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© Thomson Reuters 2020.Koike urges cooperation to avoid Tokyo lockdown
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© Thomson Reuters 2020.
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Arrrgh-Type
No time to wait for "cooperation". Every day that goes by, more people will be infected and more people will die. Do it now!
JJ Jetplane
There won't be an explosive rise in numbers. They are making it almost impossible for anyone to get tested so the numbers remain low and they don't have to put in place any real contingency plan. They also want to avoid an America like situation where people are storming testing centers and overwhelming the system.
puregaijin
prevention is better than cure. Send out instructions not requests for cooperation
oldman_13
Good luck with that ma'am.
People around the world have been ignoring stay at home orders and social distancing. People cannot be counted on to do the right thing, self sacrifice is an alien concept in this world of ours.
Derek Grebe
"Further" cooperation?
What is she talking about? The K-1 drew 6500 people together only a couple of days ago, and pics on this very site show hordes of people gathering for hanami or just because it's Friday in Shibuya.
When this wareware immune desu mentality starts to crumble, this country is going into 28 Days Later territory.
Alfie Noakes
Koike has been invisible for the last six weeks but with the impending Olympic cancellation she's suddenly reappeared, playing Tough Mama. GTF, as they say in Glasgow.
Where was the leadership two weeks ago? These politicians are an utter joke.
Hubert Gulletchip
It took their precious Olympics getting postponed for Japan to finally wake up that this is a serious issue. This isn't about your pride or saving face. It's about the safety and well being of your citizens. They will believe whatever you tell them, as evidence has shown. Don't lead your sheep to slaughter because without them you cease to function.
noriahojanen
Lockdown is the last resort. A lot of other things can be done before it. For example, compulsory checks on arrivals at Tokyo's two international airports should further be tightened.
since1981
Most used word for 2020 "urge"
Graham DeShazo
We are definitely going to get shut down. This city is NYC and/or Italy waiting to happen
Fuzzy
This is politician speak to get the public used to the idea before they actually pull the trigger on it. I won't be surprised to see a lockdown announced very soon after they finally acknowledged Olympics officially postponed.
Dan Lavender
Alfie Noakes spot on!
Koike has been absent on this subject for weeks and weeks..
Olympics are over so it is time to concentrate on less important things right? show some concern for human health for a change ?
she is an utter joke!
Viki Kovilakath
I have seen the Hokkaido governor in action more than Tokyo's. And its still "urging" , so people wont listen anyways. No social distancing happening either ,masks are hard to get ,more untraceable clusters appearing - Its going south soon in Tokyo
Vince Black
This woman is a laughingstock. Her comments about hanami parties being akin to Italians hugging each other is proof enough that shes an imbecile.
Tora
Saw her on TV last night saying this. Even with the pathetic rate of testing, there is plenty of evidence of community transmission for months now.
Of the 19 cases in Tokyo announced last night, 4 were confirmed as origin unknown.
Things are compounded by the fact that Japan has a highly mobile population with Tokyo being the centre of that. Millions and millions pour in and out each day from all over the country. As any epidemiologist will tell you, this is a recipe for disaster.
Tokyo is not an isolated island and ALL of Japan needed to have be closed down weeks ago.
Its already too late.
quercetum
Koike was held in check because of the money the Olympics potentially brings. As some commenters have noted, expect tough measures once it is officially postponed.
Akie
OMG, she is hiding things all along.
Aly Rustom
first she says she wants the olympics to go as planned and now she says a total shutdown of Tokyo.. This kind of flip floping and knee jerk reaction is exactly what is most stressful about the situation- the politicians here are running around like decapitated chickens. No real leadership.
That's it right there.
exactly!!!
Hit the nail on the head!
Unfortunately, you're right.
kurisupisu
Already been hit by government decrees to stop social contact so tell me how do I pay my bills without income?
itsonlyrocknroll
Essential Leadership qualities are not associated with one's position, the key is taking responsibility for your actions, and handling the tough decisions.
If, as I suspect Governor Yuriko Koike is unable to rise to the challenge. Governor Yuriko Koike should stand down
TedSales
We may be three weeks behind Italy.
itsonlyrocknroll
The South Korean Government set an example to the Global Community, took/made the tough decisions, and saved lives.
