Gov't under pressure to again declare COVID state of emergency in Tokyo

What a shambles Japanese governments continue to be, with a head in the sand attitude, and an approach that baffles science and the world, once again you come unstuck.

Two years after completely shutting off to the world so the nasty virus could not enter the country, it is, as everyone forecast rife, probably much worse than is being reported.

In two years, the government has done nothing, late with vaccinations, late with booster and a failure to increase hospital capacity.

However, the omicron varient is a one month wonder, look at Europe, it comes and it goes, the UK did not lock down before Christmas and the daily rate is falling, now that it is spreading rapidly the goverment are worried about popularity.....not about the people and are considering a shutdown again, the same shutdowns that did not work previously and wont work again as omicron will begin to wane very soon.

At the same time you reduce quarantine to 10 days, despite the WHO telling you this is a ridiculous time period, and for those double jabbed, with a booster its not required.

I sense yet another election.....this time go for someone younger who can make decisions....or even dare I say it, a woman, yes a woman who can lead and change your racist, stuck in the past society and attitudes....not sure what the men are so frightend of....

78,128 new infections nationwide, 33 of which are serious.

"People's lives are the most important.”

Is there any evidence that a State of Emergency, or even a Quasi State of Emergency, saves lives?

Close those bars slightly earlier than usual!!!

Asiaman7

Today 07:06 am JST

"People's lives are the most important.”

Is there any evidence that a State of Emergency, or even a Quasi State of Emergency, saves lives?

Any proof that it it doesn't saves lives or at least the spread and economic impact. Look at other countries which lifted ES. The economic impact and pressure on healthcare resources is huge.

“again”?!

Japan hasn’t once been in a true state of emergency, like the UK for example. Trains always packed as usual.

"People's lives are the most important. I think the government will make a decision without hesitation," Sanae Takaichi, policy chief of Kishida's Liberal Democratic Party, said during a television program Sunday.

Another in the Nippon Kaigi rogues gallery pops up her head.

So without hesitation and in the interests of preserving lives we will not hesitate to urge eateries and drinking establishments to stop serving alcohol after 730 and pay 300,000 yen daily to those that comply. Mission accomplished, society saved.

78,128 new infections nationwide, 33 of which are serious.

estimated population 27,000,000

Here we go again. Politicizing the pandemic with opposition parties calling for state of emergencies which will ruin further lives in order to make them look like they actually care. Pathetic. Politicians here (everywhere really) are vile, loathsome creatures.

estimated population 27,000,000

Those figures were nationwide, so it's roughly out of 125,000,000 people.

yes, because forcing restaurants to stop serving alcohol and closing by 8 will DEFINITELY stop the spread of the omicron variant. give me a break.

Standard Japan government 3 step playbook in motion. 1. Blame foreigners 2. Wring hands 3. Claim success

yes, because forcing restaurants to stop serving alcohol and closing by 8 will DEFINITELY stop the spread of the omicron variant. give me a break.

So I assume they will open the borders, do a seven second bow on tv and admit that it wasn't the terrible foreigners after all and the culprit was really alcohol.

Here we go again. Politicizing the pandemic with opposition parties calling for state of emergencies which will ruin further lives in order to make them look like they actually care. Pathetic. Politicians here (everywhere really) are vile, loathsome creatures.

Opposition parties? You may need to re-read the article.

*But some senior lawmakers of the ruling coalition said they believe such measures are imminent.*

"People's lives are the most important. I think the government will make a decision without hesitation," Sanae Takaichi, policy chief of Kishida's Liberal Democratic Party, said during a television program Sunday.

There's a virtual civil war in the LDP right now between the Abe-led far right and the moderates, with Kishida as Prime Minister. Abe's faction and his Hitler-admiring protege Takaichi are deliberately undermining Kishida's government at every turn.

