The Tokyo metropolitan government on Wednesday reported 714 new coronavirus cases, up 238 from Tuesday.
The average for Tokyo over the past seven days stands at 508.4.
People in their 20s (201 cases), their 40s (143) and their 30s (132) accounted for the highest numbers.
The number of infected people hospitalized with severe symptoms in Tokyo is 47, up four from Tuesday, health officials said. The nationwide figure is 523, down 29 from Tuesday.
Nationwide, the number of reported cases as of 6:30 p.m. was 1,821. After Tokyo, the prefectures with the most cases were Kanagawa (209), Chiba (156), Saitama (109), Osaka (108), Okinawa (67), Aichi (53), Fukuoka (43), Hokkaido (38), Tochigi (29) and Hyogo (28).
The number of coronavirus-related deaths reported nationwide was 41.
- External Link
- https://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/en.html
93 Comments
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virusrex
That is the same researcher that was completely wrong about incidence in Santa Clara County with a report of terribly low quality, something that was a huge surprise since most of the problems and mistakes of the study were of the kind he usually heavily criticized. Surprised until it was found out he had a completely undeclared conflict of interest because he was funded precisely to make those mistakes.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-coronavirus-neeleman-ioannidis-whistleblower
At this point it is completely clear Ioannidis has been wrong about the pandemic since the beginning, apparently because of financial interests in him being mistaken.
Wick's pencil
According to John Ioannidis, globally the average IFR is 0.15%. In Asia/Africa it's 0.05-0.1%.
virusrex
"common sense" is not enough to guess something that you have no information about, the Japanese situation is mostly unknown because of lack of efforts from the government to properly follow the infection. The lack of testing include also lethal cases. From the very limited data of seroprevalence Japan don't have as many cases (yet) as in most of the countries, so the IFR is impossible to guess.
If the argument is that evidence is not being collected as it should be the complain that "you have not seen any evidence" actually works against your position, that requires evidence of absence, not absence of evidence.
Antiquesaving
Again you try and make up stuff.
No one said the government is covering up or concealing anything.
Everyone is saying by not testing properly the true numbers are not known.
It is that simple, why do we know how many died in the UK and Canada because they tested everyone possible regardless of their symptoms.
Not Japan it barely tested a tiny tiny tiny fraction of what other countries did.
It is as simple as this.
I can claim no one speeds on my road because no one has gotten a ticket.
But if the police have never checked or sent up a Radar, is my statement accurate?
Raw Beer
I never claimed to have an exact number. I just used this thing called common sense. World-wide, the IFR is considerably larger than the CFR. And for over a year, people here have been continually complaining that they can't get tested, including people that have multiple Covid19 symptoms. So obviously, the actual infection number is much larger than the confirmed case number.
Some have suggested that many covid deaths go unrecorded, but I have yet to see any evidence or rational for that or that Japan is particularly bad at keeping records...
As Ian recently asked "That no autopsy thing you always say, for example, can you provide the basis for that?"
Objective
klausdorth
My error. I was on the Vaccine Doses metric which was vaccines per 100 people. That number is 34% which was an overlook. We are closer to 25% in Japan and growing at about 2 points every 4-5 days which is very fast and encouraging. I will try to be better when posting data. But I won't post conjecture or assumptions based on feelings, only the public numbers given.
virusrex
Lack of information means you can't calculate the infection fatality rate, nor say how different it is compared with the case fatality rate, because lack of detection can apply also to deaths. "Much lower" would require evidence that nobody has.
Antiquesaving
Japan barely tested and required no autopsies, for those reasons alone we will never actually know the full numbers of covid related deaths.
The Japanese government is not interested in the truth only perception.
Look at Canada at least their government is willing to double check and now it is emerging that it is likely tend of thousands of covid related cases when uncounted or reported.
If the Japanese ( and many here) would be honest and admit that by not testing or requiring autopsies the official deaths is far below or at least not what is being presented and would do a proper review to see if or how many were not reported then perhaps there numbers can be trusted.
But Japan will never do such a review even if it could.
