Tokyo reports 141 new coronavirus cases; nationwide tally 583

Even if you look at the official Japanese numbers, with the low testing and without postmortem autopsies etc, there are more daily corona deaths in Japan than most European countries. E.g. yesterday in Japan it was +17, while in Germany it was 4, The Netherlands was 0, Belgium was 1, Sweden was 0, Switzerland was 1. Of course the USA has been incomparably horrible. Which is just terrible. My points always here have been that it may just very probably be true that Japan did not have an extreme situation during this corona crisis, such as overflowing hospitals. But the same is true for most European countries, even during the first wave, and this is especially true for the second wave. I am very happy and glad that the situation in Japan has not been like the USA, and I will never state this. I do get however very tired of all these people on this website saying how Japan is doing such a great job, while the situation here now is worse than in most EU countries, and where the government is not doing anything to increase testing, to implement policies and to be transparent. And no, I am not implying at all that the government is hiding bodies, or weird comments sometimes posted here. The world is not black and white, it is not either "control" or "hiding bodies", it is somewhere in between, where the hospitals are not overflowing, fortunately, and where the government is doing almost nothing, and there there is no post-mortem testing so the scale of things here is just literally largely unknown. There have not been hiding bodies and extreme things like that, but because of the low testing, unknown infection routes and no postmortem autopsies, even if you look at May, two days ago a new analysis came out (https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2020083100804) suggesting that month the excess deaths may have been 2600 (and that is 3 months ago). My point is not - just to be clear again - that Japan is not overflowing and bodies are being hidden. My point entirely is that the more realistic numbers are far worse than the official numbers, which is true in every country, but especially Japan.

It's been covered before. Not enough staff, and documents are faxed (yes, faxed) back and forth from one institution to another, and in between personal details of patients need to be blackened with a marker.

Yeah I know about that, but they announced a few weeks ago that the reporting of the tests results was digitalized to some extent. I know that Japan is often not the most advanced country in terms of productivity, but this is at this point totally ridiculous and embarrassing that they can't fix it.

Akula, explain how 15% of tested result in positives, equates to numbers falling and in the right direction?

i@n, compare August 2020 death rate in Tokyo with 2019. This will be the start of the Covid spike in May/ June. Forget Covid marked deaths. They will be brushed under where all the non-approved tests have been brushed. Total deaths comparison should do it.

Numbers falling across the country.

Well no since with a positive rate of 15% (here in Tokyo), 2000 tests would give 300 positives.

I really wonder what kind of numbers we would get if Japan would test more, in the scale of many other countries. They really want to report the lowest possible numbers with such limited testing. I am not saying this as to say that it is a big deal to have much more positive tests but this is quite dishonest.

For the love of God...... THEY ARE NOT RANDON TESTS! Only those showing symptoms or those with known contact are tested. The number of tests is completely irrelevant.

Mass testing would only work if you tested EVERYBODY at the same time, isolated those infected and then repeated this testing every 2 weeks until the virus had run its course.

The tests, testing facilities and staff are not available. Much as I dislike the current government, they seem to have got this right.

The tally is the result from 956 tests conducted on Aug 30.

The number of tests is just laughable. But again why are the results of tests conducted on Sunday only reported now? We are Wednesday, this is ridiculous.

Also does 141 new cases means the number of positive tests? That would then mean a positive rate of ~15%!

@daito_hak

The number of tests is just laughable. But again why are the results of tests conducted on Sunday only reported now? We are Wednesday, this is ridiculous.

Also does 141 new cases means the number of positive tests? That would then mean a positive rate of ~15%!

Because the time it takes for Japanese health authorities to process the data - it takes a couple of days. It's been covered before. Not enough staff, and documents are faxed (yes, faxed) back and forth from one institution to another, and in between personal details of patients need to be blackened with a marker.

I agree. This low testing number is ridiculous, and that percentage is actually quite worrying.

We'll really start to see what the impact of obon was next week most likely. I'm expecting a pretty big jump.

The number of tests is just laughable. But again why are the results of tests conducted on Sunday only reported now? We are Wednesday, this is ridiculous.

Cn you give an example of how fast it is reported in some countries?

Just so we have an idea of acceptable reporting times

n1k1Aug. 22 07:27 pm JST

I think september 2-nd we will be down to 2 digits. maybe even sooner.

-9( +0 / -9 )

:(

@Reckless, yes indeed you are right and I’m not saying this at all. Maybe you didn’t read my post, but I was talking about many other EU countries. Spain and Italy were indeed horrific.

It's not clear and it wouldn't be right if just compare numbers from a single point in time and without accounting for the size of population at that.

So I have a suggestion if I may.

Let's stick to the countries you mentioned, why don't you look at the deaths per million population in worldometer, see if that will provide you with a clearer picture of the comparative situation.

I myself don't really compare, I'm focused mostly on the numbers here in Japan.

Diabete, obesity and other factors explain the death rate. Japan is (currently) protected from that thanks to a better diet.

I don't think japanese health system or governement actions have something to do with it.

Yea, these factors have a big influence, there is a lot of scientific data suggesting this.

@Reckless, yes indeed you are right and I’m not saying this at all. Maybe you didn’t read my post, but I was talking about many other EU countries. Spain and Italy were indeed horrific.

@Martini, what are you talking about? Just a few months ago most EU countries, specifically Italy, Spain and the UK were overflowing with coronavirus deaths. That never happened in Japan.

Diabete, obesity and other factors explain the death rate. Japan is (currently) protected from that thanks to a better diet.

I don't think japanese health system or governement actions have something to do with it.

Can we also include number of deaths?

Marcelito.. If you had 10 red balls and 50 white balls in a bag, then did a color test. How many red balls would you have?

Now add 4000 more white balls to the bag and repeat the test. How many red balls this time? Would you find any more?

Who do you want to test? How often do you want to test them? Because remember....No virus today doesn’t mean no virus tomorrow...

i@n, compare August 2020 death rate in Tokyo with 2019. This will be the start of the Covid spike in May/ June. Forget Covid marked deaths. They will be brushed under where all the non-approved tests have been brushed. Total deaths comparison should do it.

I really think you should do it, so you'll have some sort of basis for your fears, it might even assuage your fears, you'll never know

That does appear to be quite a low rate of testing, but the trend continues in the right direction. Numbers falling across the country.