78,128 new infections nationwide, 33 of which are serious.

which would make it 42 out of 100,000. Unvaxxed is around 78 out of 100,000, so 42 here are the rates of a single shot unvaxxed population. Fully vaxxed including booster would be 4 out of 100,000. Also it's not going to be clear which variant is responsible for the hospitalizations. While Omicron rages there are still people suffering in hospitals dealing with Delta. Also as reported here on JT, most people are forced to stay at home and have doctors visit them, making that 42 out of 100,000 skewed too low.

If you look things up you can find this information and learn about population statistics in public health

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the top government spokesman, said at a news conference last Tuesday that careful consideration would be necessary as an emergency declaration "involves severe restrictions on personal rights."

That is such hogwash. Japan and its government have never cared about people's civil liberties. This excuse about "severe restrictions on personal rights" is simply a smokescreen for the gov to wash their hands of the issue and absolve themselves of any liability due to their pathetic response. They could push companies to let more people work from home, and implement measures to make sure that students study from home. That alone would go a long way to curbing infections. Get everyone who can to work from home and for students to study from home. Without that, you are not going to curb ANYTHING.

Japan hasn’t once been in a true state of emergency, like the UK for example. Trains always packed as usual.

exactly.

In two years, the government has done nothing, late with vaccinations, late with booster and a failure to increase hospital capacity.

Barry, lets not forget the gov admitting a few months ago that they have no numbers as to how many people died from covid after being asked to quarantine at home due to the lack of hospital beds during the last wave.

The 42 out of 100,000 would be those in need of ICU, not the thousand more who also needed hospitalization but not ICU.

Using statistics to harm people is a special kind of person. Don't be that person

Albert 07:11 am JST

 Look at other countries which lifted ES. The economic impact and pressure on healthcare resources is huge.

Japan's version of the State of Emergency, and the responding behavior by the Japanese public, differs greatly from those of other countries. Heck, the behavior of Japan residents differs greatly from residents of other countries even without a State of Emergency (e.g., universal masking)!

@Fighto! I read the article. But thus far, 2 plus years into the pandemic it's always been opposition parties pressuring ruling parties to call SoEs putting them in a better, more caring light than their counterparts.

Either way, politicking has been major factor in how this country has dealt with the pandemic with very little consideration given to those whose lives they'd be ruining with their ineffective, ridiculous, half-assed measures.

78,128 new infections nationwide, 33 of which are serious

There's actually nearly 600,000 open cases, and as the article states, 767 serious cases.

Out of a population of 125m, as you noted, Tokyo Joe.

78,128 new infections nationwide, 33 of which are serious.

is a damning indictment of a pandemic run wild, at 42 out of 100,000 when recalcualted, and not the smoking gun the uneducated masses make it out to be.

Feel free to look up the CDC chart showing how much 2 and 3 doses of COVID vaccine protect from hospitalization.

Or do nothing, downvote, that's easier.

Using statistics to harm people.

I have no idea what this means. How can people be harmed by reading comments, opinions or statistics (facts).

But it's the same thing.

While assessing the effects of the measures (already introduced), we will comprehensively consider (the matter) in cooperation with the central government," she said at a press conference Friday.

more BS that doesn't mean anything or have any value.

There's a virtual civil war in the LDP right now between the Abe-led far right and the moderates, with Kishida as Prime Minister. Abe's faction and his Hitler-admiring protege Takaichi are deliberately undermining Kishida's government at every turn.

Anyone who fights Abe has my vote.

What is so different in the SOE to the quasi SOE other than the name? Do the restaurants close earlier ( whilst still totally full for the rest of the day)? is there anything in it that really will stop omicron’s inevitable spread?

How about doing something about speeding up the boosters which might perhaps be more useful rather than giving them to everyone when the omicron wave has already subsided which is their current plan with their 6/7/8 month waiting time till they send the necessary vouchers

The government shouldn’t need to declare a SOE. People should have learned over the last two years that it is not safe to congregate in large numbers and to hang out in bars all night.

33 people from 27 000 000 are in serious condition so they need to make state of emergency...

i am speechless.

