Toshio Muto, CEO of Tokyo 2020, attends a press conference after a Tokyo 2020 executive board meeting in Tokyo on Monday. Photo: Nicolas Datiche/Pool via AP
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Tokyo Olympic organizers defend request for 500 nurses as virus spikes

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Hard no.

50 ( +54 / -4 )

on the bright side, this will be a social/biohazard experiment to stay in history and be studied by specialists in the future. what happens when you gather the whole world into a small island during a global pandemic.

39 ( +40 / -1 )

Japan just needs to surrender (again) and give up the Olympics. They can't even get enough people to give Vaccines, and they want to pull nurses to attend an event that is just going to destroy the Country? The J-Gov't needs to OPEN their eyes and face reality. The olympics need to NOT GO ON!

#canceltheolympics

59 ( +62 / -3 )

In January with 2,000 official cases per day in Tokyo for a couple of weeks and more than 15,000 were on a waitlist to be admitted to hospitals, and we are now sending 500 nurses to the Olympics that 80% of japanese people do not want to have this year?

After this the only reasonable thing to do is cancel the event altogether ASAP.

When I thought I could not be more ashamed of this event...

45 ( +47 / -2 )

And it’s not only 500 nurses, is it?

"As part of the preparations, Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto told parliament last week the government had a plan to secure about 10,000 medical personnel for the Games.” — Reuters, 3 February 2021

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-japan-doctors-idUSKBN2A30HO

45 ( +46 / -1 )

Tokyo Olympic organizers defend request for 500 nurses as virus spikes

Any medical professionals including nurse can be used to help vaccination process not for olympics.

43 ( +44 / -1 )

From this: “At All Costs.”

To now, this: “We need to come up with a way to coexist."

23 ( +24 / -1 )

Another day, another WTF Olympic moment brought to you courtesy of Suga and his J-Gov Covidiots.

42 ( +42 / -0 )

This is ridiculous. Cancel the games ASAP

40 ( +41 / -1 )

The pressure to cancel the Olympics must come from outside.

Countries all over the world have to pull out their athlets from the Olympics.

Then the Olympics will be probably canceled.

But as long as athlets all over the world continue to prepare and their governments support them with a vaccination, the Olympics will never be canceled.

25 ( +33 / -8 )

“One of the key assumptions is you should not deteriorate the service level in the local community by pulling out these nurses, and I have made this point very clear," Muto told reporters.

In what universe would withdrawing 500 nurses from local communities during a pandemic not deteriorate the service level?

36 ( +36 / -0 )

These old men are so desperate for a legacy to justify their life time of achieving zero, they are willing to collapse an already fragile health system for their own goals. It's now crept into evil actions. They will get a legacy but not a pretty one but one that will be remembered globally.

32 ( +33 / -1 )

500 nurses just don't magically appear, they would have to be pulled from existing services. How many closed hospitals is that? A further indication that the scope of the games is not possible during a pandemic. As if that needed to be said.

31 ( +32 / -1 )

Never a question of price tags for Ginza steak dinners, Olympic promotion and Dentsu corporate welfare. But subsidizing the wages of stressed out and at their limit nurses, that would also have the added benefit of attracting many more to a much needed and undervalued occupation... well they will get an extra few yen an hour for overtime, maybe a Dentsu produced add expressing gratitude for their service, or a hospital flyover by the Blue Impulse? Oh, and more funding for predatory guest worker programs to bring nurses from "less developed" nations.

Nothing could be clearer than the self-centered and miserly priorities of the LDP and Japan Inc. Even their gestures at pretending to care ring completely hollow.

33 ( +34 / -1 )

Shouldnt have sent home those thousands of Indonesian nurse a few years ago, huh.

28 ( +31 / -3 )

Wow... Money before lives

35 ( +36 / -1 )

They should have postponed the Games until summer 2022. Then, everyone gets to go, everyone gets the money, the vaccine and everyone is happy.

why they became so stubborn about holding them without spectators I will never understand.

22 ( +24 / -2 )

I do hope people will wake up from their usual lethargic shoganai and vote these clowns out

25 ( +25 / -0 )

This morning, I was watching BBC world News and an expert epidemiologist was slamming Japan's handling of the pandemic and illogical approach to the Olympic preparation.

Another reason why J-gov is hiding information and not communicating with international experts to avoid embarrassment.

36 ( +39 / -3 )

While I am sure there are 500 nurses who have either left the profession, retired, are on maternity leave that they could get for the games, these same nurses could be manning vaccination stations and helping save your citizens lives! Does Japan not see how it is becoming a laughing stock of the world!

29 ( +30 / -1 )

Agree with all of the above.

Japan has had some success containing COVID-19, with just over 10,000 deaths despite never imposing strict lockdown measures.

BS. The gov is not testing properly, is not performing autopsies on those suspected of having died of COVID, AND and is not counting the tests privately taken in their numbers. So the above numbers are BS

29 ( +30 / -1 )

canceltheolympics #sugafree
18 ( +19 / -1 )

Olympics should bring their own nurses and not take away from the vaccine rollout. How many people could these nurses vaccinate during the time they are being used by the Olympics. Time to cancel ASAP.

13 ( +15 / -2 )

I think this might be the nail in the coffin that finally buries this Olympics.

Doubtless there are ways of getting creative, as MarkX pointed out, but the optics of this are already terrible.

13 ( +15 / -2 )

i plan to keep drinking to fade my awareness of reality, and GTFO as soon as my country opens the travel bubble.

19 ( +20 / -1 )

Unreal.

Further, 100 doctors have quit the Tokyo Women's University hospital because their summer bonuses were cancelled.

Imagine being a doctor right now; overworked, exhausted, on the front line of the fight against the coronavirus every day and your pay gets cut.

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/237e5b661c48815722a52ded7a59612c71c6e0be

34 ( +34 / -0 )

non event. cancel it. now.

17 ( +17 / -0 )

Oh the hubris....

12 ( +13 / -1 )

500 nurses are very impossible because all hospitals and clinics have shortages of nurses right now, maybe until next year, so the Olympics better be cancelled. They can't afford to offer 500 for Olympics. Plain and simple!

18 ( +18 / -0 )

No way. Cancel the Olympics.

There aren't enough nurses.

No more of this "athletes first" nonsense, please.

23 ( +23 / -0 )

Has no one in Japan ever heard of "escalating commitment"?

11 ( +13 / -2 )

Now they are saying just 10,000. That's 10,000 too many 'offically confirmedl' deaths.

Remember the utter fiascos of the Diamond Princess; open borders to japanese nationals with no isolation/testing required until very recently(non-Japanese banned completely, even if permanent resident); promotion of subsided internal tourism in the midst of the pandemic; blaming lack of vaccines on lack of supply from those foreigners (government official last Sunday morning national news program); still far from adequate testing after said they would increase it; private testing numbers not counted in official numbers; telework/online teaching hardly happening; people out as normal In yet another toothless "lockdown"; and a host of other utter government/corporate incompetence.

To the world: boycott the Olympics NOW.

24 ( +25 / -1 )

Well it’s perfectly clear now why Japan is dragging its feet with regards vaccinations. It wants to put off rolling out mass vaccinations in order to divert medical personnel to the Olympics.

It seems to have been decided that the optics of starting vaccinations and then having to stop because of the Olympics is worse than delaying with excuses and false promises until after the medical personnel have finished their Olympic duty.

Shameful.