Unless you buy into the " Japanese are special beings" nonsense, then common sense tells us the numbers just don't add up.
Raw Beer
That is the case fatality rate, the actual infection fatality rate is much lower as many infections go undetected (i.e. never confirmed).
ian
Not that there are a lot of deaths to begin with
ian
It should result in far less mortality or mortality rate at least
ian
Vaccinated part of the population may still be low but if the elderly can be completely vaccinated by end of this month Japan would have achieved a significant milestone
Sheikh Yerboaby
and in Japan it's 1.8%
Sheikh Yerboaby
Sheikh Yerboaby
almost everyone is wearing a mask already.....and people are still dying......people are still contracting it........it's almost as if wearing a mask that is made of paper or an old pair of spongebob squarepants underpants has little to no effect.......
How many people are dying? THAT's the critical statistic. Rising= problem, Down= no problem. Get the vaccine out....cut down the severe patients and those that die......the virus will keep on virusing and we can all forget about the hysterical "wear a maaaaaaasssssk!" calls
Happy Day
Sanji- well said. Delta variant is 1/23rd as lethal as the original strain among unvaccinated. If you're vulnerable, get vaccinated. If not, you're not going to feel anything or get very sick from Delta.
Sanjinosebleed
So with minimal testing and obviously case numbers hugely underestimated total number of people critically ill people are 42??? Not 42 new critically ill people everyday just a total of 42...How many did there used to be in a heavy influenza year...probably a lot more.
Seriously talk abut the sky is falling! Too many chicken littles on here!!
The Delta variant has been shown to be more contagious but less deadly with the overall majority of people showing mild to no symptoms...whether vaccinated or not..
Get over it!
Vaccinate the elderly and those with secondary illnesses and move on.
This is the new flu not the end of the world!
Pukey2
Quick, reduce the testing.
Do the hustle
The new case numbers are beginning to soar, yet again! It’s easy to blame the government, but it is those who are spreading it that are at fault. Avoiding catching and catching the virus is not so difficult. Wear a mask, practice social distancing and wash your flipping hands!
Why doesn’t Japan give information on clusters and contact tracing? Why isn’t Japan doing mass testing and isolating those who carry the virus? Why is Japan only testing those with symptoms? Many who carry the virus do not develop symptoms for weeks or show no symptoms at all. It’s too late once people have symptoms. They could have been in contact with hundreds, possibly thousands of other people. Japan will be battling this virus for years, possibly decades. The vaccines are not the silver bullet they are banking on. The longer they dither around the more chance there is of the virus mutating into another more infectious strain and/or a vaccine resistant strain. The Japanese strain!
Jim
The authorities will call an urgent meeting and reach a resolution that COVID testing needs to be minimized once again. The Olympics is just around the corner so we have to show that corona is under control in Japan. Let’s bring back the four days fever requirement to be eligible for testing! Behind closed doors this is what they will be discussing!
Confusius
That's not how it works though. The number you are citing is the number of ALL shots administered so far and does not make a difference between first and second shots. Giving the second shot to one person does not magically vaccinate another person. Of the 43,504,931 shots administered so far 14,591,068 were the second ones. So 28,913,863 people have received at least one shot so far (50.5% of those have already received their second dose). Therefore it's around 22.9% of the population that has received at least on dose and not 34% like you claim.
Also roughly half of the doses administered these days seem to be second shots. Going by the numbers from the last few days, the number of people that have received at least one shot will likely increase by around 0.4-0.5% per day. Unless they increase the speed, they will probably reach the 34% around the time the Olympics are supposed to start.
carpslidy
i m going to take a hard zag and say this is a good thing.
It's going to prove vaccinations work, i.e increased cases won't result in increased hospitalizations and will motivate more to be vaccinated.
This summer was always going to stuck, so may as well prove vaccinations work so when the next wave comes people will be more level headed.
John Noun
No, that isn't true. I also think they're selfish, but I don't live in any sort of dark world you mention.
Kevin
@Objective, one dose of the vaccines isn't really going to cut it with DELTA:
As of June 27th, only a little over 9% of the population has both shots and Japan is near the bottom of the list.