Me too

Patients with serious symptoms rose by 33 from the previous day to 767, the health ministry said.

Using statistics to harm people.

I have no idea what this means. How can people be harmed by reading comments, opinions or statistics (facts).

If people are misled they can make wrong decisions that could cost them health and lives.

To be vaccinated or not,for example , is a decision that could have a big difference

mainly to prevent the virus from spreading at restaurants and bars

Have they ever proven this was where the virus spread? Not trains and offices?

People have had enough. Omicron has shown itself to be mild enough to reopen society and move on from the Covid hysteria!

Blacklabel......

Have they ever proven this was where the virus spread? Not trains and offices?

Yes, contact tracing has shown in the past that bars, snacks and pubs where people sit across from each other, talking in loud voices has been a major source of virus spread. Closing these establishments at 8:00 and having last orders at for alcohol at 7:00 in reality is closing them completely to the vast majority of employed people in Japan. Riding a silent train with everyone masked has not shown to be significant. However, a major source of recent clusters has been schools, specifically sports clubs in schools. A smart idea might be to put the basketball club on hold for a month?

"People's lives are the most important.”

Is there any evidence that a State of Emergency, or even a Quasi State of Emergency, saves lives?

No. It's just political tatemae to give the appearance (tatemae) that the govt here is "doing" something

The rest of us can work from home.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

No measures are absolute yet to prevent infection and or spreading. Am just amazed how people keep arguing about vax or not, alcohol or not… etc. stats so far showed the vax might have led to lower risk of complications but not spreading but that’s more about peoples behavior. So get vaccinated if you are comfortable with it. Am not so I’ll wait. Less time spent in bars and restaurants lower the risk coz when in there we tend to talk loud and in an enclosed environment, which might amplify the flying of particles in the air. While packed trains it might not be that bad? Thing is most of us keep quiet in trains here and train cars are actually better ventilated these days with both ac on and windows partially down. Also the time spent in the train is not that long, most maybe in 30-50min. I would be in there for 29 min one way for my commuting. So if you are masked up, stay quiet and be mindful of touching surfaces, you will be fine. Disinfect your hands with sanitizers regularly will help protect you and others when you come in contact with surfaces. Saying I have had no concern about train commuting is not accurate but I have had no problem with it but I wouldn’t be spending too long in a crowded places with noisy people.

Gov't under pressure to again declare COVID state of emergency in Tokyo

> Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is coming under pressure for the upcoming week to explore whether to again declare a state of emergency in Tokyo

from who?

Who is pressuring them?

I thought everyone was busy trying to make old mines or old tea patches or whatever it was into UNESCO WHS?

People's lives are the most important.”

The rest of us can work from home.

what about peoples livelihoods !?

people like you who are able to receive their full salary while sitting at home on the couch, sipping tea in your pyjamas, are the ones calling for a SOE.

There are many people who can’t work from home & if they don’t work, they don’t get paid.

Have you ever gone one or two months with zero income !? The financial & mental stress is huge. Do you care about those people, when you scream for a SOE ?

The Japanese government can sod off. Unless they're planning to actually put weight behind these so-called "lockdowns" and force companies to let employees work from home, let students do online school etc. to reduce the capacity of overpacked trains there is no point in the quasi-SoE let alone a full blown one. People are out and about every day commuting across prefectural borders to go to work and school. People are still traveling to different parts of Japan for business and holiday. Stop with the sham already and let people live their lives.

There are many people who can’t work from home & if they don’t work, they don’t get paid.

Why does it have to be all or nothing?

How about all those who can work at home, do - and all those who can't, don't?

I wish the government would try and be a bit more flexible with it's thinking and approach to all this rather than this insane rigidity that puts everyone in the same basket, such as blanket quarantining regardless of vaccine and booster status etc.

What is the plan for crowded trains?

According to the guy above it’s a silent train and everyone is masked so it’s fine. Yeah, ok….or not.

What is the plan for crowded trains?