20 ( +21 / -1 )

Why does a city of 10,000,000 always seem to have just 10’s, 100’s & 1,000’s of critical things?? like hospital beds, test capabilities, doctors, nurses... vaccines.

13 ( +14 / -1 )

They can easily divert 1,000’s of nurses. Remember most healthcare can’t and/or won’t ever touch or see COVID patients.

-13 ( +4 / -17 )

Further, 100 doctors have quit the Tokyo Women's University hospital because their summer bonuses were cancelled.

To be fair the bonuses cancellation was only one of the reasons, the other was an effective reduction of salary by making the doctors lose the weekly free "research day" they used to go and work at other hospitals to compensate for the insufficient salary, for many this means no longer getting a salary enough to survive.

This is of course expected to worsen a lot more because their work is now distributed between the remaining doctors, that also have to deal with a reduced salary and no prospects to get new people working there (since the pay is no longer competitive, even for a normal workload).

Many hospitals are now having similar problems and the new peak of cases is not going to help, unless fast, aggresive actions are not taken soon this can mean a sudden and important deterioration of the health services in Tokyo even before the games. The timing of this request for nurses could not have been worse.

20 ( +23 / -3 )

A JohnsonApr. 27  08:50 pm UTC

They can easily divert 1,000’s of nurses. Remember most healthcare can’t and/or won’t ever touch or see COVID patients.

i just checked my State - Michigan. In 2015, we had 1,050 Registered Nurses per 100,000 population. That 1% of if the population,

Japan - “In 2018, approximately 1.22 million nurses were registered in Japan, up from around 653.6 thousand nurses in 2000. Certified assistant nurses, by comparison, decreased to around 304.4 thousand...”

Tokyo must have something close to 140,000 nurses

I am against the Olympics to the point I am angry, but 500 or 5,000 nurses is nothing.

-12 ( +3 / -15 )

Japan has had some success containing COVID-19, with just over 10,000 deaths despite never imposing strict lockdown measures.

Why in every single article related with Covid do they have to mention this?

just to show how Japan is doing better compared to the others?

When in fact the expat population knows well that this propaganda narrative can work only with the local population.

Japan is doing “better” because the number of tests are one fraction of what is done in every western country.

16 ( +17 / -1 )

What a joke.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Every day, more and more headlines come out that in any normal country would be embarrassing to the government. But they just keep coming in Japan. LDP gerontocrats: "the Olympics at any price!"

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Osaka has 10,000 Covid-19 patients waiting at home and hotels without any access to doctors or nurses

more than 9 have died while waiting. Shouldn't that be the priority of a caring government.

23 ( +23 / -0 )

"We need to come up with a way to coexist," he said. "That's what I mean with being flexible with working hours and shifts and so on. We are consulting about that."

Flexible, huh ? That just means "we are planning to ask nurses to work 15 hours a day, doing both their normal shift and also an olympic shift"

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Coming on the heels of the latest BoJo controversy, I wonder whether Suga said "Let the thousands of bodies pile up, but I am not cancelling the Games."

8 ( +9 / -1 )

My wife will get her first jab on Friday, as she is a home visit nurse. She has also been told to prepare to just be visiting Covid patients in there homes. While doing this they want them to go in a bubble and live in a hotel.

I for one cannot understand were all these spare medical personnel are coming from.

The top priority needs to be caring for all the population first, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

The Olympics should have been delayed again, by doing this no one is Loosing Face. After all if there is a spike of infection after the event, we will be the one left to deal with it.

17 ( +17 / -0 )

Counter to the narrative they spouted about putting pressure on the health service.

These people running this ship are seriously disconnected from reality arn't they, and they seem to hold everyone else in contempt by showing them the middle finger.

BOYCOTT the damn Limp Pics

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Any Athlete that is worth their weight would now withdraw from these games for , them to want to continue shows how self centered and interested they are in their own glory, there word is narcissistic !

7 ( +11 / -4 )

"This isn't a joke, people will die because of the Olympics,"

Excuse me, “WILL die”? Many already have because of the Olympics. Koike and others have downplayed it for over a year, concerned about how real numbers could affect the Games and their legacy. Shimura Ken died because the virus was called “no big deal” by those in power and “no problem”. That’s but one example. But I’m not surprised about this story. Government priorities have been off since the beginning, like I said. They just lost three big seats and yet here they continue to show why they should lose them all.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

They just announced that they will find a site to do 10,000 people a day to get vaccine why not get 500 nurses use the Olympic venues to give vaccines and make that a gold medal as tell the IOC to go to China for the winter games only.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Countries all over the world have to pull out their athlets from the Olympics.

Then the Olympics will be probably canceled.

I was just talking about this with my family back in Canada last night!

They also cannot understand why this time Canada hasn't done like last year and pulled out.

The IOC wants it's insurance Money that it will not get if it cancels this only happens if Tokyo cancels.

Tokyo doesn't want to pay penalties or reimburse sponsors ( IOC is not responsible for this in either case but if Tokyo cancels it Tokyo needs to pay sponsor's losses).

As far as I can tell countries are worried that by pulling out they will be barred from ever holding the Olympics in the future!

9 ( +12 / -3 )

inhumane Olympic supremacists who try to hold Tokyo games even if they kill how many people.

15 ( +15 / -0 )

Any Athlete that is worth their weight would now withdraw from these games for , them to want to continue shows how self centered and interested they are in their own glory, there word is narcissistic !

That is a bit simplistic.

Any Athletes that unilaterally pull out for no reason but the virus ( meaning that they are not injured or sick) will be banned by their respective all controlling governing body.

What this means is full on career suicide.

These governing bodies are all to powerful and work hand in hand with the IOC.

So unilaterally pulling out will mean being banned from all other international and possibly even National competitions in the future either temporary or permanent.

It is up to the governments of their countries or their sport's governing body to pull out.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

The old grey men in the various ivory towers want the show to go on, whatever the cost, tragic, realy tragic - it would be wiser to sink the olypics and concentrate all energy on covid 19. Japan has received (EU report) already 52 million shots from factories in the EU and less than 5% have been used. I wonder what these so called "leaders" are doing?

10 ( +11 / -1 )

The arrogance of the Tokyo organisors and the lack of empathy is astonishing. It is a scandal to even consuder taking one hour of one nurse or doctors time for the fallacy that these olympics have become.

The Games of shame

16 ( +17 / -1 )

That is a bit simplistic.

Any Athletes that unilaterally pull out for no reason but the virus ( meaning that they are not injured or sick) will be banned by their respective all controlling governing body.

What this means is full on career suicide.

These governing bodies are all to powerful and work hand in hand with the IOC.

So unilaterally pulling out will mean being banned from all other international and possibly even National competitions in the future either temporary or permanent.

It is up to the governments of their countries or their sport's governing body to pull out.

With social media, don't underestimate the voice of the the people of the world, even the all powerful

IOC will be no match for millions coming out to support the banned player.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

This is clearly being DECEITFUL only mentioning 500 nursing staff when as others have mentioned the games are asking for 10,000 medical staff for these DEATH Olympics!!!

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Let's be realistic, most of people outside Japan don't really know what is going on here.

Usually the news are just very "general" ones, probably taken from official japanese media, and when I explain the situation here to family or friends, they are always quite surprised. Because the image, the perception they have of Japan, is totally different from the reality.

So I guess that japanese government is way more interested in what other countries can easily see, rather than what is actually happening.

If pulling some nurses away from hospitals will lead to some more "local" death, that is something they can live with, during a pandemic, and something that nobody can directly link to those "removed" nurses.