How South Korea Flattened the Curve.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-flatten-curve.html
The Government of Japan/Governor Yuriko Koike inaction, and shameful procrastination, is appalling incompetence.
Goodlucktoyou
She could probably start by testing all Tokyo residents and building red and blue travel restriction zones. If all red(possible infection and elderly) were self isolated, the other 50% (blue) could go about their daily business.Economy/ business Survived!
Then in four weeks a second mass testing. New infections quarantined and recovered back to work. Hospitals can cope with a controlled pandemic, but chaos?
repeat every month.
borders closed for 2 months unless state 2 week quarantine. The empty Olympic hotels may be great places for 2 week isolation.
impossible to close down Tokyo 100%. What would you do with the 100000 homeless/day workers?
the idiots that believe wearing a stupid piece of paper over their mouth makes them Superman/woman? They won’t listen.
wake up madam, 18 million men, women and children (and maybe dogs?) depend on your democracy elected responsibility
goldeneagle
oh finally the popular Tokyo Governor showed up.
daito_hak
She was nowhere to be seen for weeks and now that her own interests are put into jeopardy, she suddenly appears to warm people about things that she should have said weeks ago. You know like avoiding the massive Hanami gatherings we saw last week-end. What a joke.
And what does lockdown even mean? Confinement? Restriction of movement in and out for the city? What?
And as long as Japan refuses to test more people, how the f... can we know the extent of the contamination and therefore decide the appropriate measures to take?
Akie
Tokyo isn't a small city, can't be managed by small mind. She should resign if indeed there is breakout, because she is given so much time to do so many preparations to avoid it.
lesenfant
Please Koike San, tell my company to change to telework or AT LEAST flex time and stop having meetings with 50 people in a confined space.
Tora
The issue here is that nobody wants to take the responsibility for tough decisions for fear of disrupting the group harmony. Koike is a product of this group orientated culture, where there needs to be total consensus before a decision can be made.
The issue is that if a total lockdown were ordered, there would be total chaos in Japan (more so than other places) as people would have no clue about what to do. They are not taught to take the initiative or figure things out by themselves and won't be able to function without a manual and group consensus about how to handle this.
There is the real possiblity that Japan will just keep muddling through with this, hoping it will go away, until there are literally bodies piling up in the streets.
CaptDingleheimer
Well at least if the Olympics get called off they don't have to try to cover up the Coronavirus anymore. They might actually be able to deal with it now.
mariasjapan
Olympic has already been postponed so lockdown Tokyo!!!
rainyday
Its funny how the exact instant the Olympics are postponed, everything goes from "No problems at all!" to "We're going to lockdown Tokyo".
You'd almost think they hadn't been levelling with the public over how serious this was because they were prioritizing the Olympics over public health.
Kumagaijin
On social media (Instagram) I see large groups of people still acting like Covid-19 doesn't exist. Like 30-40 people crowded in a room doing skin cleansing and make-up workshops (Bloom), no one wearing a mask. Outbreak waiting to happen. Stay safe Tokyo!
kurisupisu
If I were reading this on the Yamanote line then I’d be wondering less about a lockdown and more about the several possible disease vectors surrounding me...
Tora
@kurisupisu
Are you saying you are already laid off/lost any work you had? I would get out of Japan if that is the case.
If you remain, be aware that things will get really ugly here. We're still at the "possible lock down" stage. The wheels of bureaucracy are moving too slow and can't keep pace with the exponential spread of the virus.
There is just no sense of crisis and I feel we will all get coronavirus in the end, and be left on our own, due to inept governance.
Remember Dr Iwata's criticism of the handling of that? The same incompetence is playing out all over Japan now.
Tora
Edit. It was the handling of the Diamond Princess.
TheLongTermer
Im seeing uncanny parallels with how China is dealing with this. The show (economy) must go on at all cost.
Serrano
There's probably people infecting others on a daily basis on the still crowded rush hour trains. Many of those cases we'll never hear about as most of the infected are basically healthy and will get over the virus and never be tested.
Jiho Kim
No More PCR Test = No More Prevention
That's it.
drlucifer
Koike and Abe were more concerned of being at the center stage of the Olmpics than the containment of the virus. The greatest worry and concern is the so called ministry of health selected experts who have deliberately deceived the country that Japan has held its own against the virus by closing schools, urging people to stay home blablabla. And the numerous health experts appearing on private channels are only concerned about securing more appearances thus only echoing what the panel of experts have said.