If previous actions are anything to go by, the plan is to reduce the number of trains (in an attempt to make people go home earlier), however this only makes each train more densely packed as people are still generally going about their daily lives as normal.

It seems to me, as with pretty much everything politically, the Japanese just wait and watch what goes on elsewhere in the world. There is no pragmatism at all.

Much later, the Japanese will introduce the same type of laws as elsewhere, so late in fact, that it looks like they're the ones breaking new ground. At least to Japanese who have no interest or knowledge in any foreign ongoings.

I hate this way.

According to the guy above it’s a silent train and everyone is masked so it’s fine. Yeah, ok….or not.

A friend said this to me on Saturday when I suggested that punishing restaurants and bars is not the way forward. Rather that trains are the main place for spreading a virus.

Her response: 'people don't talk'.

The mind does indeed boggle.

My company allows working from home for 3 days a week but still manages to complain if I work from home and will constantly tell me to come in because they don't know how to communicate online. I also don't have sick leave as a privilege and my 10 day paid vacation dried up due to me using it when I had to care for my grandparents. So no I do not want to get the damned virus even if it was mild. Hurry up booster!

What is the plan for crowded trains?

Reduce the number of train services apparently because that's not going to make people rush to catch their train and shove their way onto a carriage already crammed past capacity....

Yes, contact tracing has shown in the past that bars, snacks and pubs 

The only thing is areas of Japan do not do contact tracing very much. As reported on the news, and was the case last peak, Japan drops contact tracing all together once the numbers rise a little as they simply don't have the ability to do it so they stop even trying. Their contact tracing when they were doing it when the numbers are low is pretty limited anyhow as the criteria for being called a close contact are such that they already exclude most people anyhow. So they pick up a few bar or restaurant so called clusters in the early day which mange to paget though the close contact limitations, but once it becomes widespread like now there are countless clusters (proven as the numbers are greatly rising) that they have no idea where as they longer check and they are no longer at the bars and restaurants which are shut.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will ask coronavirus patients who are aged under 50 and isolated at home with no or mild symptoms to self-monitor their conditions, starting next Monday...40,000 patients were self-isolated at home in Tokyo as of Wednesday. They say the number could rise to 193,000, if daily cases in Tokyo continue hovering around 20,000 for another 10 days.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220127_30/

Of course this LDP policy will lead to zero "community transmission", eh?

Nothing is going to change. Let's keep living our lives folks.

@BlacklabelToday  10:21 am JST

According to the guy above it’s a silent train and everyone is masked so it’s fine. Yeah, ok….or not.

Work from home is one option.

Before introducing a state of emergency that will just further shorten business hours for some eateries and department store, just encourage more wfh and online classes or hybrid mode for some weeks.

that would be the first sane action to request if the objective is really to reduce the pace of contamination ton or overload the medical system.

there has been absolutely no effort to decrease traffic so in that case just call it a day and let it go because this quasi state of emergency was not doing much before and is doing even less now as everybody is ignoring it.

No they are not under pressure, I really hope they don’t lockdown again!

if there's a quasi emergency and emergency, then there must be a penultimate emergency

Just ignore it.

Theyve set conditions for declaring state of emergency, what's there to talk about?

727 people serious....out of 70-odd thousand......in a country of 120-odd million.......and THAT'S why we should all hunker down in our fall out shelters scared of even speaking to people......what an absolute JOKE!!

WE HAVE VACCINES!!

THIS VARIANT IS LESS SEVERE!!

Use the money that you'll spend on compensating businesses for complying with these idiotic rules by making sure anyone who needs hospital treatment gets it........tell the old dears with a cough and a sniffle to just stay at home. Plenty hospital beds in this country, just that private ones are allowed to turn patients away.....what sort of medical facility or professional turns away sick patients?!

Ihe ratio of such hospital beds in the capital hit 48.5 percent Sunday, nearing the 50-percent threshold for the metropolitan government to consider requesting a state of emergency in an attempt to enhance anti-coronavirus measures.