On the ohter side, if something happen to an international athlet during the Olympics because Japan didn't have enough medical personnel, THAT would be a disaster for japanese government.

And here we are talking about nurses, but what about other doctors? or all the paramedic staff? All people that can help with covid treatment or vaccinations.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

@A Johnson

You over simplify things comparing rocks to apples.

So your calculations point out the Michigan has 1050 nurses per 100,000

And Tokyo (if your numbers are correct 1,400 per 100,000

So no big deal 500 nurses.

Now please tell us the covid death in Michigan? Let me help 18,000 out of 10 million state population.

Now add in the fact it had to request the federal and other states for help and import nurses from other parts of the USA.

Now 17% of Michigan's population are over 65 Tokyo that is 28%.

The vast majority of nurses in Tokyo are not in emergency rooms or even hospitals but in care homes small clinics etc...and not qualified or no longer experienced in dealing with serious injuries or illness.

So now that you have better information, do you still think.

500 or 5,000 nurses is nothing

9 ( +11 / -2 )

With social media, don't underestimate the voice of the the people of the world, even the all powerful

IOC will be no match for millions coming out to support the banned player.

Really?

Well it has done a great job at ignoring millions calling for the Olympics to be cancelled!

Where are these millions now?

Not much going on about forcing cancellation at least not outside Japan.

Social Media, is a joke, all they have to do is ignore long enough for a new social media outrage comes along and the Twitter world forgets and goes elsewhere with it's outrage.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Tokyo Olympic organizers defend request for 500 nurses as virus spikes

This is insane. They can't ask for that. At this point, I can't just understand that the Olympics are still being organized given the mess around it.

More people die in Japan officially from COVID-19 each day, than in Singapore since the beginning of the pandemic. But even 1 is too many.

Meaningless comparison and ridiculous emotional argument. If you are refusing the existence of death, you will have a hard time living in this world.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Because of the classification that the government continues to use for SARS-CoV-2, putting it in the same category as the black death and Ebola, most hospitals actually cannot and will not take any SARS-CoV-2 patients, which is the main reason why the healthcare system has been stressed, since just a very few hospitals are the ones taking all the COVID-19 patients, and these hospitals, depending on the number of patients, can become quite overstressed.

Moving these 500 nurses will not stress more the system, because no COVID-19 patient will ever be on the care of those nurses, since, once again, most hospitals are actually not taking COVID-19 patients, so this is a misguided rage.

The real rage should be set at the classification of SARS-CoV-2, and asking the government to put them in category 5, so that all hospitals can actually take COVID-19 patients, therefore ending the problem of lack of resources.

-9 ( +2 / -11 )

It's not just 500, is it? It's 500 as a last-minute request on top of the medical staff they have secured already.

AFP reported that the stockpile of vaccine already in Japan is at 17 million doses. It is not lack of availability that is holding this up.

10 ( +10 / -0 )

LucaToday  10:49 am JST

Let's be realistic, most of people outside Japan don't really know what is going on here. 

Usually the news are just very "general" ones, probably taken from official japanese media, and when I explain the situation here to family or friends, they are always quite surprised. Because the image, the perception they have of Japan, is totally different from the reality.

So I guess that japanese government is way more interested in what other countries can easily see, rather than what is actually happening.

If pulling some nurses away from hospitals will lead to some more "local" death, that is something they can live with, during a pandemic, and something that nobody can directly link to those "removed" nurses.

On the ohter side, if something happen to an international athlet during the Olympics because Japan didn't have enough medical personnel, THAT would be a disaster for japanese government.

And here we are talking about nurses, but what about other doctors? or all the paramedic staff? All people that can help with covid treatment or vaccinations.

I think Luca’s post summarize the crude reality and what we expats already known.

Still,I find hard this time for the J-politicians to fully hide the gravity of the situation.

The world is watching with more concern this time,which means the truth is becoming obvious all around the civilized world despite their affords to suffocate it.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

The world is watching with more concern this time,which means the truth is becoming obvious all around the civilized world despite their affords to suffocate it.

Actually the world isn't watching, the Olympics or the Jgov's actions aren't even a blip of the world map at this time because everyone and everything is focused on the events going on in India.

The Jgov could force labour all doctors and nurses to work in preparation for or during the Olympics and it wouldn't even make the lowest of the low news services outside Japan.

So a major reason no one outside Japan is saying anything is because their attention ( luckily for the Jgov and IOC) is focused elsewhere.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

The real rage should be set at the classification of SARS-CoV-2, and asking the government to put them in category 5, so that all hospitals can actually take COVID-19 patients, therefore ending the problem of lack of resources.

That blindly assumes any hospital would be willing to take COVID-19, or that it would not have a negative economic impact on their functioning, this is not necessarily true. The reality is that many hospitals depend heavily on not receiving COVID-19 cases so their main source of income can still use and pay for their services, these hospitals would require a heavy subsidy from the government to keep functioning (and paying salaries, consumables, etc.) or go into the red deeper the longer they keep open.

Also, COVID-19 is considered in the Japanese law for infectious diseases as a category II, same as MERS or particularly dangerous strains of influenza, not in the category I of Ebola or the Plague (and therefore can be treated in hundreds of hospitals in the country, not just a handful). And classifying it as a level V would make things worse, because it would mean no requirement for notification of cases, no requirement either for patients to be hospitalized or isolated (they could continue their normal life if they wanted) and no support from the government to reduce expenses for treatment nor hospitalization (neither for the patient nor for the hospitals), which would be a recipe for disaster.

10 ( +13 / -3 )

Not sure if this is true, but I hear more rumblings from those claiming to be "in the know" that Japan realizes that the Olympics are not going to happen and that this is all a show until they get their ducks in a row with regard to compensation claims.

Again, just what I am hearning.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Money rules over public safety.

Way to go, Japan, the World is laughing. lol

8 ( +10 / -2 )

They need a new slogan: "United by Infection".

10 ( +12 / -2 )

End it and and it now!

9 ( +10 / -1 )

@GdTokyo

There zero compensation for Tokyo if the IOC decides to cancel, this part is one of the few parts of the contract that is public knowledge.

What is unknown but an educated guess can be made based on past Olympic contracts are these.

1-) if the IOC cancels it is not responsible to compensate Tokyo or any if the sponsors but it may not be entitled to payment from the cancellation insurance.

2-) if Tokyo cancels, it may have to pay compensation to the IOC ( this may no longer apply as apparently Tokyo negotiated this clause out when agreeing to move the date to 2021)

3-) if Tokyo unilaterally cancels then the IOC is near 100% guaranteed cancellation insurance payout.

4-) if Tokyo unilaterally cancels then it is responsible for compensating sponsors for their losses.

So clearly the IOC has a vested interest in not cancelling and placing the responsibility on Tokyo.

This information has been gathered from news articles over the past year on BBC, CBC, France 24 covering the contractual agreements past and present from other Olympic Games such as London and next Paris.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

I completely agree with all those lambasting this ‘idea’.

What exactly has the organizing body been doing for the last few years? They don’t even have the basics in place!

Unfortunately foreign countries are not aware of the absolute fumbling by the Government; I have friends in Australia who just assumed Japan was conducting thorough and diigent testing/tracing et al, and enforcing strict lock down under the SOE.

they were more than shocked to learn the truth.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

@Antiquesaving

Thanks for the "journalistic" work that so few news organizations seem to be interested in doing.