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1202074/share-of-population-vaccinated-covid-19-by-county-worldwide/
I guess in Japan DELTA isn't the main variant…yet.
gakinotsukai
Maybe not.
It generally gives a false sense of security and makes people becoming careless.
For example with the Pfizer, after few weeks, the immunity can drop at 33%.
If you add to it that the Delta variant reduces the immunity of 15-20%, you have a major risk of infection wave due to overconfidence.
Second dose is a must maybe soon a third.
Kevin
I had COVID here in Japan in early May, I recovered and am now basically immune. I had to get my immunity, "the hard way" due to no vaccine availability here, which still irks me to no end.
As of a few days ago, only a little over 9% of the Japanese population were vaccinated. They're near the very bottom of the list of countries in percentage of population vaccinated. Add delta to the equation, one good hot spell which will drive people indoors, and the continuous conspiracy theories online about how dangerous the vaccine supposedly is, what could go wrong in the next few weeks?
I had one Japanese friend tell me the other day she's waiting for a Japanese made vaccine, she doesn't trust the foreign vaccines. You see what I mean? They're near the bottom of countries that have been vaccinated yet they think they should wait longer. Let's see how it all shakes out...
StillMove
@objective
44 million total doses administered but 15 million are fully vaccinated. So 15 million people have received 30 million of the 44, which means only 14 million have received 1 dose. That makes only 23% (29/126) have received at least one dose. If we are sticking to the facts…
Objective
@Antiquesaving There will be fewer deaths and hospitalizations because millions of vaccines are being administered weekly. 44M doses to date, or 34% of the population has at least one dose. And we know one dose will protect better than none.
source: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=JPN
With this incredibly fast pace, the vulnerable will be protected much better than before when there were real spikes. So NO, there will not be a significant rise in hospitalizations and deaths. We are seeing this in every country that has vaccinated so many people.
Antiquesaving
We also know that hospitalisation and deaths follow after infection rates.
Rates go up first then later comes the rise in hospitalisation and later a rise in deaths.
They are not and have never been simultaneous
But you know that, don't you?
Objective
AntiquesavingToday 10:09 pm JST
You are basing your conclusions on NO data. I am basing my conclusions ONLY on data. I agree that the number of tests are lower than in other countries but it doesn't allow you to assume anything...
"at this point infection rates are so high even low testing...."
so high and low testing means nothing since those are not numbers. We do however know: number of deaths, number of seriously ill, occupancy rate of hospitals, number of cases in every prefecture, number of vaccinations.
Antiquesaving
Another attempt at false information.
People never said the numbers are inaccurate.
People said the testing numbers are Low!
You know that but try placing false information.
Low testing means blow number of cases. But at this point infection rates are so high even low testing is still resulting in high number of cases.
Now imagine if Tokyo was testing properly the number of cases would be staggering!
Now look at how things went the last several times the numbers in Tokyo went up, not long after the rest of the country followed.
Tokyo sneezes the country catches a cold!
Antiquesaving
2 weeks ago it was covid is beat cases are down vaccine are being given cases won't go up!
Now again the same thing but using deaths.
Only problem is deaths follow a rise in cases by about 2 weeks.
Ok I get you want to be "optimistic" but can't you for once admit when things are not going right?
No one in their right mind can look at cases in Tokyo more than doubling in 2 days and Osaka doubling in one day and keep claiming covid is beaten and nothing is worng.
Objective
Honestly, how can most of you posting agree that a major increase in cases was measured in Tokyo? You have ALWAYS claimed that the numbers are inaccurate. You can't have it both ways. When the numbers kept dropping you claimed foul.
Look at at the overall numbers for Japan and you will see that things are getting better from month to month (Fewer deaths, fewer seriously ill, lower hospital occupancy rate, falling number of people presenting with symptoms, falling number of cases in Japan (most prefectures.) The vaccinations are protecting the vulnerable more than ever before.
blvtzpk
Correlation does not imply causation.
