Tokyo reports 539 new coronavirus cases; nationwide tally 3,594

It’s pretty disrespectful to JT’s readers that JT doesn’t include the test numbers anymore.

It’s pretty disrespectful to JT’s readers that JT doesn’t include the test numbers anymore.

It may not be by choice.

Toyo Keizai has not updated it numbers for Tokyo and has been on average 2 days late on national testing numbers.

My wife sent an email asking why the sudden change.

Surprisingly they replied saying that the labs have been "requested" not to give out their test numbers anymore to non government places.

So seems clear the government wants to control the narrative

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve read ‘...a record high in Okinawa’, or ‘...a record high in Hokkaido’ over the last couple of weeks - however I’m yet to see any follow up articles about this.

What is causing record high cases in Hokkaido and Okinawa when they are both islands and more isolated from the mass population areas than say the prefectures surrounding Tokyo and Osaka?

Why is the focus almost exclusively on Tokyo and Osaka on a daily basis regardless of what is going on elsewhere?

Surely professional journalists can see there are stories worth covering elsewhere?

Who is asking Suga the difficult questions, like ‘Why on earth can you not shut down the virus on 2 of your islands?’

Im also yet to see any articles on here about schools and universities closing down due to clusters. I know 3 such places that have had clusters of positives (double figures) in the last 2 weeks (outside of Tokyo). I also know of a school in Saitama that has had a huge number of positive cases yet hasn’t shut down and teachers are being forced to continue face to face despite having had members of their own classes test positive. No ‘contact tracing’ tests for them either.

The whole situation is a complete joke, and news organisations / journalists aren’t helping matters as it is them who can put the news front and center and put the pressure on the government to sort themselves out.

Have you noticed how they've stopped reporting number of people tested. It's because the ratio of tested to COVID positive is alarmingly high in Japan. Melbourne, Australia had 5 positives from 40,000 tests yesterday. I'll bet Tokyo would have more than 10,000 positives if 40,000 were tested. Better to report "only" 500 and not divulge the ratio / truth: Japan is actually on the brink of disaster but the Olympics must proceed.

Now that is a scary number when we know from past weekends the testing is less than half from the weekdays testing.

How is it possible that Japan has such a high positive rate.

Tokyo's own site says positivity rare of just under 6%., Looking at other developed countries and the rates are around half that.

The worst is to come. The US,UK and Europe will be able resume normal business ways. Meetings in person, business travel but in Japan we won’t be able and the business loss will be gigantic.

Are they hospitalizing these people, or just sendng them home until they develop respiratory difficulties and struggle to breathe?

I don't know but my daughter's friend that cares for his disabled bother had to pay for his brother to be tested in a private lab.

He came back positive, he has cerebral palsy, his brother is his care taker and is also sick.

After testing positive and being over a week sick it still took 5 more days to find a hospital in Tokyo that would take him,

He is now on oxigen 24 hours a day and not doing well.

If it took having to use a private lab and then another 5 days ( so fever and sick for 2 weeks) for someone with cerebral palsy to get a hospital bed, we can sort of guess what it is like for most!

Was running around Kanda today near the palace and they had a massive vaccine centre there. They were already 80 mins behind schedule at lunchtime. Was going awfully slow.....though I guess we have to be grateful the vaccination process for the elderly has started, albeit at a snails pace. Okinawa is really really worrying

About the situation in Hokkaido, remember the Olympic test event in the first week of May. The numbers started to really increase from about 10 days after that. Must be coincidence.

In Okinawa it was Golden week that did it.

in Tokyo and Osaka it is likely they lie about the numbers since the seriously sick keep rising but it is pretended the infections go down.

If the Olympics go ahead we will have a Brazilian situation here.

IOC must be stopped or we will all be carrying people we know to their graves.. or they will carry us.

Relying only on seasonal decreasing effects due to rising temperatures in and around summer is not a good strategy. Estimates are, that those are influencing infection numbers only by about 20%.

Sure Tokyo reports 539 new cases.

If I have 10 quarters in my pocket, and someone asks me if I have a quarter, I can truthfully say yes.

It would be interesting to know the total number of cases.

And beyond that and more importantly, it would be interesting to know the only number that matters--the positivity rate.

What is causing record high cases in Hokkaido and Okinawa when they are both islands and more isolated from the mass population areas than say the prefectures surrounding Tokyo and Osaka?

One, tourists are the main reason Okinawa has had a huge spike. Along with the fact that the majority of positive cases are among the 30 and under age group.

Okinawa is far from "isolated"

Actually, 105 deaths. But who's counting?

God knows how many people are suffering in silence at home, no access to testing and not being part of the official stats, and also thinking how many people they could have infected.

@Antiquesaving

your wife having an email about the testing facade would be evidence and I'd encourage you or her to send it to another news organization that might report on it.

Where in the world are you and others, cherry picking your numbers from?

Probably provided by the IOC.

I don't understand why Japan still have such an small rate of PCR tests.I don't think any of this numbers are real and I can't believe they struggle.They had one year to make more hospitals.Not to say how they closed all the bars but Pachinko is open until 11:30pm.This state of emergency is just a bad bad joke.

I wonder if you called an ambulance will they come to help if you were having covid signs and not refuse to help?

Total confirmed case of 3549 in Japan seems small in comparison. Just saying.

Huh? There are over 16,000 confirmed cases in Okinawa alone. Where in the world are you and others, cherry picking your numbers from?

Great to see numbers continuing to fall. Recoveries were over 7000 yesterday, so a big drop in active cases.

There seems to be eternal cynicism over the numbers but the only valid criticism is that more testing could be done.

imagine sticking the entire population of the 50 states of USA into California. Total confirmed case of 3549 in Japan seems small in comparison. Just saying.

Its the new version of the flu,

Time to accept it and stop with the daily hysterics