The IOC and the likes (Fifa...) have that crazy privilege that, while their events are largely founded by public money, their contracts are kept secret.

Why, how? And how long will this last?

6 ( +7 / -1 )

In the meantime, athletes, their sponsors, and their national committee officials around the world, except for North Korea, spout out to the media the same 'We've trained for XX years, and don't want to give up a chance of a Medal," oblivious to the risk a trip to Tokyo could be to themselves, their families, fellow Olympians, and people in Tokyo.

Along with, 'We Trust high-tech/ highly developed Japan (and the IOC) to provide a Safe and Enjoyable experience for us.'

Two challenges!

6 ( +7 / -1 )

The athletes need to be made to feel too uncomfortable to want to come and participate now , then that may be the deciding factor, no competitors = no games !!

Put the Pressure on the narcissist athletes putting everyone at risk for their own glory !

Or are these self adulating glory seeking ace holes too full of them god damn selves to want to care about others ?

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Most contracts have a "force majeure" clause.

I think it could be very successfully argued that a pandemic "force majeure."

Correct but again bas far as BBC, CBC, France 24 have been able to uncover, it is only the IOC that can declare that.

So if the IOC says it is still safe to hold the games then the host country has 2 choices, hold the games or unilaterally cancel and pay the competition.

As far as most can find the host country does not have the final decision if declaring a state of emergency that would cancel the games.

I guess no one thought that the IOC would be this reckless and I figure if there are any future games what ever country decides they want to host will from this point include their own Force Majeure clause.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Tokyo Olympic organizers:

"Uh, can we get 500 nurses for our event? We are gonna have it happen, I swear............."

Every other country and continent in the world as well as the competent people in Japan:

"......................................."

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Just bring in Filipino nurses. Or nurses from a third World country. It is just about cosmetics anyway. The IOC, administrative & elected officials in the executive branch do not care about the ordinary citizens. Nor do they actually care about the athletes, except for their participant in a spectacle and pageant. Or just hire actors in nursing outfits.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

For reference, all the Tokyo 2020 contracts and addenda are here:

https://www.2020games.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/eng/taikaijyunbi/taikai/hcc/index.html

It includes: 71 Unforeseen or Undue Hardship - should the provision of the contract give rise to undue hardship affecting the OCOG (Tokyo), the local OCOG may request the IOC to consider changes as may be reasonable in the circumstances, provided that such changes shall not adversely affect either the Games or the IOC, and, provided, further, that any such changes shall be a matter of discretion to be exercised by the IOC,, being understood and agreed that the IOC are not obligated to consider, agree or otherwise accommodate any such changes.

Looks like a pretty one-sided contract! Heavily dependedent on flexibility of the IOC Lords of the Rings.

There is a lot more in the 83 pages of the basic contract, and the other addenda and operational requirements.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

@wanderlust

Thanks, nice pick. Had no idea it was public.

The wording is pretty much "master and servant": "may request", "not obligated to consider",... Best part: "provided that such changes shall not adversely affect either the Games or the IOC" makes the whole article insubstantial.

There is no mention of "force majeure" in the main contract.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

The Tokyo Olympics will have more nurses than athletes and fans!

4 ( +5 / -1 )

@Pim

check addendum 4 - look for under relevant events - scope and financial impact - commitments, costs, undertakings...room to make adjustments, but IOC must approve everything.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

That blindly assumes any hospital would be willing to take COVID-19, or that it would not have a negative economic impact on their functioning, this is not necessarily true.

It's not a blind assumption, they would be required by law to accept them, as the Japanese law do not allow hospitals to refuse patients, as long as they do not have an illness higher than Category 3 of the infectious disease categorization.

Also, COVID-19 is considered in the Japanese law for infectious diseases as a category II, same as MERS or particularly dangerous strains of influenza, not in the category I of Ebola or the Plague (and therefore can be treated in hundreds of hospitals in the country, not just a handful). 

It is actually not categorized as category II, but as an "designated infectious disease", and the rules they are applying are actually higher than category II and category I.

One of the key differences between category II and category I is that category I adds measures for asymptomatic patients, which is totally something that has been done with SARS-CoV-2.

From that, they added 2 new rules that put it higher than category I, which are "Asking for people to not leave their houses" and "Restricting access to buildings".

And classifying it as a level V would make things worse, because it would mean no requirement for notification of cases

False, cases need to be notified, but instead of requiring notification immediately, it has to be done within 7 days.

no requirement either for patients to be hospitalized or isolated (they could continue their normal life if they wanted) 

Which is actually good for people who are asymptomatic. Specially if they have already been infected previously, have the vaccine, or have no contact with people who are vulnerable.

no support from the government to reduce expenses for treatment nor hospitalization (neither for the patient nor for the hospitals), 

The government could give support if they wanted without the infection having to be treated as the Black plague.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

It's not a blind assumption, they would be required by law to accept them, as the Japanese law do not allow hospitals to refuse patients, as long as they do not have an illness higher than Category 3 of the infectious disease categorization.

And them promptly close, because that would be a much better business than losing money being open. There is no law that can make a hospital to keep running debts.

It is actually not categorized as category II, but as an "designated infectious disease", and the rules they are applying are actually higher than category II and category I.

No, that is old news, from February COVID-19 has been designated 新型インフルエンザ等感染症 or "infectious disease of the type of new influenza strains" and still category II is the closest to it, it is completely in a separate group and not similar at all with category I, wich is what you mistakenly said.

False, cases need to be notified, but instead of requiring notification immediately, it has to be done within 7 days.

Which is terribly problematic with a disease that can easily be transmitted, and would make things much worse to have patients up to 7 days around without medical authorities even aware of them. Immediate notification has a meaning in epidemiological control that can't just be disregarded.

Which is actually good for people who are asymptomatic. Specially if they have already been infected previously, have the vaccine, or have no contact with people who are vulnerable.

That is not correct at all, first because asymptomatic transmission is perfectly possible and even common so asymptomatic patients should be isolated until there is no realistic possibility of transmission from them, and second because even symptomatic people would be treated this way, it is obviously worse for the control of a disease to reduce its category.

The government could give support if they wanted without the infection having to be treated as the Black plague.

The government HAS to give support in the current classification, and again the disease is not treated as the black plague, or smallpox or Ebola, that are type I diseases and can only be dealt in one hospital per prefecture in average. They are treated as an slightly different category II for perfectly valid reasons and your suggestion would only complicate things and facilitate (even more) spreading of the disease, all because of a mistaken assumption that you could obligate private hospitals to treat patients instead of actually compensate them so they considerate the idea as sure bankruptcy.

It is quite simple, the government could give support to the hospitals right now so they could be included as places where COVID-19 can be treated, but it is not doing it. What makes you think the government would magically begin to do it just by changing the classification and making the disease less controllable?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Why would you need 500 nurses if the Olympics are “safe and secure”?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

The crux of the matter is people don’t seem to want the olympics, cases are going up, we’re in a state of emergency again, but it’s still ok to host the Olympics!? Really getting the feeling Suga and company have no idea what they are doing.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Goodlucktoyou Today 04:15 pm JST

Why would you need 500 nurses if the Olympics are “safe and secure”?

Maybe to attend to scraped knees, pulled ligaments , sprained wrists n things..................surely it wouldnt be for the infected athletes......................

5 ( +6 / -1 )

And them promptly close, because that would be a much better business than losing money being open. There is no law that can make a hospital to keep running debts.

