Chiba Prefecture closes beaches until Aug 31

I am guessing being at a beach in Chiba is safer than being on a subway in Tokyo.

Chiba Prefecture closed its public beaches on Monday after the central government’s decision to place the prefecture under a state of emergency on Friday.

Sheer insanity. Sunshine and fresh air are exactly what people need, not sitting in their stuffy rooms.

So these genius bureacrats want to make the population sick in order to protect their health.

Now that is going too far or over doing it, nature will close them comes October, so let the kids enjoy the summer vacation.

I sent this article to my Japanese friend who responded by sending me a list of the top reasons people have died over the last year. This virus came in at number 38.

Agreed. Beaches and open public spaces should be available to a reasonable volume of people within a certain are given the current pandemic and requested counter-measures. \

”Eyes are open” - The posts earlier today were just pointing out someone’s continual, narcissistic & self-centered postings and hypocritical standards for ‘others’ but NOT for ‘themselves’.

Japan is sometimes totally irrational…

How daft. Being outside on a beach is one of the safest places. We don’t need a nanny state in Japan like we have in some western nations. It’s essential to enjoy the summer, exercise and enjoy the company of friends and family.

Beach here I come.

Ridiculous.

@SnoweyMountHappyGirl: The Olympic village is suppose to be a strict bubble.

The ocean is free for all here to enjoy.

You so often seem confused.

If I went down to the beach and put up two flags and tell everyone to keep out for 700 meters of public beach because my unskilled friends and friends of them want to have a surfing contest for first time groms and most cannot swim you are ok with that?

Man, you need to get out of your private box and open your eyes.

The beach I go is a small beach and two years ago, life savers were there until 4pm. I used to go after that time not to be bothered , as they stop people going far.

Last year, nobody due to covidbut guards were patrolling, asking people to stay close from the beach, after 5 , they were leaving, job over.

This year, this official beach has disappeared, and now, a board says it is dangerous to go into the water.

In Japan, it is considered to be safe only when lifesavers are around,

and the personal responsibility is not considered.

I have been there for 15 years now and enjoyed my bath yesterday , nobody checking at me.

While there will be no punishment for anyone swimming at the beaches, life savers will patrol the beaches to keep an eye out for bathers and also to inform them of the closures.

There it it! Go to the beach! My son and I went to Lake Shikotsu in Hokkaido a few days ago and went swimming. Someone tried to tell us to stop and we said "no" and ignored him. It worked wonders.

Ridiculous decision based totally on irrationality than science.

I went to a beach in Tateyama last week. It was so refreshing to see people without mask, just living peacefully without this COVID all the time in our ears.

Screw that, I will continue to go there

Only closing the beaches? How about parks, gyms, community centers and every other public space?

How about Tokyo Disney (actually located in Chiba). It's currently open daily, 10am-7pm.

Or instead of the (free) beach, you can pay 8000yen to go to Tokyo Disney Sea. It's also open daily right now.

Check the schedule and get your tickets here:

https://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/tdr/calendar.html

This is only a half-hearted solution. The assumption that closing the beaches will solve the problem is, as has been shown many times, wrong. So people will move from the larger beaches to the various pools and aquatic centres. To more concentrated places. As well as restricting restaurants to 8pm and pouring alcohol - the only thing this has caused is that even in restaurants where there were no queues, very long queues form e.g. before 7pm.

Our government has not yet understood that it is necessary either to take systematic measures or to save effort, money and time and do nothing at all. There is an obvious effort to please the public, but it is still going from a mess to a bigger mess. And that makes it possible to say in retrospect - look, it was not as bad last time as it is now.

While there will be no punishment for anyone swimming at the beaches, life savers will patrol the beaches to keep an eye out for bathers and also to inform them of the closures.

Watching swimmers, but telling them the beach is closed. Okkkk.

Just put a sign out somewhere that says CLOSED, and everyone will obey it.

The absurdity of your government is beyond words.

And the madness goes on.