John Noun
Well, Japan has brought this upon themselves with their pompous and ignorant behaviour regarding Coronavirus.
sf2k
Holy smokes! That's an incredible increase, a major surge, as well as a rounding error on an a much greater number since the numbers can't bounce up and down so quickly. If only there was sufficient testing
falseflagsteve
The low deaths and severe cases demonstrate that the vaccines are working. With continued precautions and more vaccine take up we will not have a serious problem in Japan. It’s safe to go out nationwide, just take precautions. As long as you are not a very senior person, obese or have a serious underlying health condition the risks from Covid are minute.
Deaths will not shoot up now the elderly are being vaccinated.
ian
Good thing out of the 714 only 66 were 60 yrs old and above.
Hopefully inoculation of the elderly will finish well ahead of the end of July target
GW
the olympics have been making people sick & killing them now for over a year with these on off again SOEs with the j-govt trying to pretend they can hold the games """"safely""" NOT!
Antiquesaving
Perhaps a little explanation on how it works.
Infections went down, number of people with covid was down so the percentage of those seriously ill and dying will also be down.
As infections rise more will be hospitalised more will get seriously ill and more will die.
The percentages not change but more people sick the more people will be seriously ill and more will die.
The number of serious cases lags behind when cases rise, and deaths lags behind serious cases, it's a domino effect.
snowymountainhell
Perhaps you meant well @Monty 6:47 & 7:14pm but these up & down ‘numbers’ are frustrating everyone, no matter how positive they can claim to be:
However, @Antiquesaving’s plight is like many here. You @Monty, have the benefits of a big company, including company sponsored vaccinations starting Friday (“Congrats” again if you didn’t see it before).
The difference is small business owners have been ‘hung out to dry” in the last 18 months. Many have had to try alternate methods ‘on their own’ with little-to-no assistance from the government. The result: “Sacrifice & Losses”!
Like others, @robertmaes put his life’s work toward these games and what did he get by all the delays and government inadequacies. More “Sacrifice and Losses!
Also, many “gaijin” business owners may be considered ‘a part of community’ however, just *one, ***1** business ‘slip-up’ or misunderstanding, and you can easily become ostracized.
It’s not fair, but it’s built into the culture, even toward ‘their own’ people.
And , the majority of hard-working, equally tax-paying, resident foreign workers and business owners are waiting in line to get, IF they choose, to long-overdue vaccinations. In the meantime, if they get ‘sick’, in any fashion, the rumours begin, people start keeping a distance and stop patronizing their local favorite, then, houses are vandalized by cowards in the cover of night and irreversibly, the resident becomes the community pariah, regardless of the “truth”.
@Monty: My sincerest apologies again if I ever offended You in all this turmoil over the last 18 months. People have different points of view and their perception is their reality. But, admittedly, it’s not always best or correct.
So, Perhaps re-read your @6:47pm post more objectively and consider that support is probably needed more than a chastising? - Best Wishes to All.
Jtsnose
Continue to use social distancing . . . another idea, stagger times people travel in order to minimize crowds on subways, streets, etc.
smithinjapan
Right on schedule. Lifted the "State of Emergency... what... 9 days ago or so?
gogogo
Delta making it's mark... why doesn't Japan release the testing numbers or the varients? It's like saying "X people" were sick yesterday
snowymountainhell
May be a real concern for the media now..-Tonight’s Tokyo restrictions story, originating at 4:47pm, has now been amended with Today’s ‘numbers’ as well.
Guess we’ll learn in the morning their decisions of furthering the restrictions?
snowymountainhell
Whoever was ‘raising a flag’ earlier, claiming these numbers were just “interesting”, has to now, realistically, be reconsidering that it’s ‘not so positive‘ to continue with ‘Tokyo’s Games’?
as_the_crow_flies
That's okay then - it's only 43m people after all. Nothing to worry about.
quercetum
It does seem to follow that bar graph shown on all the news. When it goes down, we lift the soe then it goes back up again.
Jonathan Prin
The Delta , Delta + or Epsilon variant ?
