Phil comments

Within a family, the first member would receive 2,400 yen and the second member 1,600 yen per day.

I would have thought they could pay every adult family member the same allowance .

A computer system failure of any kind and Just in Time manufacturing really do not mix.

You don’t hear anyone talking about it. Is the levelling out of infections partly due to the shortage of test kits as reported at the end of a January.

Am I the only one that has googled “ when is Kishida’s birthday”

Always amazed how quickly the quake alarm makes me jump out of bed. The alarm does not give you much time to do anything, but it does get you ready to think about whether to head for the door. Not too strong where we are, but did rattle around for a while. Spooked the cats but the dog slept through it.

As stated in other comments these numbers probably include all people who come into Japan.

The JNTO site gives more details of people arriving and from where. Last update is for November and some surprising numbers at the top of the list. Also if you look around the site you can see the number of Japanese travelling overseas each month during 2021, I know I should not be surprised at how many.

https://statistics.jnto.go.jp/en/graph/#graph--latest--figures

If they are researchers, maybe they needed to have researched the rules before they arrived. These are a variation of the rule in place here since last year.

These rules seem no different to the number of YouTube vlogs posted by JET teachers arriving in Japan. As I posted before, as an individual traveller the quarantine seems to be less strict which I think is not so good.

Taki MataToday  08:39 am JST

Phil Today 08:20 am JST

But why no mention of Japanese Citizens or Residents being included?

There is no official announcement yet. This news is based on a series of "exclusive" reports by Nikkei Shinbu

That is where I first read about these changes in Nikkei Shinbu. This was then reported by NHK yesterday afternoon with what looks like a little more information on when this will start.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20211102/k10013331381000.html?utm_int=news-new_contents_list-items_100

Who know what to believe sometimes which reports are going to be closer to the official announcement.

I have been looking into going to the UK to visit my parents. Looking at the current quarantine rules they do not look very strict.

If you cannot afford the ¥30,000 to ¥ 40,000 for a special taxi to your accommodation, there is a free shuttle bus. This bus drops you off at a handful of train stations not too far from Haneda. You then have to walk to your accommodation and can then go out shopping during quarantine. On the 9th day you have to then walk to a government approved PCR centre for a test and then to get the results.

A 3 day strict quarantine arranged by immigration as they did before sounds a lot better and meaningful. After all we would have had 3 PCR test over the last 5 to 6 days.

But why no mention of Japanese Citizens or Residents being included?

Someone is earning good money storing these masks. Yet after the Olympics they throw away the unused PPE .

Crazy

I know we all need some normality back in our lives. Vaccination started back in the spring and we are now as 47.1% fully vaccinated. It will be amazing if the other half of the population is fully vaccinated in the next 2 to 3 months.

I hope they are not publicising these plans are some sort of election strategy. After all the hardest half of the population is yet to be vaccinated. People have already found it difficult to get time off work for vaccinations.

We have been told by government that the welfare of the population is the most important thing during this medical crisis.

Here we are, elections cannot happen this month as they need to work on the Covid situation, but look like they could happen in October. It is OK to have a election to pick the Prime Minister. Campaigning to start mid month and election towards end of month. Yet we have candidates putting forward they plans now. So the campaign has already started?

If the Covid situation is so serious and the lives of the population so important, surly there should be debates these plans in the Diet and get actions now. Not horse trading between candidates for the best part of a month.

The officials said they had discarded the supplies as they could not find places to keep them. 

Im sure a few medical facilities could have help them with that problem. People here need to think out of the box a little more, or maybe more to the point, be allowed to.

I’ve been here long enough to know I should not have been surprised about this.

How did no one organising the walk in vaccination centre not understand that 200 or 300 injections a day would not be enough.

Going forward, giving out lottery tickets daily is crazy as well. They have been asking the population not to go out on unnecessary trips. People want the vaccination whatever there age group. So offer it to them in a safe way.

A reporter or 2 need to ask the Tokyo governor and Paralympic organiser’s some questions.

How many beds are reserved for the Paralympic’s?

How many medical staff are working for the Paralympic’s?

Why are these resources not being used to provide medical care for local residents?

During the Olympics people were interviewed on the streets of Tokyo and asked why they were out and about. The answer was the Olympics are happening so I thought it was OK to be out.

Why let people just walk into Japan just for a sports event without quarantine when you are trying to get the Japanese population to stay at home?

i think this was to be expected after no spectators at the Olympics and the surge in infections.

Why do they think it is OK to have children at the events, as reported in a number of other news outlets.