While there will be no punishment for anyone swimming at the beaches

And therein lies the problem ever since the pandemic started.

Only closing the beaches? How about parks, gyms, community centers and every other public space? If beaches are going to be closed I think we had better stop the radio taiso and gateball in the parks too. I wonder how the old folks would feel when their activities are limited as well?

Yet, for ‘others’ , ‘strict enforcement of rules’ thru ‘the potential threat of police force’:

@8:29am: “One would think there would be multiple mobile patrols moving about and especially checking the internal park where drinking and doing the dirty act could happen.” -

Understood. Perhaps “ requests for cooperation, posted rules & social ‘norms’’ don’t apply to ‘some’ ? :

“my pet peeves are the amature surfing contests blocking off access to water. I go around and move right in with my bodyboard. They yell for me to leave but I only leave by riding in and then go do it again. They all know my name, -

“but who cares … The water if open surf to me.”

“Have fun, kids!” -

Nice to see the many beach lovers going after this silly rule.

If Kanagawa does this, all the beach house owners will call on the boys to fix the glitch. More beach houses than usual opened down at shonan. Olympic sailing crews needed some place to escape to.

my pet peeves are the amature surfing contests blocking off access to water. I go around and move right in with my bodyboard. They yell for me to leave but I only leave by riding in and then go do it again. They all know my name, but who cares. The water if open surf to me.

I bet this is a smokescreen and they need to lay some more concrete at the beach.

Yeah, they had to wait until Olympic Surfing was finished.

And notice, they re-opened the beaches just in time for the start of the Olympics... despite how at the time Covid cases were steadily increasing for weeks in Chiba. The 7 day average in Chiba went from about 130 in late June to almost 300 on July 22.

Many people expressed disappointment at the decision, since the beaches had just been reopened on July 22, NHK reported.

The beaches themselves are not the main cause for concern it is the shared public facilities like toilets where spread is more likely. Flushing the toilet can aerosolize the virus ready for the next person who comes in as it is present in feces.

"closed beach" doesn't actually mean closed beach..... just means beach as it is the 46 weeks of the year when it isn't 'organized', with roped-off sections (of beach and water) where everyone crams together, and, 'lifeguards' who lollygag and run after miscreants who dare to enter the water outside the designated swimming area, and, attempt to police bodyboarders to make sure that if their board doesn't have a fin, herd them into the 'non-fin' area where they are free to bodyboard jammed in with lots of little kids and their parents.... because it's safe there. and so forth and so on. oh, and the 'closure' will mean we don't have to endure 900 amplified shirase every day.....

but don't get me started on summer beach protocols .... （⌒▽⌒）

Yeah, they had to wait until Olympic Surfing was finished.

I can't think of a safer place to be than a breezy open beach. At the beach, people naturally space themselves apart anyway. The priorities of this govt. is so misplaced and nonsensical.

They did the same nonsense in my prefecture last year, closing all outdoor mountain, river and beach areas. Lost complete respect and faith in this govt as to how they're handling this epidemic.

In Kanagawa too, as par for the course, the procedures are a joke.

The all-weather ojiisans trudging up and down the beach, to the families and couples spread about 10 to 20 meters apart, seeing the ones clearly drinking adult beverages, and handing them a flyer reminding them of the no drinking regulation.

I'm no virologist, but methinks this public official may be the most dangerous vector to the spread of the virus.

It’s actually the best time to go, last year I camped on the beach during the lock out. Didn’t see a single person for 3 days, it was heaven on a stick with a side order of fries.

It's a public beach, we have a right to go there.

Humanity is being kicked out of nature and stuffed into cubicles.

Absolutely. Free thinking people need to get out, explore and live life and the beaches offer plenty of learning experiences for young children.

The people on the political left want total control and are trying their hardest to conform e everyone into their version of what life is, which is don't speak out, don't think and just survive.

I respect the lifeguards, but what are they going to do if we refuse to leave the public beach? Stand there and suck air through their teeth until we do?