Anyway, the more contagious it is, the less efficient masks are, and need for higher efficiency masks.
Hope vaccinations will alleviate the burden on the medical staff.
Mark
DELTA
Mark
Could it be this DELA super infectious variant creeping up on us???
Vinke
Bob Fosse
Right - but Uniqlo doesn't have a covid testing unit or a fever clinic adjacent to their stores, or staff and police to ensure people don't mingle with each other. I also doubt Uniqlo has offered the vaccine to their staff members.
The driver, as a staff member, should've been vaccinated. But we don't have that information, I believe. We do know, however, that the TOC has offered the vaccine at least to all staff members who are in direct contact with the athletes, and the program has been in full swing for a few weeks now.
Monty
@Antiquesaving
Ok...I just wanted to help you....
HBJ
And just how many of the 1821 nationwide / 714 in Tokyo are the Delta strain - or is Japan just not bothering to test that specifically?
Tokyo will be back over 1,000 by Saturday.
Antiquesaving
obviously you don't know how things work in Japan especially traditional crafts and even more a Gaijin.
Any hint at covid and that will end years of building up my business.
tamanegi
We don't want overshoot so please wash your hands, wear a mask, social distance and stay home! Please.
thericerocket
At least deaths are going down
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/michael1732/viz/TokyoCovid/TOKYOCOVID-19
Bob Fosse
Obviously.
Uniqlo have staff at the door, temperature checks and disinfectant.
It’s a two way street. The bus driver for the Ugandan team may disagree with you.
Monty
@Antiquesaving
Financial I am under serious pressure to open my business
I understand that your life is hard. You also explained to us here your life situation many times.
Let me tell you my opinion:
Many of us here, and millions of japanese are in the same situation.
We also have to think about our financial situation.
But, we dont complain nonstop how bad is the japanese government handle the things here.
You know what we are doing?
We take a risk.
We the risk to get infected with Covid by going every day to work with full packed trains into full packed offices.
If we dont do that, we will have a big financial problem and dont know how to bring food on the table.
And you are in a much better situation than us. Because you have your own business. And your clients are already vaccined.
So Antiqusaving, take the risk and improve your financial situation.
And you can lower the risk by wearing mask, sanitizer, social distance, speparater...whatever.
But whining every day how bad everything here is will not help you or your financial situation.
You and me are living here In Japan since many years. So we know how Japan is working.
So get out of your paranoia and self pity hole and start to live your live.
You have kids, who you are responsible for.
Is it not worth to take a small risk for our kids?
I think you know the answer.
The Avenger
Must be the E484K mutation. (Eek variant)
Vinke
Bob Fosse
These numbers have nothing to do with the Olympics. They haven't started yet. I've been to the village, and it's a highly organised place, with strict security measures, temperature checks and disinfectants here and there, their own covid clinics etc. I honestly doubt the athletes would cause any harm for the population in Japan. It really is the other way around. I'm sick of Japanese people not knowing or doing even the simplest things to do to try and stop the spread - recently the number of people wearing a mask has started to drop, and only a random few will disinfect their hands when entering supermarkets or other shops. Like I've said for a year now, nobody is properly distancing from anyone or anything, but there are crowds simply everywhere.
Akula
Today will be the first day in a while that new cases have exceeded recoveries, although Kanto is the only real hotspot at the moment. Just hope the vaccination program can continue to ramp up.
Vinke
Well, based on what I see happening in my neighbourhood, I'm not surprised at all. The majority of the infections are happening to people in their 20s, yet university circles/clubs and other activities are going forward as everything would be normal, shopping malls are full of young crowds either just having fun with friends or dating. Young people telling week after week of all the fun things they've been doing on their freetime; amusement parks, cafes, shopping, movies, local travelling, etc. I really question the logic, the intelligence and the sense of responsibility, when you can't refrain from things like these, at a time like this. So I'm sorry, I'm not blaming the Olympics like the majority of commentators here want to do, I'm blaming general irresponsibility and ignorance, that is further fuelled by similarly irresponsible content on TV, Youtube etc. People here seem to honestly believe, that simply wearing a mask (often on your chin) is the cure-all.
gakinotsukai
that's your problem : mixing personal and subjective views with data to be analyzed in an objective way
Tell_me_bout_it
"It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life."
very fitting
Bob Fosse
Where are the Olympics being held? Refresh my memory.