You don't see honest experts like Kami, Iwata because they will say the thruth, they will question data put out by the government.
I am not an expert on health care but I find it difficult to believe tracking a cluster and containing it is possible like Osaka governor declare and the sheepie and toothless media is unable say it is not possible as most of the affected where known to have been taking trains.
They don't even release the train lines rode by affected people or
are they indirectly telling us this virus is not transmitted in the train.
Entrusting your knowledge of this virus to only the experts you see on TV is dangerous, you have to be able to filter the information you get.
TheLongTermer
Interesting times. Im actually for diversity, life in Japan can be alienating due to their exclusive nature, but in the US, they were promoting hyper diversity and globalism decades ago, like it was the future. Now seems a new movement to decouple from China. Diversity is a positive thing, if those cultures are reciprocal to your customs. Some say there is no meaning to being an American; I disagree. Habits and customs are the polar opposite of Japan and China.
jaebez
The governor of the most populated and economic center of the country is “suddenly” concerned about the city whence the hopes of hosting the Olympics wethers away. What hypocrisy!
I saw little social distancing with the cherry blossoms not to mention the ride on the trains to work. The government has been suggesting and advising at this point.
It’s time they step up and govern! If things get out of control, forget about ever hosting the Olympics.
smithinjapan
As usual, the “wait and pray” approach. When you have the daily commute, and people saying Hanami is a priority over being safe, cooperation has ceased, plain and simple. Lock-down now, or the effects will be exponential when you have to do it later and the hospitals are overrun.
smithinjapan
jaebez: “The governor of the most populated and economic center of the country is “suddenly” concerned about the city whence the hopes of hosting the Olympics wethers away. What hypocrisy!”
of course! I hope you didn’t think she was making previous decisions based on actual safety!
Mirai Hayashi
Lock the fricken city down! People don't get the seriousness of this pandemic! Trains are still crowded, people going to hanami parties, malls are packed full of people.....all as if nothing is going on. People are dying! F' the Olympics and take proper action!
ArtistAtLarge
Lockdown is inevitable. Stock up now but do not hoard.
nedotjp
Koike jumped through hoops and didn't yap out of turn for the last month because; LDP to back Koike for re-election in Tokyo gubernatorial election
kitts
I don't understand how locking down Tokyo can help stop the virus if it's already in every prefecture.
Goodlucktoyou
Fuzzy
@kitts
The goal of a lockdown would be to slow infection rates within Tokyo, not about stopping spread between areas.
Santhedevil
"Unfortunately, Viruses don't COOPERATE"
Do the hustle
Oh, yes! The kind of cooperation that saw those thousands of idiots checking out the cherry blossoms the other day. You can’t help someone that won’t help themselves. Lock it down!
runner3
Tokyo isn't 3 weeks behind Italy Tokyo is a bomb waiting to go off. Start doing some serious testing.
kitts
Go ahead, lock it down. You'll get panic, chaos and economic collapse IN ADDITION to the virus.
cleo
In a land where typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis can cut off supplies in an instant at any time, I think most people do tend to have a bit of an emergency stockpile anyways. (They're a bit daft if they don't).
I always have a good stock of staples that will last at least a few weeks, if not a couple of months - bottled water of course, also flour & yeast, dried beans, pasta, tinned tomatoes and a few instant meals in the freezer. Lots of sauces, stews, pies etc., can be bulk-cooked and batch-frozen for use later, at very little extra effort. Use stuff in rotation, oldest first, so you don't find yourself chucking out stuff that you hadn't noticed was way past its use-by date because it was stored away 'for emergencies' in a cupboard.
No need at all to panic-buy or hoard, just be sensible.
Luddite
@kitts if the virus is allowed to run rampant in Japan or elsewhere that will guarantee panic, chaos, economic collapse plus the death the hundreds of thousands or people, even more.
kitts
Do you keep 30 bottles of water at home? That's four weeks' supply for one person. Just curious.
cleo
Good point. Not that much - a couple of crates. We usually only use it when the grandkids come to stay (their Mum doesn't want them drinking mains water since Fukushima), and that's maybe a little over half what we get through when they're here for a week..