Changing the tone from complete hysteria to rational risk management from the media and politicians, as well as speeding up vaccination for vulnerable people would solve this problem.

If anything, I find it highly immoral that people who are victims of SARS-CoV-2 are treated as almost leprosy patients were treated a few decades ago.

No, that is old news, from February COVID-19 has been designated 新型インフルエンザ等感染症 or "infectious disease of the type of new influenza strains" and still category II is the closest to it, it is completely in a separate group and not similar at all with category I, wich is what you mistakenly said.

The classification change was just a change on the law that rules the designed special classification, as the original designated classification law just allow for temporary designation, and a year passed, so they made use of the law created in 2009 on the wake of the swine flu scare, which allows them to keep this classification almost indefinitely.

The specific rules of the classification have actually not changed that much. It is still way more similar to Category I. You don't have to take my word, you can look at this simple comparison table: idsc.nih.go.jp/iasr/29/341/graph/t3412j.gif

That is not correct at all, first because asymptomatic transmission is perfectly possible and even common so asymptomatic patients should be isolated until there is no realistic possibility of transmission from them

If your goal is zero risk, then yes, but that's not the way we treat any other illness.

If the risk is low as it is with asymptomatic people, specially young people, healthy people, people who already have good immunity because of a previous infection or because of the vaccine, it makes little to no sense to restrict them.

and second because even symptomatic people would be treated this way, it is obviously worse for the control of a disease to reduce its category.

Once again, risk management is the main point of a good public health policy, not health panic and scares like this whole debacle has been handled.

Symptomatic people have way more risk of becoming contagious, which it would make more sense asking them to stay at home until most of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated, but even then it is still a problem of risk management, and common sense should continue to apply.

They are treated as an slightly different category II for perfectly valid reasons and your suggestion would only complicate things and facilitate (even more) spreading of the disease, all because of a mistaken assumption that you could obligate private hospitals to treat patients instead of actually compensate them so they considerate the idea as sure bankruptcy.

The whole "category II" thing is what the government has been saying, but once again, when you see the specifics of the current categorization, it is way closer to Category I.

The reasons are really not that valid, outside of fear and anxiety by the public. Last year they were already considering dropping the virus to category 5, and it would have probably dropped if it wasn't because of the constant fear mongering and panic porn portrayed by the media and some opportunistic politicians.

Once again, let's have a little more perspective, specially here in Japan, there are way more deadly diseases that do not receive this special treatment, so why would this one be different?

It is quite simple, the government could give support to the hospitals right now so they could be included as places where COVID-19 can be treated, but it is not doing it. 

I don't think that is the main reason why there are so few hospitals treating people with COVID-19. It has to do with panic and hysteria. It makes to an extent sense to limit the number of hospitals if people are so scared of going to the hospital and "catch the virus" that they let their cancer grow, which ends up killing them.

Drop the fear at the same time you drop the category, and a more risk based, rational approach to COVID-19 could be posible.

-5 ( +3 / -8 )

Changing the tone from complete hysteria to rational risk management from the media and politicians, as well as speeding up vaccination for vulnerable people would solve this problem.

There has been no "complete hysteria" in the communications from experts nor in the general treatment of the media, that is an imaginary complain.

People need to isolate, your personal feelings about it are irrelevant and you have absolutely no understanding of how leprosy patients have been treated, go to Higashimurayama and see the National Hansen's Disease Museum so you can actually see what this would mean.

The classification change is valid and old by the pandemic standards, that means you are still mistaken and the disease is not even close to be treated as the Plague or Ebola, instead the closest diseases, as the name of the classification says are the new strains of influenza, which is perfectly understandable since they represent a comparable risk and are managed by similar measures. Category I diseases are extremely different, require BSL4 contaiment facilities and specialized personnel to be managed that obviously do not apply for COVID-19, the rest of the treatment for the patients is again much more similar to H5N1 and SARS, as it should be.

If your goal is zero risk, then yes, but that's not the way we treat any other illness

The goal is never zero risk, but prevention of a very significant risk of transmission from people without symptoms. This is standard around the world, and completely contradicts your mistaken idea that asymptomatic people should be left to live normally. Who is talking about the risk for the infected people? it is obviously the risk of spreading the disease the one that makes isolation necessary, who would ever think that isolation is meant for infected people to have a better prognosis?

There are perfectly valid reasons why dropping the classification for COVID would be a negative development, from the point of view of the control of the spreading and the protection of vulnerable people, you cannot just disregard those reasons and use the excuse that it is all to keep people in fear, specially when it is quite obvious the people are not in fear and most are simply taking perfectly logical measures to prevent infection, All in line with the recommendations of the medical and scientific community of the world.

Your beliefs about panic being the reason why hospitals are not receiving any significative support are a non-argument, you simply don't understand the meaning and use of the national law of infectious diseases and think a hospital can magically be prepared to safely deal with COVID patients without putting in risk their personal and other patients AND very importantly without going bankrupt for the lack of their usual business.

What you suggest is not "dropping the fear" it only means dropping the scientific based regulations and measures necessary for the control of the disease for a personal bias against the valid treatment of a disease that must be treated with proper care in order to avoid widespread contagion and the consequent unnecessary deaths, as it is easy to see from the tragic examples of other countries.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

What a display of Shakespearean theatre

3 ( +5 / -2 )

No Olympics, no problems.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

There has been no "complete hysteria" in the communications from experts nor in the general treatment of the media, that is an imaginary complain.

It is hysteria, because "expert recommendations" have been ignored depending on how much popular support they have.

Let's start simple with mask recommendations, which the WHO only recommends usage of masks on closed spaces when social distancing is not posible, yet, the government and media has pushed for everyone using their masks even outside, in their own cars, and even in their own homes.

Other recommendation by the WHO is the one about masks when doing exercise. The WHO says that using masks when exercise is actually dangerous, yet, in places like this country if you go to a GYM now you are forced to use a mask, which by WHO expert recommendations is dangerous.

And I can go on and on, like the WHO recommending against closing borders, experts recommending against surface "deep cleaning", and experts saying that people with vaccines, depending on the age, have up to 99% protection against serious illness, even with "variants", but the media and some politicians keep this fear narrative of how vaccines do not work with variants, which is 100% false.

People need to isolate, your personal feelings about it are irrelevant and you have absolutely no understanding of how leprosy patients have been treated, go to Higashimurayama and see the National Hansen's Disease Museum so you can actually see what this would mean.

I don't live in Tokyo, so I really cannot go there.

People who are vulnerable should isolate until they are vaccinated, and people who are in contact with vulnerable people should be careful and probably not come into contact with vulnerable people even if they are asymptomatic.

And I agree, this has nothing to do with my feeling, neither yours. Which is why it is a little bit ironic that this hysteria talk around the pandemic has made it worse. People with symptoms are not going to hospitals because they are afraid they might end up with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, which could and have meant that they lose their jobs and income, so people just keep their mouths shut, which is actually WORSE.

Not to mention that I know personally of a case of someone who was almost killed because of this over focus on COVID-19, in which hospitals would not even take a good look at him because he had a fever, and ended up having a bacterial infection, which almost made him lose his fingers and hearing just because he wasn't given timely attention.

The classification change is valid and old by the pandemic standards

This classification was created in 2009, so no, it is not old at all. The old way of doing things was by allowing one year of special classification of an illness to allow more freedom to handle an emergent virus, for which you still do not know how to properly treat, after that the disease would be properly classified according to things like the mortality rate of the virus, seriousness of infection, and spread rate.

