Tokyo reports 269 new coronavirus cases; nationwide tally 1,024

Stay safe, people.

reported 269 new cases of the coronavirus, up 147 from Wednesday. The number is the result of 1,769 tests conducted 

That's around 1 positive out of 6 people tested.

The numbers may not tell the truth, but the tendency does.

Infections in Hokkaido seem to have really spiked in recent times, a bit of a worry.

There’s been a lot of speculation, and now reports that significant portion of Tokyo ~50% has been infected at some point during this pandemic. I figured I’d post a link to one such report:

Unfortunately the report is terribly primitive and badly made, a lot of necessary details were ignored (principally even very basic statistical analysis of the results and a detailed discussion about the reliability scores of the test). Specially worrying is the obviously inadequate details of a supposed etical review by "some" committee.

The authors are supposedly arguing a situation that contradicts the knowledge about the pandemic on a world wide scale, something very difficult to believe (since it is much more likely their results are product from a bad methodology) the least they should do is present a proper analysis to base their conclusions.

Does anyone normally even die from this invisible virus...

You've seen the figures, right?

99% are looking like masks wearing alien's...

Ever been for surgery?

Where is that deadly pandemic? Millions of dead people they promised back in March... Reality is its just like a normal flu.

It might just be that because so many people are doing their best to adhere to safety protocols, there aren't more deaths. I mean, there's too many as it is... but would you be convinced if the numbers were higher?

Just how many more people have to die before the pandemic is taken seriously?

First day national cases has surpassed 1000 since August 21, driven primarily by increased incidences in Hokkaido, Aichi and Osaka, with upward trends also occuring in Miyagi, Shizuoka, Nara, Hyogo and Okayama. Statistically, the national situation mirrors late June and July where cases began rising prior to the August spike. Trends in serious cases and deaths are likewise trending up.

Time will tell, but for those who dismissed concerns about unfettered travel and resumption of full economic activities, this was what people were concerned about. I also think the focus on Tokyo is not helpful.

on second read, this study leaves more to desired, but one key learning that surfaced was to shut up and let you handle comments and commentary. Please educate us. This is after all the Japan Times - we should all at lease be well versed in non-partisan epidemiology.

Of course not, but if you want to present a PDF file with terribly obvious faults as some kind of scientific reference to prove the consensus as mistaken you should at least be open to the possibility that someone could demonstrate you wrong. Up until now the evidence (including the daily positive counts) indicate much more clearly that most of the population has not been exposed to the virus.

The pandemic is an issue that is plagued by misinformation that some people try to use to justify their agendas, this PDF file could become the basis for someone saying that there is no point in social distancing any more, since "half of the people are already infected and nothing bad happened anyway". There is value in presenting reasons that make this judgment not valid yet, after all those reasons are not obvious to everybody.

Of course, I’m optimistic.

I think with the added care people are taking, fewer people will catch colds, normal flu and maybe pneumonia too this winter. So, death toll from all these diseases will actually mean FEWER deaths this winter from contagious diseases in than a normal winter.

I, myself, have usually caught a cold by now in a normal fall/winter season. Not this year.

Japan's health ministry says coronavirus cluster infections were confirmed at more than 100 locations nationwide in the week through Monday.

The number of clusters increased 60 percent from the previous week to 103.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20201105_29/amp.html

How so? How do the positive counts indicate this?

If the report were correct almost half the population would become immune in a single month by July, the number of new cases could only decrease from then on. But from September the number of cases stopped decreasing and now it is even increasing. Herd immunity would have been already reached by now going by the numbers reported. That would mean new cases on single digits at much.

Yes, I couldn't agree more!

At least they are easy to recognize, they base their conclusions on completely subjective suppositions not based on science, they latch to every piece of low quality "evidence" that supports their mistaken views while rejecting perfectly good science on imaginary funding provided by a single person to all the researchers of the world, most of them even think that videos are primary sources of information.

With that is very easy to find out the cranks.

It's really useless to look at the reported numbers, as it's fully controllable with the low testing numbers.

But the curve tells the real story. That said, it's likely the real number is 10+ thousand in Japan, IMO

So the numbers on the curve are useless but the curve tells the real story which in your opinion is 10+ thousand asymptotic just today ?

@kurisupisu

Are you doing your utter best to make sure you do not infect anybody else (wearing mask, social distancing, do not go to work without salary for any symptom, disinfect common place you touch and so on) and not be a bother to medical system (do not bother going to hospital and quarantine yourself for any symptom, do not request medical health care for any symptom and so on)? Sure be my guest.

If by any chance you just go it is fine if I get infected and infect other people ; perhaps you should rethink your socialization thinking. You are not alone in the world and there are people which do not have the luxury to catch this and brush it off.

I have a coworker which think it is fine to go around maskless, sure not being in the at risk population make it easy for one but what about my coworker which are at risk or whose family are ? What about people which take measure to avoid illness and could be infected by this one and end up with lingering symptom ? You are not alone in the world and if you are fine with catching the virus and bear yourself the full cost of it, you should never forget that you should not by any mean end up contaminating someone else or end up being a overwhelming irresponsible tax cost.

I am fine with bearing the cost of people at risk secluding themselves or unfortunate people catching it (even if they can sometimes be not careful enough because after all we are all human thus social being), not with paying for someone which just does not care all the f. time.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are arguing a situation that contradicts widely-accepted knowledge, more like they are beginning to fill some wide-spread knowledge gaps with some data.

