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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020.Hokkaido turns into hotbed of coronavirus cases
By Ju-min Park SAPPORO©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
42 Comments
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tamanegi
@OssanAmerica
Much the same in Australia with universities crying poor after having relied on too many Chinese students to fill their classrooms for too long paying double what local students pay.
The decision to extend the ban on Chinese nationals from entering Australia was extended for another seven days today. I think it has been in place for a month now.
tamanegi
Very tough day for young Governor Suzuki with more than a dozen new cases in Hokkaido and the death of an elderly man with a pre existing condition. Governor Suzuki looked quite pained to break the news, but he didn't BS and showed the appropriate sympathy and seriousness of the situation at hand. I wish him and the good people of Hokkaido well.
OssanAmerica
Why should it irritate you? The COVID18 virus started in Wuhan and spread to every Chinese province. Just about every country in the world now has restrictions on inbound flights from China or specific Chinese provinces as well as people who have been there in the last 14 days. Japan is one of these many countries.Do all these countries irritate you? Are Chinese tourists being treated like tourists from other countries anywhere right now? No. Nobody said Chinese people aren't victims. Don't try to turn this into something it isn't.
Hokkaido, as well as nearly all Japan, as well as many other countries have been enjoying the benefits of mass numbers of Chinese tourists over the past decade. Japan did not take strong action early on because they wanted the tourists to visit right through the Chinese Lunar New Years vacation. The earliest COVD19 cases in Japan started with contact with Chinese tourists. Hokkaido, and now Japan nationwide, has to make tough decisions to try to contain the spread which has now gone beyond the tourists. So yes, they arereaping what they have sown with their singular priority on Chinese tourist income. Do you understand now?
yoshisan88
What does decade long Chinese tourism has anything to do with this decision? Also saying they are reaping what they have sown really irreates me. Chinese tourists are just like other foreign tourists coming to Japan which should be viewed and treated equalily. Chinese people are victims of this virus, too.
ian
What many are saying is that if everyone who wants tested is tested the situation will easily snowball beyond the health infrastructure's capacity and capability. This could prevent those needing it from receiving treatment in a timely manner, maybe none at all.
Can you imagine being so sick but needing to wait because there are hundreds who came before you who wants to be tested even though without or with minor symptoms only. Meanwhile, if you are infected you are infecting those around you while waiting.
Hospitals are a good source of infection, don't go unless you need to. As mentioned the chances of infection are very slim. You are increasing it if you go to a place where chances of it present is high
Ah_so
You do sound uncaring. You also have no evidence that these people would pass away soon or whether they would even catch pneumonia. Most of those dying have probably lost years off their lives.
Jim Sierra
Watch this.
https://youtu.be/6dDD2tHWWnU
Put you in the right persipective.
Ah_so
And if they don't know they have it, how many older people will they pass it on to who lived could be put at risk?
sicksound
Sorry, not 3000, but 9500.
sicksound
In Italy they ran 3000 test in 4/5 days and found 400 hundred infected, in Japan they run about 100 test per day. Make your math.
According to a report from Imperial College in London (that works with WHO) at least 60% of Coronavirus infection are going undetected.
RickyC
@taj
You are idiotically comparing all three year long statistics of spanish flu (which lasted three years) with one month of chinese coronavirus statistic.
We don't even know medically whether what harm has/will happened/happen to the patient's stories that didn't resolved with death. I or neither that woman can't chill out by considering future complications to the health of our kids. A pneumonia case that developed in early ages, may influence future respiratory health of a person in adulthood.
You can chill out for your family members.
This is not only death or being alive, we couldn't experience perfect recovery from this yet to compare statistically and scientifically with other diseases.
Jeniffer
If people takes the test more, the infected population would increase much more.
theFu
daito_hak, In 2018, the mortality rate in China increased to 7.13 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants.
With 1.39 billion people, that means about 27.1K people die in China each day normally before Wu-Flu existed.
Japan's daily dead for 2018 was about 3600/day. Unexpected to me, Japan's death rate is higher than the US or China's.