SARS-CoV-2, as it has been said by experts here in Japan, should be classified as a Category 5 disease based on the objective points I just said, which is why the government now had to use yet another special classification, instead of Classifying it as one of the 5 normal categories.

This special classification was created on 2009 when there was another, even way more ridiculous health scare panic with the "Swine Flu" pandemic, which ended up being way less deathly than normal seasonal flu, but it created fear enough to push politicians to create this new classification, which allows a disease to ignore the objective classification rules, and give disease who would had get a lower classification using the normal rules a higher classification.

 that means you are still mistaken and the disease is not even close to be treated as the Plague or Ebola

The rules are basically the same, so, please explain me how am I mistaken?

Category I diseases are extremely different, require BSL4 contaiment facilities and specialized personnel to be managed that obviously do not apply for COVID-19, the rest of the treatment for the patients is again much more similar to H5N1 and SARS, as it should be.

BSL or biosafety level a completely different thing, which has to do with how safe or unsafe it is to handle biological matter and pathogens, and it has nothing to do with the disease category classification. For example, the Black Plague is a Category 1 infectious disease, but it has a BSL3 level of risk.

Please don't mix things that have nothing to do with one another just to push your narrative.

This is standard around the world, and completely contradicts your mistaken idea that asymptomatic people should be left to live normally. 

It is standard for COVID-19 because of panic, but doesn't mean it is how we normally do things, or the way things should be done. Asymptomatic spread is limited, and your main concern is avoiding hospitalizations and deaths, so this over focus with isolating asymptomatic cases is just a waste of resources and time, because not only you will never catch all asymptomatic patients, you are putting a lot of pressure on factions of the population that are the less affected by the virus.

Once again, let's think with rational risk management instead of the "let's do everything and anything to avoid any type of infection".

The law of diminishing results always apply to these over reactions, and the damage created can be even higher than the damage avoided.

people are not in fear and most are simply taking perfectly logical measures to prevent infection, All in line with the recommendations of the medical and scientific community of the world.

They are not. Once again, I already explained it, but people are using masks outside of the science based recommendations by the WHO. There have been polls of how deadly the average person believes SARS-CoV-2 to be, and just about 20% of the population gets it right, with more than half of the population believing it is way way way way way more severe than what it actually is.

People are not being rational, and the way, for example, things like border rules are implemented is arbitrary and completely useless, and creates way more damage than what SARS-CoV-2 could ever do to the population.

I hate this, because SARS-CoV-2 is a serious disease, but instead of taking the actions necessary to avoid the vulnerable populations, we are causing way more damage to society than the risk of SARS-CoV-2, which I already said it is a serious disease, so the damage here is very serious.

Your beliefs about panic being the reason why hospitals are not receiving any significative support are a non-argument, you simply don't understand the meaning and use of the national law of infectious diseases and think a hospital can magically be prepared to safely deal with COVID patients without putting in risk their personal and other patients AND very importantly without going bankrupt for the lack of their usual business.

If the personal are all vaccinated as they should, their risk is virtually NONE. Once again, if people who are at risk get vaccinated, their risk is also virtually none, so it really doesn't matter at that point.

There is where the focus should be, but it is almost like everyone has become antivaxxer who believes that vaccines "are not the solution to this problem".

Thanks to vaccines, deaths from SARS-CoV-2 can now really be classified for the most part as preventable.

Once again, the problem with SARS-CoV-2 is that it has a somewhat high mortality rate with some sectors of the population. We should try to avoid these people getting infected, or protect them with vaccination, instead of this over focus with number of cases, and if someone has a fever, which do nothing more than create fear and panic and solve no problem at all.

What you suggest is not "dropping the fear" it only means dropping the scientific based regulations and measures necessary for the control of the disease for a personal bias against the valid treatment of a disease that must be treated with proper care in order to avoid widespread contagion and the consequent unnecessary deaths, as it is easy to see from the tragic examples of other countries.

Many of the regulations that have taken place during this pandemic are not based on any hard science, but on simulations and opinions.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

Japanese towns and people want nothing to do with foreign athletes.

https://youtu.be/yanPCNUGeP8

3 ( +7 / -4 )

It is hysteria, because "expert recommendations" have been ignored depending on how much popular support they have.

What expert recommendation consists on letting asymptomatic patients live their normal life without isolation as you said? none. Again it is only your exaggerated reaction to perfectly normal, valid recommendations that simply are not what you personally would like.

yet, the government and media has pushed for everyone using their masks even outside, in their own cars, and even in their own homes.

Produce this recommendation if you are so sure they have been done, because I have never seen them except on very extraordinary situations (like cohabitation with a positive case). I have seen neither the government pushing for use of masks during heavy exercise but instead to close the gyms or working out keeping a prudent distance. This is not hysteria at all and specially not one being originated by the government.

SARS-CoV-2, as it has been said by experts here in Japan, should be classified as a Category 5

Produce a source for this, because up until now you are the only one that is defending this mistaken recommendation. It is very different to say this possibility should be examined and another completely different to say it was actually found it should be done. Up until now you have only defended this based completely on your feelings and nothing more it was perfectly easy to demonstrate your ideas would make control less effective which is exactly the opposite of what is desired. How is a person without diagnostic worse than a person that can be left free to spread the disease without any consequences?

And personal anecdotes are even worse they are not only hearsay but can be easily contradicted by more hearsay, If I know two people that were almost killed because a doctor did not consider his asymptomatic patient a risk and recommended him to keep as usual, would this prove you wrong? I mean it is double the amount of "evidence".

This classification was created in 2009, so no, it is not old at all.

Why are you going to quote something if you are not going to read it at all? it clearly says "by pandemic standards" which clearly indicates that this is a changing situation and someone not aware of a change made literally months ago can validly be said not to be aware of the actual state of the laws and regulations.

The rules are basically the same, so, please explain me how am I mistaken?

The patients do not require treatment on the very few specialized hospitals and complete and strict isolation independently of symptomatically, hospitals are allowed to keep, test and even send samples to other institutions without problem, everything they use do not require special processes of disposal and disinfection but just the usual infected material protocols, a very long etc

BSL or biosafety level a completely different thing, which has to do with how safe or unsafe it is to handle biological matter and pathogens, and it has nothing to do with the disease category classification. For example, the Black Plague is a Category 1 infectious disease, but it has a BSL3 level of risk.

And which diseases require a BSL of samples that is simmilar to COVID-19, influenza or Ebola? this is integral part of how the patient is treated and how the caretakers have to prepare to do their job. It is painfully obvious which diseases are similar to COVID-19 according to the law.

Once again, let's think with rational risk management instead of the "let's do everything and anything to avoid any type of infection".

Strawman, again this is not about avoiding "any kind of infection" but the world class standard of avoiding completely unnecessary infections from a well known vector of spreading that are the asymptomatic patients, you still have not produced a reference that mirror your mistaken opinion about how they have to be treated.

There have been polls of how deadly the average person believes SARS-CoV-2 to be, and just about 20% of the population gets it right, with more than half of the population believing it is way way way way way more severe than what it actually is.

And the references? at what times were those polls made? where? and how do this explains that most people in Japan are acting without any panic and living a relatively calm life just taking proper precautions even if not completely exact according to the evidence (the same as with every other disease)? There is a huge distance between having a stronger than necessary worry and panicking or being hysteric about it.