Maybe we need to stock a bit more water. Thanks for the heads-up!
Ani
The fact is that around 30 to 40 cases are getting reported every day, consistently for the last several weeks. So, anyone who thinks this is "over" is just living in denial. Leadership means clarity of communication and decisive action based on real information. By asking people to "cooperate" during a global crisis with no clear set of restrictions or rules that will be properly enforced, it is unreasonable for anyone to expect that people will just "figure it all out" and "do what's needed". High time people calling the shots learn from what's happening around the world and take immediate action.
quercetum
Read up on the efforts made to fight the spread. It’s not a storm that’ll just go away.
It’s more infectious. A person with a common flu infects 1.4 persons. If a person spreads it someone and that someone to another someone, up to the tenth person they’ll be 14 people infected (1.4 x 10 = 14).
The coronavirus is more infectious. An infected person can spread the virus to 3 or more. If you infect 3 people and then they each infect another 3 then the 9 persons infect another 3 up to the 10th, there’ll be 59,049 people infected. 14 versus 59,000 shows how infectious it is.
How do we know we’re infected? By symptoms and testing.
What if it’s difficult to get testing in your country,? You assume you could be infected, isolate yourself to avoid infecting others.
This is the true Japanese spirit of being considerate and not causing trouble to others. The Japanese would rather inconvenience themselves than to struggle with the moral guilt of being the carrier that infects others. Think of others.
What if you live in a metropolitan area and people are intermingling even though you are vigilante and isolating yourself to avoid infecting others? Then you have the government enforce a rule to have everyone isolated to avoid the spread of the infectious virus of 1 to 3 to 59,000 just to the tenth person.
What is it called when the government urges or forces everyone to stay a home and isolate themselves? It’s known as a lock down.
Is my government enforcing a lock down? Depends on where you live. In Tokyo, the governor announced yesterday this measure is a possibility.
quercetum
She played it as well as she could as a politician by not ruffling any Olympic feathers. Per JT article, LDP now supports her re-election. Koike wins. LDP does not lose face. People lose.
AramaTaihenNoYouDidnt
As for Tokyo...it's more like 162 confirmed cases, no recoveries and at least 3 deaths, mainly males. Good number of these are hospitalized.
Disillusioned
Look up 'social distancing' and you will find your answer. The purpose of a lock down is to stop the interaction between people and to slow the spread of the virus. However, as is being shown by the Japanese people and people all over the world, they are not taking social distancing seriously and the virus is still spreading rapidly. There were thousands of people in the parks looking at cherry blossoms over the weekend and Shibuya is still full of revellers. They will all complain about a shutdown and curfew, but they have brought it on themselves by ignoring the social distancing ordinance.
Goodlucktoyou
Already finished my panic food buying. Getting quite good at it after Fukushima and the Tokyo Big One prediction.
Got in before the rations/quarantine stampede WHICH will happen.
2 months worth, put ‘out of date’ reminder stickers on all. Looking forward to home cooked comfort food. And my homemade Umishou.
stock up folks.
Patricia Yarrow
Most used phrase for 2020 "make efforts"
carpslidy
Will people STOP calling for a lockdown, it is in the postwar constitution impossible.
The central government and Tokyo governer can ask companies to close, ask people to stay home, and ask organizations to cancel events but not enforce it.
And why you would hope to be locked in your home is beyond me.
Patricia Yarrow
Oh, oh. What am I going to do with my four liters of umeshu that I started 3 years ago for the Summer Olympics? If the games are delayed for a year or so, I guess they will keep. If the games are cancelled, and we are put under Tokyo lockdown, oh, my. Whatever should I do?
Blitzwing
Lockdown will definitely happen. Japan played it well, they actually have people begging and clamoring for these draconian measures.
dagon
"Organizers and residents"-exercise restraint. Companies and the Japanese government-keep mandating people coming into work for useless meetings on packed rush hour trains.
tamanegi
Friend of mine laughed when I told him that my family had prepped and planned for 6-8 weeks total lockdown. Food, water, rice, cash, medicine, toilet paper, bills paid, games, kids books, etc..
