politics

Suga thanks public for coping with virus restrictions; asks for continuing cooperation

38 Comments
By MARI YAMAGUCHI

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38 Comments
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When listening to Suga's comments I can only imagine a daimyo during a famine and pestilence taking families last stores of rice and as an aside thanking them for their extraordinary coping powers as malnutrition eats at them, their moral sense, their superior powers of "gaman".

Protecting the people is the last consideration of the LDP.

29 ( +32 / -3 )

The move underscores the government’s eagerness to minimize burdens on businesses and keep the economy going. However, some experts warned that although Tokyo has managed to bring down the rate of new infections, the decline has leveled off and could rebound

Except they have not minimized the effects to many not subsidized businesses , and certainly not workers. The government's eagerness is only apparent in minimizing its own risk by offloading the burden of the economic impact to the working public by the toothless SOE.

>

20 ( +22 / -2 )

Suga said the government will expand testing and step up monitoring of new variants of the virus believed to be more contagious, while carrying out vaccinations safely and promptly.

Really, don't think anyone believes this.

18 ( +21 / -3 )

Suga thanks public for coping with virus restrictions; asks for continuing cooperation

The trains were packed, the ramen shops were open, hostess bars in Ginza all open, salarymen going to karaoke.......all during the state of emergency. Gotta love Japan.

13 ( +15 / -2 )

Suga:

“It is my responsibility to protect the lives and health of the people,"

Also Suga:

“I will firmly support preparations to achieve the Olympics,”

12 ( +13 / -1 )

The more I listen to the Japanese Government about COVID the more I want a Jack D. to drink up.

12 ( +12 / -0 )

Let's get moving on the vaccine. PM Suga bragged that they are doing 90,000 injections per day. At that rate, it will take 9 years to complete! When are they going to reach the needed 2,000,000 per day? I know they are studying it! LOL

12 ( +13 / -1 )

Suga is a bumbling, blithering, blundering,untrustworthy old fool.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

Suga said the government will expand testing 

This has been said for one year already. I guess the government relies on private medical institutions for testing to hide its incompetence.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

In order to prevent the resurgence of the infections, we will do all we can

Does anyone believe this? It's all just bumbling along and dismissing all criticism.

In other news, various agencies are reporting that the 100m vaccinations in Biden's first 100 days will be achieved one month early.

10 ( +10 / -0 )

So Suga sez "smile and be happy", "I declare Covid has been defeated" (with your further cooperation)? Is this the politically correct take for public consumption and people's confidence in returning to (the new) normal? I'm still dazed and confused by the last year of living dangerously amid all the smoke and mirrors. We now know about the Olympic torch relay, but where's the "science" in Suga's statements?

9 ( +9 / -0 )

360,000 injections in the past thirty days.

That's only 12,000 per day. Suga's math is a bit off.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

How about the gov't gets off its collective behind and start massive public vaccination?

Japan is way WAY behind and for a country that excels at literally getting the trains to run on time (an analogy for basic logistics), and it's very frustrating.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

“ ... asks for continuing cooperation. “

yes; we live in a different world.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Back to "The Emperor's New Clothes" ... just don't ask questions.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

ah yes, charts, graphs. Exactly as they projected, discussed and planned during their meetings. You can make a graph looking good if you play a bit with the input.

Can this be even more ridiculous?

8 ( +9 / -1 )

“It is my responsibility to protect the lives and health of the people," Suga said.

Well then, cut the Olympic crap and start shooting people up with some VAXXX, SUGA! Enough of this little game that no one is playing.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

FiddlersToday  07:48 am JST

Really, don't think anyone believes this.

At least my Japanese coworker in his early 20s does. "Coronavirus is almost over" he says, referring to the few number of infections we see everyday on the news, so he usually goes out with his friends on weekends. Before the pandemic we would go out and eat ramen, so he is asking me to go again. "No until we get vaccinated" I tell him.

And I don't blame him, he (as probably many more Japanese) has a blind faith in what the government says, so he thinks it's completelly under control. As for me, I stopped believing in the government after the nuclear disaster.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Suga also said something about random testing at station for asymptomatic people to prevent resurgence, and a number of 5000 a day was mentioned but whether that is for the random testing, just in Tokyo or for the whole country was not clear.. With the Olympics coming are they really going to up and do random and more testing which might show more numbers they don’t want to have at this time. Less testing is the cornerstone of Japanese policy ( less tests means less cases) Are they going to overturn this now. Maybe it will take several months of meetings etc to implement this policy or like Hiroshima’s claim to test the whole city, the whole idea will just vanish.

Also he mentioned restrictions on the number of flights allowed in to Japan to allow less people in to Japan. A story mentioned elsewhere but yet to be really quantified. How does this policy work with holding the Olympics! Maybe exemptions for Olympic flights like there is going to be exemptions for any quarantine for Olympic participants

6 ( +6 / -0 )

I'm stuck in my office right now, and my boss and his boss are swanning around with no masks on. It the 15 metres to the water dispenser, there are 6 other dolts either maskess or wearing chin diapers.

On the packed train here, amybe half the passengers were wearing their masks correctly. For the rest it was peekaboo nose time.

Thank you for your cooperation.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Suga said the government will expand testing and step up monitoring of new variants of the virus believed to be more contagious, while carrying out vaccinations safely and promptly.

Really, don't think anyone believes this.

People do, so far as the mainstream media are echoing what the government says. Never heard on any mainstream media questioning what happened to the myriad of empty promises made to expand pcr testing that were never carried out. Abe, 200,000, Koike, 65,000, Hiroshima 800,000. In which normal country one year into the pandemic they are still contemplating on increasing testing.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

It is my responsibility to protect the lives and health of the people

Saying this doesn't fulfill anything. Jeez, this old dude has some people-pleasing problem.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

And who can still believe to this man which is only executing the orders of his real masters Aso-Abe?

The naïve and submissive people of their country.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

He thanks the 70% of people who obeyed the SOE restrictions. What does he have to say about the other 30% who ignored the restrictions and kept the virus alive and spreading over the last six weeks?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

It is a pity that PM Suga didn’t follow his own advice but that advice is for us plebs and not for him and others of his ilk..

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Present Japan's government still depends Covid-19 response on self-sacrifice of medical workers and self-help of citizen. Japan's nucleus of the government who is still obsessed with skepticism to PCR test cannot yet change measure drastically despite one year passed.

Optimism of Suga who had expected early finishing of Covid-19 without basis victimized over 7200 people during half years.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

“It is my responsibility to protect the lives and health of the people," Suga said.

I can’t help but think the free market would do a better job of rapidly distributing coronavirus vaccines in Japan than Mr Suga.

Can’t he relieve himself of the responsibility and leave it to us? I think we collectively could produce a faster vaccine rollout than the centralized government in command approach.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Suga says, Suga recommends, Suga thinks, Sugar wants .....

The new Shogun has spoken, people, believe him.

He will handle all this without any problems! (sarc. off)

How many more months until the next (meaningless) election ?

Shogun means the military leader in Japan. The only Supreme Shogun in Japan is the US Secretary of Defense. Suga should be the Daimyo.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Japanese TV everyday puts up a message of how many people have tested positive for what? I used to think the flu number being reported in the past were bad, equally is the non-reporting of flu any longer. So, many drugs, medicine available for both. So many professional doctors have made it known that these vaccines being given out are harmful deadly and dangerous side effects that might not happen for months after injections. Happening world wide.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

You can thank us sending out another ¥100,000.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

So far so good.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

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