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Panel discusses virus response guidelines for local gov'ts

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Oh my god, another Pannel. Number 1 complicat any action taken. Number 2 String it out as long as possible to get the tax payer dollars in this awrsom Pannels pockets. A decision is far off for this Pannel, 2 second Pannel the first was disbanded.

16 ( +17 / -1 )

Phew! They discussed it! I guess in another few years they'll form a new group to make a decision about thinking about a plan to decide on what to do about further discussions, to be hankoed by someone, to be sent back, and to be put into non-binding laws on how to talk about doing something about thinking about it.

15 ( +17 / -2 )

How about advising them to not hold meetings with dozens of people crammed into a little conference room when they could just as easily do the same via ZOOM?

11 ( +14 / -3 )

A bit of background on Nishimura, the guy in charge of the COVID response:

Nishimura is affiliated to the openly revisionist lobby Nippon Kaigi. He advocates its main causes, which are: the revision of the constitution, the right for collective self-defense (revision of Article 9), state visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.

Nishimura is also a member of:

the Nippon Kaigi Diet discussion group (日本会議国会議員懇談会)

the Conference of parliamentarians on the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership (神道政治連盟国会議員懇談会) SAS is a.k.a. Sinseiren, Shinto Political League

the Committee for promoting the reform of the Fundamental Education Law (教育基本法改正促進委員会)

the Conference of young parliamentarians supporting the idea that the Yasukuni Shrine is a true national interest and desire for peace (平和を願い真の国益を考え靖国神社参拝を支持する若手国会議員の会)

Sad, sad stuff but no surprise, really. Other countries such as Germany or Taiwan have leadership with science or medicine-based careers, Japan has a historical revisionist, religious crackpot who's never held a job outside the bureaucracy or politics. A narcissist who believes the bizarre fantasy presented at the Yasukuni Yushukan is real is now responsible for the health of 127m people. It seems the US isn't the only country in the hands of unhinged cultists.

11 ( +13 / -2 )

No mention in the article of the composition of this elite panel. Other than Nishimura Yasutoshi who has bizarrely been given the COVID response portfolio even while he is the Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy. the Minister in charge Economic Revitalization, and the Minister in charge of Social Security Reform. I am sure they are all as eminently qualified as Nishimura who has never worked outside government or politics...

A bit of background on Nishimura, the guy in charge of the COVID response:

Nishimura is affiliated to the openly revisionist lobby Nippon Kaigi. He advocates its main causes, which are: the revision of the constitution, the right for collective self-defense (revision of Article 9), state visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.

Nishimura is also a member of:

the Nippon Kaigi Diet discussion group (日本会議国会議員懇談会)

the Conference of parliamentarians on the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership (神道政治連盟国会議員懇談会) SAS is a.k.a. Sinseiren, Shinto Political League

the Committee for promoting the reform of the Fundamental Education Law (教育基本法改正促進委員会)

the Conference of young parliamentarians supporting the idea that the Yasukuni Shrine is a true national interest and desire for peace (平和を願い真の国益を考え靖国神社参拝を支持する若手国会議員の会)

10 ( +11 / -1 )

The panel proposed assessing six types of data such as hospital bed occupancy rates, percentage of people testing positive and a weekly tally of newly reported infections per 100,000 people in deciding whether to intensify local responses.

What about just following WHO's guidelines? This has already been discussed by a lot of countries involved in WHO and they decided that more than 5% of positive cases means that more tests are required.

Tokyo has been above 5% of positive cases for a month, yet the testing has barely increased.

And on top of that, they are incapable of doing proper tracing with more than 60% cases from unknown origin and not followed by any effort to trace more.

Sources: their own data at https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Tokyo and Osaka, the two prefectures hardest-hit by the virus, currently fall under the category of "gradually increasing"

For the entire month of June, Osaka had a daily high of 7 cases, and that was on June 29th. Most days that month were zero, one, or maybe two cases per day.

The 1st of July it hit 10 cases, the first time to be in double digets in over 6 weeks.

The 15th of July it hit 61 cases that day.

By the end of July it was well over 200 per day (as high as 273 one day), and has been aound 200/day all the past week.

So in the span of one month, the increase from 10 to 273 (or average of near zero to about 200)..... And this is classified as a "gradual increasing"?