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/08/57231f368834-paralympic-committee-chief-arrives-in-japan-for-tokyo-games.html

It appears to have “educational value”. In normal times this would be a good thing to do, but these are not normal times.

The woman in her 30s had traveled to Peru where the variant, feared to be more contagious and more resistant to vaccines, was first detected. She arrived at Haneda airport in Tokyo on July 20 with her Olympic accreditation card, according to the sources.

I’m a little confused. Should “to Peru” in the report be “from Peru”???

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is pinning his hopes on vaccinations, which started slow but now are making good progress. 

Our city office opened up the vaccination for 50 to 59 age group this week. My brother-in-law tried to get an appointment and was told they is no vaccine available at this time.

You can see from the info published by the city office, the weekly vaccinations for the elderly, health workers are slowing down dramatically.

Which planet are these people on?

We are being ASKED to reduce going out or going shopping and not to leave the prefectures. Yet it is OK again to bring people into the country from all over the world, just for a sporting event and little or no quarantine.

When will they understand that 100% of Japan’s resources need to be used to fight this virus and support the population.

"I believe we were able to fulfill our responsibility as the host nation,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga 

You may have fulfilled your responsibility to the IOC and the overseas TV networks. The normal person on the street missed out on being part of this festival of sport.

It’s a shame no reporters will as the Prime Minister or Finance Minister how long they think it will take to pay off the Olympic debt. Or even how much is it? After all, by having the event too soon, not having any spectators from home or overseas, there was no or very little income.

Looking like The french public is already having a better celebration of sport than we were able to have with our ill timed Olympics.

My view now is no different to a year ago, these Olympics needed to be delayed until after this pandemic is under control. The government and prefectures should have been working to support the residents and the economy

At the end of the day, we did not get the games we deserved to have. We may have won more medals but we could not actively participate. We have been encouraged to stay at home and watch local businesses suffer.

I just hope going forward every sports association here will be applying for every major championship. We need to offset the cost of all of this somehow and let people enjoy all these new venues.

A few nights ago there was a news item on the evening NHK news. It was an interview with a doctor with a small hospital in Tokyo.

It started with him talking about is youngest patient, a baby that cannot stop coughing. Then he talked about not having enough beds, so he was putting families together in the same room.

I know it will never happen here, but him talking about those 2 items needs to be an advert. Then the government pay to flood it across TV.

Somethings dramatic and hard hitting needs to be done quickly.

My wife is a visitor nurse here, which mean she treats people house bound or who need follow up treatment after release from hospital. Back at Golden Week, if a person in the household had been outside the Prefecture or had someone visiting from outside the Prefecture, she had to wear full PPE. This would mean getting dressed up in PPE and taking it back off on each patients doorstep.

To say that the atmosphere in our house is tense at the moment, is an understatement. As other people have commented, the government have had so long to plan for this. To have a plan ready to go and have the resources, field hospitals in place.

Now we are at the Summer holiday, people will be travelling back to home towns. Already patients are advising of visitors from outside the Prefecture or family member travelling. PPE will have to be worn again and also the worry of how they will be able to fit in home visits to treat Covid patients.

while I’m here, how about the government doing something about letting medical staff feel they can take the annual vacation allowance.

I wonder if this includes the 12 policemen working at the village and a number of others in quarantine as close contacts? They were staying in cramped accommodation off site with not enough bathroom facilities.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-9834659/Tokyo-Olympics-Panic-Tokyo-Games-12-police-officers-guarding-athletes-test-positive-Covid.html

There was also a report earlier in the week of some bus drivers in similar accommodation. They were moved out to hotels I think.

shogun36July 28  08:22 am JST

Why would they get an outside worker to coach? 

Isn’t that one of the school’s teacher’s job?

I think it was 2 or 3 years ago they was a drive to free up teachers time. So outside experts/coaches were encouraged to volunteer to run some of the clubs.

Daily infections heading the wrong way fast and in a couple of weeks people will be travelling to there home towns. Time to stock up the freezer, not been able to get an appointment for the jab yet.

“But vaccination has started and after a long tunnel an exit is now in our sight,” Suga said.

Our city of around 250,000 has advised the central mass vaccination site will only be open 2 days a week. They are only able to do 510 vaccinations a day. The tunnel is a long one.

But Games organizers played down the risk of a cluster emerging, saying there have been "no significant bumps" so far.

"The IOC and Tokyo 2020 are absolutely clear that the Olympic Village is a safe place to stay," 

Maybe they should put there money where there mouth is. Move into the village.