GenHXZ
Not testing close contacts, not contact tracing and with a varient that's more easily spread? Do they want this to spread uncontrollably? Because by not doing the tracing, that's what we are getting.
tooheysnew
as are comments like thiS
as does reading all the negative comments here
not gonna happen, get over it
spot on
Antiquesaving
@anon99999
It is because Tokyo cannot prevent private labs from testing during the week.
Also the private labs are obligated to report positive results.
Now I will not be surprised to see a change bin the reporting obligation and Tokyo suddenly no longer accept private lab results, then the numbers would remain low like they want.
anon99999
Interesting how cases still rise despite an effort to reduce testing to hide the numbers for a certain event. That damn delta virus doesn’t play by the Olympic playbook. Poor Koike coming out of hospital today to this news which might disrupt her recovery.
Michael Machida
Going up!
Frapoke
Man this feels like Groundhog Day ;-(
Antiquesaving
As much as I expected this, I honestly was hoping I would be wrong.
Financial I am under serious pressure to open my business to the public, my clientele are mostly older and Don not like to do business online.
So being closed for face to face business is not going to be sustainable much longer.
Some clients are now saying that because they are vaccinated they are now fine in coming over but I am not and won't be fully vaccinated until the end of August.
Rising numbers makes opening now even less likely.
How much worse can the Japanese government have handled things all because they wanted these stupid Olympics.
Commodore Perry
Interesting how cases rise with an increase in testing.
High positivity rate means more to come.
ulysses
Vaccinate, Vaccinate and Vaccinate more, that's the only way to beat this virus.
Some dude
Even the most optimistic person might have trouble explaining this number.
satoshi matsuda
it can be forcasted easily, stop the games!!
snowymountainhell
The takeaway from @5:13pm:
“recent uptick,… concerned,… Olympics open Jul 23,… worried,… concern about the spread of more highly transmissible variants.
They’ll let us know, … later.
Antiquesaving
Yesterday up 159 today up 238 but we are not heard nothing from certain quarters like we got bombard with on Saturday and Sunday!
Total silence.
Waiting to see what happens today with Osaka after its cases doubled in one day!
They should be posting the numbers soon.
But as every time before when the cases rise in Tokyo the rest of the country follows not to long after.
snowymountainhell
[Paraphrased from 4:47pm] - a recent uptick in cases has officials concerned. According to Mainichi Shimbun, the govt is considering extending the measures by 2-4 weeks, that would overlap the Olympics that open Jul 23. - A meeting on measures late Wed to discuss dealing with signs of an impending surge in numbers that has experts worried, along with concern about the spread of more highly transmissible variants. ‘
Jim
This is not looking good
Out of last 15 days reported numbers, last 14 days are higher than previous week (for apple to apple comparison) - link below
https://omatomesan.com/tokyo-covid19/
Today number is 95 more than last week and fast approaching the 1000 mark/day number
But no way they will even consider cancelling the train wreck of this Covydimpics - they will revert to emergency for Tokyo for whole of Olympic period, ask Tokyo residents to stay home but at same time welcome more than 90,000 foreigners to come to Tokyo so that they can make their money and Japan can have bragging rights? Who cares for local population - sadly no one!!!!
Wakarimasen
SOE. Shut it down! Cancel the games. Force mask wearing. People are dying
Sven Asai
Quite high a Wednesday number… Yes, of course cancel that damned games immediately, that’s the only conclusion that makes sense. But wait, she’s now teleworking from home and the Hanko stamp is unreachable in the office’ desk, very clever. lol
nonu6976
Totally predictable, as will be the call for another SOE. A total farce.
Fighto!
Troubling but expected numbers.
Cancel the trainwreck Olympics.
nonu6976
Here we go again...