9 ( +12 / -3 )

smithinjapanToday  04:57 pm JST

exactly!!!! it ain't ever going to change, so, take it easy on yourself......

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Prefectures in this category will be advised to ask bars and restaurants to limit the number of customers and event organizers to restrict the number of attendees to slow the pace of infections.

ridiculous measure from an accomplice GOV. please limit and stop the GOV to limit the virus as well. please close the tax office to limit the virus as well

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Nothing much has change in recent months. Public pools, gyms, bars, clubs, amusement parks still open, and school sports practices and games, and so on, all still happening.You would think that there isn’t even a pandemic. May 1 was just over 9,800 active cases. June 20 was down to about 680 active cases and just 6 weeks later over 15,000 active cases. Naaaaaa, I don’t see any reason to worry.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

You could replace the people in that meeting with 40 random salarymen and the result would be about the same.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

ROFL what a joke to abenomics. you thougth you can sweep the Chinese virus infected japanese and foreigneres living in japan under rug so that you can make japan look like a Nation of power and leadership despite your country got aniallated 75 years ago??? Wake up Japan and forget about olympics for in the name of DEATH... How despicable this is.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

The more data made to the public the better. The simple reporting of "new cases" doesn't mean much on its own.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Japanese Abe government and authorities are too late as ever and have learned nothing from this spring.

They made numerical guideline after "second wave" came, not before it.

Tightness at medical service, confusion at health centers, refusal of virus test,

Same problem are repeated again.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

For the entire month of June, Osaka had a daily high of 7 cases, and that was on June 29th. Most days that month were zero, one, or maybe two cases per day.

The 1st of July it hit 10 cases, the first time to be in double digets in over 6 weeks.

They were reporting zero because they were not testing and since test were ramped up to 2000/day they have been reporting over 200 infections per day, same story with every pref in the country.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Japanese Abe government does not even publish an overview of the minutes of this subcommittee (present form of expert panel).

who did decide it, what was its basis, where is responsible, all things are not clear.

This is typical Japan.

and victim increasing again.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The guidelines will just be scrapped once the numbers get hit anyways. They will just raise the numerical thresholds whenever it is about to hit. It is not like the experts would be willing to day anything other than what the government wants unless they want to permanently destroy their career.

There is absolutely no chance that the national government will declare another emergency during the Go To Campaign. I would bet everything I have that the central government will not declare an emergency before end of Jan.2021.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Not the government, it is the private businesses and the people that are active in preventing cases.

However, some are sorely lacking.

From giving advice on trains to zero has been the response of JR.

Japan Railways has now dispensed with alcohol even though millions buy tickets via machines everyday.

Impossible social distancing on the trains make them a high risk vector for the virus.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Coronavirus do not need a committee to tell it what to do

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Tokyo and Osaka, the two prefectures hardest-hit by the virus, currently fall under the category of "gradually increasing" with their daily counts of new infections continuing to hit triple-digits in recent times.

Once again, kicking us out of Japan! Okinawa, has an infection rate of 33.21 per 100,000, which is hugely higher than either Osaka and Tokyo.

We had our first "100" infections day yesterday, and roughly 700 cases in the past two weeks alone.

Pre elementary school kids all the way up to 100 years old plus, are getting sick, and it's all over the island now, up north, down south, and in the cities too.

Aichi called it's own emergency, so has Okinawa......

I am tempted to send my son back to Tokyo, to continue his online courses, rather than here, as the risk is far greater here now, than ANYWHERE in Japan!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

According to another media outlet today:

Health ministry statistics show that 7.33 new cases per 100,000 people were confirmed over the week through Aug. 5. That is 1.5 times higher than the figure for the previous week.

The ratio of cases whose infection routes were untraceable was 52 percent over the week until July 31, almost the same as the previous week.

The rate of positive test results has increased for seven consecutive weeks and reached 6.7 percent in the most recent week. That indicates that testing has not kept up with the pace of new infections.

But by all means, let's all "Go to travel"!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I might be off-message with this, and I'm willing to be proved wrong, but hasn't Japan done pretty well so far?

Surely the most damning statistic for any pandemic response is measured in deaths, and with just over a thousand so far that tells me that by luck or good judgement the response has been pretty effective. 4 people died in Japan yesterday, compared to 49 in the UK which has half the population.

Surely they are doing something right?

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Matters naught.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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