Bugle Boy of Company B
As long as the media is telling you to panic, don't panic. When the media starts to tell you to stay calm tho...
socrateos
Why Hokkaido? Is it something to do with Sapporo Snow Festival?
Beanie
All excellent points, ADK99
In addition to the undiagnosed positives that recover and are missed in the count will be some deaths that go uncounted as they weren’t tested / died before the outbreak was recognised etc but those numbers will presumably be much smaller.
kurisupisu
Blaming a certain nationality for a virus is pathetically inaccurate thinking....
OssanAmerica
You misunderstood my statement. What Hokkaido has "sown" is not the virus. It is the reliance, perhaps addiction, to the income flow from the Chinese tourist trade.
virusrex
That is an invalid argument, if nobody catches it there is no need for immunity to spread, it is not like the human-to-human transmissible mutant is keep in the wild so it is very likely to never become endemic, end of epidemic would mean end of the pathogen. Also, since coronavirus are not specially difficult to fight with vaccination there is no need to get a risky infection if in a few months you can get a safe vaccine.
Lastly, being immune to one variant of a virus do not necessarily means you will be more protected for it when it mutates, it could happen like in influenza, where your previous immunity is useless, or worse like in Dengue, where your previous immunity makes the next infection much more dangerous.
taj
I think you have this exactly backwards.
Odds of winning the lotto are much lower.
The death rates (by best estimates of current data) are lower than the 1918 "spanish" flu.
It is spreading like that flu, but not killing as swiftly and broadly. That one was especially deadly to the young and healthy - again, the exact opposite of Covid-19.
nakanoguy01
at the risk of sounding uncaring, the people who are dying are the elderly and the elderly with chronic health problems. the reality is that these people would have passed away anyways the next time they caught pneumonia.
the world should welcome the spread of covid-19. the more people that catch it, the sooner immunity will spread. so when covid-19 mutates, our bodies will be better prepared to fight it. this will actually prevent more deaths in the future. this fear-mongering is absurd.
kohakuebisu
The virus is not Hokkaido's, or any destination for Chinese tourists' fault. They did not "sow" this.
Since Hokkaido is a tourist destination, closing the schools sounds like a bona fide reason for tourists heading there now or soon to cancel. I hope the ski resorts can survive with no tourists for March and can refund those who've paid already. This could be a very big ask.
virusrex
But for people alive its very important to know if you have bigger chances of dying of other infectious diseases, so you know what your priorities have to be.
It is also important how many patients become infected or symptomatic at once, mortality in China has been particularly large because health services were overrun by the sudden influx of patients.
If a hospital that receive 300 people a week have to accept an extra 100 for 10 consecutive weeks it would be bad but not something that would seriously affect the chances of recovering there, if on the other hand it suddenly have to make room for 1000 patients on a single week then it can be expected for the mortality to increase very importantly.
Aly Rustom
marcelito
LOL spot on brother. And just so everyone remembers, these are the cases WE KNOW OF only. Most experts including members of the CDC agree that the number could be and probably is MUCH higher.
quercetum
There are more who are or will be infected. The lower numbers reported in China due to deception. In Japan incompetence.
ADK99
@Beanie - don't forget that a lot of cases where people survive will go undiagnosed and unrecorded. My plan if I start getting flu-like symptoms is to stay at home and wait it out unless it gets super bad. The likelihood is that I will never know whether I had it or not.
Also, someone dying from it automatically shifts them from the "active" column to the "resolved" column. It takes longer for a survivor to be moved over.
Overall, based on the information we have, it is highly unlikely that the death rate will be anywhere near 8%.
Yrral
If you are 100 percent dead, these figures will mean nothing to you, because you are dead
suomitheway
What about Okinawa? Didn't the cruise ship stop there first? Is it because Hokkaido is very cold and the virus loves the cold?
didou
Odds are still better to win the loto.
But the problem with the Corona is that if the whole population gets infected, it will be a huge number of deaths like the Spanish flu.