The seroprevalence that they are reporting is contrary to what is expected anywhere else in the world, where the number of symptomatic cases reflect much more closely the number of people exposed. In the manuscript they report incredibly high number of people becoming seropositive and then stopped being so in a month. That speaks much more to cross sensitivity from other much more common antigens that the test is incorrectly reporting as positive, but only for a short time since cross-reactivity depends on very high titers of antibodies.

The methodology is what makes the whole thing a waste of tests and volunteers time (if they were volunteer, the anonymous ethical committee may have let people be "volunteered" or some bonus would not be paid).

Anybody has a lot to gain by making a manuscript with bold conclusions, people do it constantly around the world since the possibility of being published is still there (there are journals that publish anything) and having a publication is really good for getting a promotion or a better new job. Not having the capacity to judge the failures of their own work also means they are not capable of foreseeing that other people will find those failures, the authors may thing they did a nice research job, but they didn't. The large company is not their sponsor, for all we know the company as a whole don't even know about this study, or how it is being tried to be published.

That is why peer review works very hard not letting bad studies that may be compromising human rights be published, else the scientific literature gets polluted with unjustified conclusions that someone with hidden interests may peddle later since it "became science".

In science doing something badly is worse than not doing it at all.

There’s been a lot of speculation, and now reports that significant portion of Tokyo ~50% has been infected at some point during this pandemic. I figured I’d post a link to one such report:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v1.full.pdf

Makes a lot more sense than the numbers reported by local government

15% of those tested. This is high percentage.

Covid-19 data. From the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/

Number of hospitalized people reported yesterday: 1040.

Number of hospitalized people reported today: 973.

Day-over-day change: -67 persons

Mild-moderate and Serious symptoms data. They are already included in the total number of people hospitalized. It should also be remembered that data on severe symptoms are already reflected in the Japan Today article. And there is no need to mention them again in the comments.

Where lately if there has been a spike in income with very serious symptoms.

@Tommy Eddy Kookabura

I was waiting for the daily report of flu cases. Does anyone normally even die from this invisible virus... 99% are looking like masks wearing alien's... Where is that deadly pandemic? Millions of dead people they promised back in March... Reality is its just like a normal flu.

The bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccination allows the innate immune system to provide protection from severe COVID-19 infection

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/41/25205

World wide we have had 48.1M Cases of corona with 1.23M Deaths.

Lucky for Japan there is a Universal tuberculosis vaccination program unlucky for the USA it does not hence a larger number of deaths.

i think im already infected too.....

I’ll be doing my eating out and club activities as usual next and this week-no need to stop doing what I have been doing for 6 months already!

The authors are supposedly arguing a situation that contradicts the knowledge about the pandemic on a world wide scale, something very difficult to believe (since it is much more likely their results are product from a bad methodology) the least they should do is present a proper analysis to base their conclusions.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are arguing a situation that contradicts widely-accepted knowledge, more like they are beginning to fill some wide-spread knowledge gaps with some data.

I agree it isn’t a perfect study, but I think worth reporting. In terms of methodology, the cohort was what it was and the data generated are what they are. I also would prefer a more critical analysis...

Personally, I appreciate the authors sticking their necks out a bit with their interpretations/conclusions. I don’t see what they have to gain by making bold statements except maybe invite criticism (?). I don’t imagine it’s the sort of outcome their Industry sponsor (the large company) would have hoped for.

 Up until now the evidence (including the daily positive counts) indicate much more clearly that most of the population has not been exposed to the virus.

How so? How do the positive counts indicate this?

The pandemic is an issue that is plagued by misinformation that some people try to use to justify their agendas

Yes, I couldn't agree more!

Winter season almost here and weather i getting colder and colder here and people will go and get tested eventually and you will see the number climb higher if this virus is lurking everywhere. But I bet to find out how each person having cold symtoms get admitted for any testing even a flu test if they are afraid of your symptoms?

No need to panic. Don’t see other viruses getting reported

Just how many more people have to die before the pandemic is taken seriously?

How do we know that death is being reported correctly. TO down play the countries seriousness of death rate only takes a doctor to say this patient died for heart attack or Pneumonia and not stat that it was due to Covid.

Easy for misinformation to go around everywhere.

I agree it isn’t a perfect study, but I think worth reporting.

I agree that there are limitations to their results, but it is indeed very interesting that by the end of the study, almost half of the participants became seropositive. Especially considering that:

"Participants having fever, cough, or shortness of breath at the time of testing were excluded."

I guess that might explain why the antibodies were no longer detected after one month.

So again, I believe many of us are already immune to SARS-CoV2.

Anybody has a lot to gain by making a manuscript with bold conclusions, people do it constantly around the world since the possibility of being published is still there (there are journals that publish anything) and having a publication is really good for getting a promotion or a better new job. Not having the capacity to judge the failures of their own work also means they are not capable of foreseeing that other people will find those failures, the authors may thing they did a nice research job, but they didn't. The large company is not their sponsor, for all we know the company as a whole don't even know about this study, or how it is being tried to be published.

That is why peer review works very hard not letting bad studies that may be compromising human rights be published, else the scientific literature gets polluted with unjustified conclusions that someone with hidden interests may peddle later since it "became science"

meh. I have peer reviewed more than I’ve published and neither has been especially rigorous or rewarding.

on second read, this study leaves more to desired, but one key learning that surfaced was to shut up and let you handle comments and commentary. Please educate us. This is after all the Japan Times - we should all at lease be well versed in non-partisan epidemiology.

You humans are so frail and fearful.

I was waiting for the daily report of flu cases. Does anyone normally even die from this invisible virus... 99% are looking like masks wearing alien's... Where is that deadly pandemic? Millions of dead people they promised back in March... Reality is its just like a normal flu.