lost all credibility and can't be trusted because they are against increased testing.

98% of Reported Covid deaths in Australia have been with Covid not from Covid…meaning the didn’t actually die from Covid!. They also had at least 3 other comorbidities! The bunk being preached here by questionable characters with questionable motives is being shown to be false! The world is moving on from Covid as people have had enough of the lies and scare campaigns! Hopefully Japan moves on sooner Prather than later as well. Luckily they wen the natural immunity route and it has done them very well.

There you go again.

Please stop spreading disinformation

Oh, that is too rich.

“This is incorrect, if a child or teacher catches covid the whole nursury and all of the children are sent home and the place is closed for 7 days. I know this as it happened two weeks ago at my son's nursury, no government provision, no help just expected to look after your child and work at the same time for a week.”

At my work place in central Tokyo, if one infection occurs in the office, close and direct contacts will be traced and tested and affected people will self quarantine if not serious. Everyone would go home that day and the office will be disinfected the next day and reopen for business the day after that.

I’m 2019 1.38 million people died in Japan….open up and move on and get over it!

Enough with the melodramatics! People die! It is part of life! Sad but true…

Covid kills a lot less than smoking but we didn’t stop the world over that last time I looked…

I mean, if we're debating if vaccines or natural acquired infection provides better immunity, I think it would be obvious that naturally immunity would provide better protection. The vaccines are based on the spike protein from the original Wuhan strain - omicron has long since mutated beyond the need to use this spike protein for infection.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of the vaccines - I think they represent a tremendous human achievement and believe that because we have them we don't need to worry about coronavirus as much as we had to back in March of 2020 as they significantly contribute to preventing serious infection and death. The idea of a lockdown in a post vaccine world doesn't make sense to me.

However, natural immunity has been shown to provide a more lasting and robust immune response* and one could expect this to be this be the case as the virus continues to mutate.

"Importantly, infection-derived protection was greater after the highly transmissible Delta variant became predominant, coinciding with early declining of vaccine-induced immunity in many persons"

*https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e1.htm

Just to add I'm not suggesting everyone deliberately infect themselves - be safe.

You are correct as usual. Eugenics is the only way out of this. Anyone who is over 80 or has an illness (same thing, right?) is already gone. Those people don't count.

No one has ever said they want eugenics or that these people don't count. When people argue that it mostly causes severe symptoms in people over the age 80 only, I believe they're arguing that if you're in one of these at risk groups, then you should take extra precautions.

Just as someone living in Tokyo, I don't think a lot of elderly people are taking it seriously and I think one of the reasons is that there's this vague blanket message whereby everyone regardless of risk category should stay at home and take the exact same precautions. As someone who made a quick recovery from omicron myself and as someone who reads papers and reports on the pandemic on a daily basis, I can tell you that the risk simply isn't the same for everyone. And it should not be treated like it is the same risk for everyone.

Even if you do get stronger protection from naturally induced immunity as opposed to vaccine induced , vaccine induced is better.

That is because vaccines protect against being infected whereas natural merely protects against being subsequently infected.

To get natural immunity you have to get infected first and survive.

With vaccines even if you get infected you have a higher chance of surviving, which will then give you your natural immunity.

HBJ

You do realise that '81 hospitalizations' only refers to the most severe cases i.e. those requiring ICU?

Contrary to what you wrote Tokyo and a few prefectures don't count those in ICU as serious cases just those on ventilators and ecmo. That is why Tokyo's number of serious cases is extremely low despite being the most populated and congested, of course they are happy with the low numbers as it gives the impression to those that don't know that Koike and her group are doing a great job.

Answer me this simple question.

Which has a higher chance of more people surviving the pandemic?

A population that uses vaccines or a population that does not?

Have the boosters not been rolled out yet? Or are Japanese people cynical about the jabs?

Assuming your local government people have been proactive in sending out the vouchers in your city, yes. I got my ticket a month ago, had absolutely no difficulty booking a reservation, and got my jab Feb 1.

Unfortunately the speed of sending out of tickets varies wildly from city to city, others have not had such a pleasant experience.

How many school kids get sick being forced to breath in their own bacteria all day long due to mask requirements?

Ian

Your points made are irrelevant, I merely stated that natural immunity is better than double jabbed. I’m nit for or against vaccines.

I'm not talking to you

I won't argue that natural immunity isn't better, but the difference is so minimal that the graphs between double-jab and natural are nearly colinear when the view is scaled with the unvaccinated population.

David

Yes, you are correct but I was merely saying this to a person who claimed the opposite so I presented the facts.

With vaccines even if you get infected you have a higher chance of surviving, which will then give you your natural immunity.

Sure - I'm in favor of people getting vaccinations. Ideally people (especially those at risk) should have them before infection.

But if you do survive the infection, should you still have to get a vaccine or booster based on the original Wuhan strain? Should I still have to get a booster even though I had omicron last week to be able to travel? That's why I think the "which immunity is better" and "what counts as immunity" argument is important.

Interesting to note that the anti vaxxers, covid deniers, the " oh it is just a cold, etc..." Would during the previous waves say, The number of infected doesn't matter it is the seriously ill and death.

Well now the deaths 7 day average is just over 200 higher than the previous wave but now all the anti vaxxers and covid deniers are focused on are the infection rates doing their best to avoid any mention of deaths in the rise.

Please stop spreading disinformation and twisting my comments. I said natural immunity is stronger than 2 vaccines and that is proved

That is still completely irrelevant because it misses completely the whole point. Immunity is something desirable in the sense that it helps preventing risks from an infection, so saying that you should run the whole range of risks to prevent them later makes absolutely no sense.

Whether natural immunity combined with vaccines is stronger is irrelevant and was not part of the discussion

It is part of the discussion because it is included in a source you brought. Which means you believe it is correct.

Enough with the melodramatics! People die! It is part of life! Sad but true…

It is very fortunate that people in charge of public health do not have such a disdain about human life and consider preventing unnecessary deaths something desirable.

I merely stated that natural immunity is better than double jabbed.

And that is completely wrong, natural immunity is much worse because it comes with much higher risks, which are precisely the thing immunity is meant to prevent.

Virusrex

FFS Fact-check; I was not mentioning anything about which is the preferable or best way to attain immunity. I was merely correcting a poster who said that vaccine immunity is stronger than natural.

‘In fact natural immunity is better at protecting against reinfection, you are completely wrong

A population that uses vaccines or a population that does not?

A population that has a national rollout of vaccines every 4 months and covers each and every vulnerable person.

I'm personally not sure if this is doable.

But if you do survive the infection, should you still have to get a vaccine or booster based on the original Wuhan strain? Should I still have to get a booster even though I had omicron last week to be able to travel? That's why I think the "which immunity is better" and "what counts as immunity" argument is important.

Incidentally, I'm also was not talking to you or anyone in particular, sorry have to be clear next time. But I did follow your lead, just putting my take on the topic out there.

Anyway, your questions I think can't be answered adequately with reasoning alone, it has to be backed up with citations.

But as far as I recall, articles I've read do specifically say that even those who had prior infections will benefit from boosters/vaccinations.

Incidentally, I'm also was not talking to you or anyone in particular, 

That's a shame. I thought we were becoming friends. :'(

9.04 pm poster

Heres some interesting info. average age of Covid deaths in Japan is 82, yes average.

No under 10’s have died

230 deaths may have one or two under 80’s without underlying health conditions probably related to obesity.

same with flu, except Covid isn’t killing the little kiddies like flu does, which is great.