Are they actually saying the 50% threshold is just for starting to consider requesting a state of

What is the different between quasi and soe?

Okay but...so what?

Don't get me wrong, I support the government taking struct anti-COVID measures wherever possible. If this was a country where such restrictions occured I would also be clamoring for them to be enacted immediately.

But that doesn't happen in Japan. They don't do anything except issue a slightly stronger request for businesses to voluntarily close. Without any kind of actual lock down, what is the point of a declaration? It has no teeth.

What is the different between quasi and soe?

For many of us, the difference between having to commute to work on packed trains, to work in close contact with people talking non-stop in enclosed spaces, and being able to work from home.

Public pressure is NOT going to do a thing... not at all. You see, the government would have to STRONGLY ask (not just ask) businesses to think about closing under an official SOE, and that would require them promising (but never paying) compensation money. They simply don't have it. They had more than enough for various sports events and all that entailed, and for unnecessary road repairs and construction, but not to help people help themselves and others. So, they'll continue to "assess" the effects of the Manbo garbage while praying Omicron peaks and goes away and they won't need the SOE. I mean, come on... what else do you think it is? Could today's numbers being double that since the Manbo started not be a valid assessment that it's not working to anyone?

Just declaring without any policies will allow many companies to once again allow some remote work.

Most companies simply will not allow any remote work without the emergency declaration from government. Just declaring without any government actions is sufficient.

What is the different between quasi and soe?

Vast majority of companies, even for desk work will not allow ANY remote work without SOE declaration.

My two personal favourite sentences from this article:

The ratio of such hospital beds in the capital hit 48.5 percent Sunday, nearing the 50-percent threshold for the metropolitan government to consider requesting a state of emergency

Ah yes, the good old 'we're thinking about asking'. Nothing like strong leadership when times are tough.

And...

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, the top government spokesman, said at a news conference last Tuesday that careful consideration would be necessary as an emergency declaration "involves severe restrictions on personal rights."

Excuse me, but, what? When has either a quasi or even a full-blown SoE imposed severe restrictions on anyone's life in Japan? They're all just recommendations not built into law. They can literally be broken without consequence. To refer to what Japan implements when cases rise as severe is beyond a joke.

The 42 out of 100,000 would be those in need of ICU, not the thousand more who also needed hospitalization but not ICU

Maybe the 42 need intubation? I think that is what Japan counts as serious.

I’m not sure where we are at with treatment. I’ve heard that best results are when treated early. Are there drugs available for treatment? How about oxygen and blood oxygen monitoring at home?

What is the different between quasi and soe?

No alcohol at all and restaurants don’t open at all?

work from home is supposedly an option but based on packed trains and streets seems few are allowed to.

closing bar at 9pm just triples the occupancy between 6-9pm. not like anyone isn’t still going. same as trains, fewer trains so each is more packed.

The government is asking people leaving the country to defer their plans to return.

Instead of the science it is all about image and low infection numbers in Japan.

They can’t hide the truth though.

If a state of emergency is declared just assume the Government will not help you.

Take responsibility for your life.

CASE CLOSED.

Upcoming news,

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Monday he is not yet considering declaring a state of emergency for Tokyo over a recent spike in novel coronavirus cases amid the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Maybe the 42 need intubation? I think that is what Japan counts as serious.

That would seem likely. About 40 die of COVID-19 daily in Japan now, so it is probably safe to assume that this is a way of saying, "about to die".

The inconsistency is what gets me. You have close contact with a new case at home and it's 7 days isolation for you. You have close contact with someone at work and it's business as usual. What is the actual point?

The exhaled viral aerosol behaves like a gas. Homes have the lowest air exhange and a small airspace, and exposure is usually the longest. Unless you have a HEPA air purifier at home, transmission is most likely at home

I don't think they have ever had a real shutdown

Sardine-like trains.

Tortoise-like Booster rollout.

The year of the Tiger.

Thinking only about commercialism instead of the safety of it's people is a very poor and badly managed government.