It is standard for COVID-19 because of panic, but doesn't mean it is how we normally do things, or the way things should be done. Asymptomatic spread is limited, and your main concern is avoiding hospitalizations and deaths, so this over focus with isolating asymptomatic cases is just a waste of resources and time.

Your personal opinion is, again, completely irrelevant, how about an official declaration from a well recognized scientific or medical professional institution that supports specifically that there is no need to focus in isolation of asymptomatic cases? It is not like you think everybody is wrong except you, right?

If the personal are all vaccinated as they should, their risk is virtually NONE

That is the thing, the personal is not completely vaccinated, and there is still lack of evidence to prove that they are unable to transmit the disease to their family, so the protection is based on proper professional techniques and training that don't come automatically nor for free. For good or for bad well analyzed data that proves this is necessary first, then you can begin to say to the caretakers they are free from that risk, not the opposite.

Many of the regulations that have taken place during this pandemic are not based on any hard science, but on simulations and opinions.

So what? they can be corrected continuously as with everything else, if there is a small cost of acting with a margin of safety and a huge cost from doing the opposite it is perfectly valid and understandable to choose safety, after all it can be later corrected without risking a lot of unnecessary deaths, and that is what is being done for a new situation that nobody understood at the beginning.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

What expert recommendation consists on letting asymptomatic patients live their normal life without isolation as you said? none.

The WHO, CDC and many other health organizations have said that asymptomatic transmissions are rare. The main push by experts to isolate asymptomatic patients come from the fear that they might be pre-symptomatic, but then if that was the only real fear the time of isolation should be a few days after a positive test to see if the patient develop symptoms, but currently quarantines of asymptomatic patients can go from anywhere of 2 weeks to more than a month.

And as I said, in patients who are young, without contact with vulnerable people, people who had COVID-19 in the past and vaccinated patients, isolating them is just a pure waste of time and effort, specially vaccinated people who are the group less likely to transmit the virus even if infected.

A proper risk management approach looks for wastes of resources and points where taking action translates in very little change.

These are not real points of concern for experts, but for the general population, media and opportunistic politicians, they cannot talk about anything else. I mean, just look at yourself continue to talk about this instead of talking about more important things like vaccinate the vulnerable.

Produce this recommendation if you are so sure they have been done, because I have never seen them except on very extraordinary situations (like cohabitation with a positive case)

Masks on those cases have been proven to be useless. As the WHO recommendation says, the mask recommendation is not supposed to replace the social distance recommendation, and in fact, the WHO has many times talked how social distancing is a magnitude of times more important than mask wearing, as social distancing has actually pretty solid data behind, unlike masks that most of the evidence are pretty simplistic observational studies.

Not only that, places like Saitama has called for people to use masks inside their homes if they "feel bad", so it is not just for positive cases. www.pref.saitama.lg.jp/a0701/ouchi-mask.html

 have seen neither the government pushing for use of masks during heavy exercise but instead to close the gyms or working out keeping a prudent distance. This is not hysteria at all and specially not one being originated by the government.

The ministry of health, in their "senarios to avoid clusters" have made an example of a gym, and made the recommendation to use masks to "avoid clusters". www.mhlw.go.jp/content/10900000/000654503.pdf

All of the gyms, the main reason why they are doing this, and implementing as many rules as posible is so that they do not get targeted by the government and get shut down, and they really do not care if they put people's life at risk because of this.

And the government for the most part here in Japan has ignored gyms because of this.

It really doesn't matter what the source is thou, the WHO has recommended for exercise to occur without masks, and all the sports gyms in this country have done the complete oposite of that rule, and I don't see anyone really giving an f about that, because that is not the type of "follow the science" that flies in the middle of a mass hysteria event like this.

Produce a source for this, 

Here you go: www.m3.com/open/iryoIshin/article/856370/

This explains the whole rationale behind the extension of putting SARS-CoV-2 in a separate category for another year, when the original 1 year as a designated illness was about to expire.

They made the point that "we still do not know many things", as an excuse, and following the true intentions to do this, because if they just let the law expire, they would have to remove things like the quarantine measures for borders, and that inside the "Japanese Association of Public Health Center Directors" there were people who thought that SARS-CoV-2 should be classified as a Category 5 disease.

Basically they are just buying time for either the public opinion to change, or for creating a new law and category specially just for SARS-CoV-2.

Why are you going to quote something if you are not going to read it at all? it clearly says "by pandemic standards" 

Tell me of other pandemic that has done this. The original 2009 law was actually modified on February of this year, so that the classification could remain without a time limit.

This has never been done in another pandemic, so where are this "standards" you talk about coming from?

The patients do not require treatment on the very few specialized hospitals and complete and strict isolation independently of symptomatically, hospitals are allowed to keep, test and even send samples to other institutions without problem, everything they use do not require special processes of disposal and disinfection but just the usual infected material protocols, a very long etc

You did not answer my question at all. You are basically explaining the difference of treatment between Ebola and COVID-19, which has nothing to do with the categorization.

Once again, process of disposal and such has to do with the BSL of the handled material, and has nothing to do with the category of the disease in the infectious disease categories.

And which diseases require a BSL of samples that is simmilar to COVID-19, influenza or Ebola?

What are you even talking about. I was talking about the categories of infectious diseases by law and the rules around them. BSL has NOTHING to do with that, so stop talking about it, it has absolutely nothing to do with this.

Strawman, again this is not about avoiding "any kind of infection" but the world class standard of avoiding completely unnecessary infections from a well known vector of spreading that are the asymptomatic patients

Oh my god. The WHO has said that asymptomatic transmission is rare. If you are so scared of asymptomatic transmission, once again, why don't we do this for ANY other illness with similar or higher infection rate?

Polio, which has a magnitud of times higher fatality rate, is a category II infection, and it DOESN'T require asymptomatic people to be isolated.

And the references? at what times were those polls made? where?

I'm starting to get sick that I have to provide sources for everything, while you can just continue to talk all you want without having to back up your statements with nothing.

Here are some polls:

kyodonewsprwire.jp/release/202103282912

www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/briefing/atlanta-shootings-kamala-harris-tax-deadline-2021.html

www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/research/yoron/pdf/20210118_1.pdf

today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2021/03/30/americans-nervous-socializing-after-pandemic-poll

Your personal opinion is, again, completely irrelevant, how about an official declaration from a well recognized scientific or medical professional institution that supports specifically that there is no need to focus in isolation of asymptomatic cases?

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-11/pfizer-biontech-covid-vaccine-blocks-most-spread-in-israel-study

time.com/5850256/who-asymptomatic-spread/

www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/hcp/hcwrecs.pdf

www.sooeveningnews.com/story/news/2021/03/08/asymptomatic-spread-vaccines-quarantine-covid-19-questions-answered/4626333001/

And I can go on and on and on...

 if there is a small cost of acting with a margin of safety and a huge cost from doing the opposite it is perfectly valid and understandable to choose safety,

Where is the risk assessment for these measures? There have been absolutely no cost estimation for measures taken, and have been taken mostly impulsively without any risk assessment done.

The WHO and UNICEF have made recently an statement that 228 million people, mostly children, are now at risk for diseases such as measles, yellow fever and polio because of disruptions caused by measures taken for the COVID-19 pandemic.

I really do not understand how 228 million people at risk of dying is seen as a "small cost"

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

I would like to respond point by point but apparently comments began to be moderated by length from today, sorry if it is confusing

Saying that asymptomatic transmission is a minority is completely different from what you said, I specifically asked for references that said asymptomatic people should be left to live unhindered as you said. You provided no such thing.