I've been through two earthquakes here. Admittedly there weren't big shortages of goods or public disorder the time but I feel this is different and I'll be stuffed if I'm going to have to stand outside a supermarket at 7am waiting to go in and buy a riceball.
Thank me later.
Raw Beer
I still think the warming temperatures will greatly reduce the rate of infections. The number of deaths so far in Japan is way lower than from the regular flu. It will take a while before any vaccine becomes widely available for the Wuhan flu, and so few people have so far been infected with it, so the same crisis will return every flu season until enough people have recovered from it.
In other words, we should perhaps not do too much to minimize the infections....
HBJ
It’s a shame that the previous three weeks have passed with so little concern.
If Koike and Abe and the whole lot of them had started taking this super seriously 6+ weeks ago, then the next three weeks might not need to be ‘critical’.
serendipitous1
So perhaps Japan was right to keep as many people on the Diamond Princess as long as they did. If they'd all been let off the ship earlier, many more cases would have appeared. The fact that Japan hasn't seen a huge spike in infections (unless there are thousands of people at home with fevers etc. who aren't telling anyone), it still seems like Japan has had a lucky escape. The first cases were at the end of January so a huge surge in infections would have already happened by now unless there is a second wave coming (but now very few people are arriving in Japan one would think).
Tensai
Lockdown = Total destruction of an already-weak economy that will take years to recover. Hoarding and depression. Millions and millions of people suffer. The virus, basically the flu, still spreads through population and a tiny % of people with pre-existing conditions die. The other 99% recover.
No Lockdown = Keep your economy alive. The virus, basically the flu, spreads through population and a tiny % of people with pre-existing conditions die. The other 99% recover.
Lockdowns don't work. The virus will do its thing, just like the flu. Life goes on.
Don't let the cure be worse than the disease.
SlumLord
Hopefully we’ll make it to 2021
B. Jay
Now that the Olympics has been postponed, Japan can go back to testing people for this virus. If they do test like the way South Korea did and I'd doing, we will see an explosive growth in the numbers. Thousands of cases are lurking in the dark not caught by anyone yet.
London_Bhoy
To be honest, I reckon had it in December. I was knocked out for 4 days with a weird flu that had the same symptoms as Coronavirus. It was like someone had sucked the energy out of me. It was definitely different to the run of the mill, standard flu. Tough to explain but it was a bit more energy zapping and a bit more intense. Anyway, bed rest, paracetomols and lots of warm water and 5 days later no problem. I'm in the minoroty that thinks this CV panic is a way to a) bring in restrictions against personal freedoms that will never get rolled back 100% (like 9/11) b) crush small businesses so big corporations can step in and profit and c) finally push us into a cashless society so we can control everything. Sure CV isn't great, but to me it's being used as an excuse to erode our personal freedoms unlike other massive flu epidemics that killed way more people in the past. I'm with David Icke on this one.. at 3.1M views in 6 days, it seems a lot of others are as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMTZu6_TjU8
Henny Penny
Koike can talk about "lock down" all she wants, but she does not have the legal authority to order a US/European style lock down. Even if she did, she does not have control over either the military or the police to enforce it.
Mirai Hayashi
If you shut down public transportation, then the city will effectively be locked down as a majority of the people will not have the means to move around
TheLongTermer
@Londonbhoy,
Actually, that does sound like a "run of the mill" flu here in Japan. Those are normal symptoms, some nasty stuff here.
CV is a lower respiratory disease, and I think the pre emptive measures are necessary.
Realization
News shows: Warnings fail to stop Japanese crowds from viewing cherry blossoms
Then what you are waiting for to lock-down???
Do you need more infection and death to prove it???
Realization
Infectious disease experts guiding the Japanese government's response to the coronavirus outbreak sounded the alarm on Tuesday that people are not taking the threat seriously.
Don't you think we need immediate lock down???
d_spector
"Well at least if the Olympics get called off they don't have to try to cover up the Coronavirus anymore. They might actually be able to deal with it now."
My sentiments exactly!
kaminokaze
The bomb is ticking. Question is do you need it to be exploded so that you can count the casualties.
Mirai Hayashi
Actually yes, that's exactly what they are waiting for.
TheLongTermer
So now they are testing? I heard they will only test if you have symptoms, as to not overwhelm the hospitals like what happened in Italy.