Ghat is why governments do take actions, though in my opinion, it is way too much for a few hundred infected
Beanie
akerusan,
I applaud your use of facts and math, ut would like to point out that instead of using total number of cases and total deaths, you should divide the number of resolved cases, divided by deaths.
Of the 82,000 recognised cases, 46,000 are still active. We don’t know yet if they’ll recover or die.
35,600 cases are closed.
Of those 32,800 recovered and 2,800 died.
(92% vs 8%)
Jeff Ko
The fear is overblown. Most won't even know they have it and will recover just like a seasonal flu. Keep the number of the infected low by limiting testing. That worked really good so far.
OssanAmerica
This article title teeters between "accurate" and "panic mongering".
As of this moment Hokkaiso has 38 infection cases and two deaths, the highest of any Japanese prefecture.
But Hokkaido has a population of 5,281,000 residents.
That said, I think Hokkaido is taking a lead on taking this seriously, closing schools, cancelling events, etc. Maybe an awareness as Hokkaido has been literally flooded by Chinese tourists for the past decade and they know they are reaping what they have sown. Masks sold out in Sapporo very quickly.
rainyday
Yup and if it were to stop at 170 out of 120,000,000 then it won't have been a big deal.
Of course, China had just 170 cases at one point a few weeks ago. Now its got like 80,000 and more than 2700 dead. So the track record does not suggest brushing it off as no big deal makes any sense whatsoever.
Nothing about this disease or Japan's response to it gives me confidence that Japan isn't at high risk at dealing with a similar scale spread of the disease in the next few weeks.
smithinjapan
marecelito: "Presumably thats your rationale for trying to excuse the Abe & Co. pathetic response and unwilingness to test even all those that are referred to the designated hospitals."
Exactly! This is the peak season for excuses, much like the Diamond Princess actions of the J-government were "perfect" and defended tooth and nail by the blind defenders, until of course Kato had to quietly admit a few days later Professor Iwata was correct, and many people had been released that had not been tested, etc. So, once they prove positive and are spreading it, it is, "Well, no proof it's that bad -- like a cold," while they only test ONE TENTH of the testing going on in other nations (they forget to put how high the number in Japan would be, by percentage, if they increased testing ten-fold). Tomorrow, when much, much higher rates are revealed, Abe will no doubt "decide to make a plan to deal with the virus, should it come to Japan" and they will defend that, too.
mu-da
My respect to Gov Suzuki for making a decision and bearing responsibility. While the guys in Nagato-cho are having meetings, are urging and waffling.
taj
Here is the risk of dying if infected with COVID-19.
AGE: DEATH RATE
*80+ years old: 14.8%
70-79 years old: 8.0%
60-69 years old: 3.6%
50-59 years old: 1.3%
40-49 years old: 0.4%
30-39 years old: 0.2%
20-29 years old: 0.2%
10-19 years old: 0.2%
0-9 years old: no fatalities
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
The woman's whose 16 year-old has a runny nose should chill out and treat it like a normal flu. KEEP THE KID AT HOME. Keep an eye on his temperature. Don't plug up the ER as long as he's doing ok. Even if he tested positive, it would be the same thing. Same as testing positive for the flu. STAY HOME. Sleep. Get fluids. Keep an eye on the the body temp.
akerusan
I don't understand the downvote forTokyo-m messages...
Yeah, so, like any other diseases and viruses, no ?
daito_hak
Excuse me but China has to deal so far with 2744 dead bodies that originated in a little bit less than three months. That's indeed a small fraction of the total Chinese population but that's a lot of dead people nevertheless. So I don't think it's unreasonable to be at least careful with this thing....
Bjorn Tomention
Tokyo-m if you are young fit healthy with no underlying health issues yes, but if you are elderly with some health issues then maybe not so likely.
Some think tough luck and who cares, but some have elderly family members and some are elderly themselves. Not so fair on them.
Govt has mishandled this whole thing from the start, putting many at risk.