One report does not make consensus, specially before pre and post peer review, there is nothing wrong with waiting until clear evidence is available to validly say vaccination prevents transmission.

Your sources talk about using masks when in close proximity in locker rooms (not while exercising heavily) and to prevent possible exposure while confirming infection, that is again completely different from supposed recommendations to use masks everywhere and at every time (inside cars) as you misrepresented.

Your source says nothing about reclassifying COVID after evidence of incomplete control, this is the much more likely reason why the law was modified to preserve these measures over the preliminary time, and again, in the context of this pandemic 2 months is a really long time to ignore a very important change on the law you want to talk about. That is the standard I talk about.

You said patients from COVID were treated as if they had Ebola, that is false and easily corroborated by the many differences in their treatment that includes the process of isolation and how their samples are taken, it would be impossible to isolate in a hotel a patient with Ebola and that is clear.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

500 nurses may not seem much, but with 99% of the population still unvaccinated this feels like a terrible timing for the announcement. Let everybody be vaccinated first and then ask for as many nurses as you want.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Saying that asymptomatic transmission is a minority is completely different from what you said

It is not, I told you that was the main reason why this over focus on asymptomatic people makes no sense

One report does not make consensus, specially before pre and post peer review, there is nothing wrong with waiting until clear evidence is available to validly say vaccination prevents transmission.

You really are an antivaxxer.

There is already clear evidence that vaccines work, so stop talking like if they have not been proved to do that.

Your sources talk about using masks when in close proximity in locker rooms (not while exercising heavily) and to prevent possible exposure while confirming infection

Yet, all gyms in this country have implemented rules to use masks everywhere, even selling "sport-masks", whatever that pseudoscientific thing is. Do you want links to every single gym that has those rules?

www.nas-club.co.jp/info/virus_infection_prevention.html

www.anytimefitness.co.jp/mask/

www.konami.com/sportsclub/inquiry/detail.php?p=10019

www.s-re.jp/special/info_safety/

that is again completely different from supposed recommendations to use masks everywhere and at every time (inside cars) as you misrepresented.

news.infoseek.co.jp/article/kurumanews_247075/

Your source says nothing about reclassifying COVID after evidence of incomplete control

It does, talk about reclassifying COVID as a Category 5, like I just explained. I don't know what kind of wording you are looking for or what "evidence of incomplete control" even means, but here is one of the quotes:

「保健所長の中には5類にすべきだと考えている人もいる。指定を続けることについて、理由付けをしてメッセージを出すことが重要だ」(山口県環境保健センター所長の調恒明氏)という指摘もあった。

 the law was modified to preserve these measures over the preliminary time

The law already allowed them for 2 years of leaving the designated infection classification, with a single extension at the end of that year. As far as I'm aware not even 2 years have passed, yet, they modified the law the next month after the extension to allow the classification to be "indefinitely", meaning, it is not "preliminary time", now that there is no pressure to properly classify the illness, it can be permanently in that category

You said patients from COVID were treated as if they had Ebola, that is false

Never said that patients with COVID were treated as if the had Ebola, I said, and I quote from my previous comment "Because of the classification that the government continues to use for SARS-CoV-2, putting it in the same category as the black death and Ebola, most hospitals actually cannot and will not take any SARS-CoV-2 patients".

Read the comments properly first instead of creating these strawmans.

-8 ( +0 / -8 )

@antivasquing

my assumption is the number of nurses in Tokyo is about 1% like michigan and the rest of Japan, so about 140,000. Like I said.

the number of deaths in Michigan has nothing to do with this.

my point is the vast majority of them are doing nothing now to fight covid, so 500 (or even 5,000) might as well help keep the olympics safe

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

reluctance to vaccination would prove the opposite from the supposed hysteria from the disease

No, it would be because people like yourself continue to propagate false information about vaccines, saying that they might not work against preventing infection, and basically making it seem like vaccination doesn't really work. The media has also pushed that narrative, so it makes A LOT of sense that people are becoming reluctant to vaccinate if it won't help at all.

the reference from America would also “prove” the disease is being underestimated for political reasons

Not sure if you read the article, but 1~5% was the correct answer. most people, from either side of the political spectrum got it wrong, and basically almost no one said 0%. Don't really get how that be translated into "underestimating", but either way, that doesn't mean that MOST people haven't been overestimating the threat level, which the poll pretty clearly shows to be true.

 NHK source do not prove the worries or measures taken by the public are unjustified as you said

It is literally the second question from the poll.

第2問 あなたは、新型コロナウイルスに感染する危険を、どの程度身近に感じていますか。 

Your last source even contradicts your whole point. Saying that 59% of the transmission is caused by people without symptoms

That study includes pre-symptomatic people, and I've already addressed that pre-symptomatic people are a different risk category from asymptomatic ones. So no, it doesn't contradicts my point.

pre-symptomatic people count as asymptomatic up to the point they begin showing symptoms

Already addressed this previously. So I'm going to quote myself again from a previous comment

"The main push by experts to isolate asymptomatic patients come from the fear that they might be pre-symptomatic, but then if that was the only real fear the time of isolation should be a few days after a positive test to see if the patient develop symptoms, but currently quarantines of asymptomatic patients can go from anywhere of 2 weeks to more than a month."

measures are made with the principle of being rational and assumed to be efficient based on the experience and authority of the experts

I can name you different experts with the same level of expertises and authority in the academic community with completely contradicting positions. In fact, many of well respected experts that have been against many of these measures, like John P. A. Ioannidis from Stanford, yet, experts against measures have been largely ignored, and many times, depending on the level of hysteria, they have been unfairly attacked by the media.

John Ioannidis is an excellent example, because he was highly criticized by the media for a serology study he did, and was attacked without no evidence that he was paid by political groups to fabricate the study.

A year after this, many other studies of the same nature have shown up, and most of them have basically the same type of results.

Appeal to authority isn't science, and blind fate in authority will not make good to anyone. Experts are ordinary people with the same kind of biases than anyone else, and their opinion isn't clear of those by any stretch of the imagination, and the way policy makers have been pick and choosing what experts to hear paints a different story.

We need independent risk assessments of the measures, yet, they have been implemented without proper risk assessments.

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

According to a friend of mine that works closely to the national nursing association they were not exactly pleased with the request either. It is just an anecdote but she said in the following days some declaration may be made about this.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

The other day a person died at their home in Tokyo of COVID while waiting for a hospital bed to open up. That alone should be enough to deny the request for 500 nurses to take care of the healthiest people in the world.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

In short, gyms acting differently from what the government recommends is very differently from the government promoting irrational measures, so is one doctor recommending something wearing a mask to avoid contact contamination when it was still thought to be an important way of transmission, re-classification of the disease after taking into account the lack of effective control is what is not written anywhere in your source, which is why it is considered more important to continue the current classification which WAS preliminary before the change, which is my criticism, your quote is still mistaken because COVID was never treated like Ebola nor made to be treated only in the very limited amount of hospitals designated for category I diseases.

I have never said vaccines don't work preventing infection, that would be your false information, your source from the US say even in the title that republicans tend to overestimate the risk contrary to democrats, the nhk source do not prove at all that people's anxieties are unjustified or even exaggerated, saying that asyntomatic people are to be isolated until it can be proved they are no longer a risk is the opposite from letting them live as if not-infected as you previously said. The one misreading the comments to make strawman fallacies and misrepresenting the sources is you, not me.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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