SJ comments

@Yumster100

I do live outside of Japan and you should take your own advice. Just look at what's going on in your country regarding the comfort women issue. 

Your own statement contradicts what your government says. Your government says the WTO issue is irrelevant with the comfort women, but you bring up it. Read this article again:

*Japan had cited unspecified security concerns over South Korea's export controls on sensitive materials that could be used for military purposes.*

Self-contradiction is also a feature of Japanese diplomacy.

@Yumster100

Puer comedy gold. This is a prime example of what happens when a citizen is brainwashed by their pathetic country's ideology.

Some people in the Galápagos island will hopefully be enlightened regarding the status of their press freedom by just looking over this site: https://rsf.org/en/japan

Compare the rank with China or N. Korea and then with Taiwan and S. Korea. People outside of Japan see and think differently. There are excessive materials outside of the Galápagos island that can give a cue to wake up brainwashed people.

The only measture left for Abe to recover the support from Japanese voters is provoking S. Korea to instigate anti-Korean sentiment, which already became banal, but I would be not surprised he gets it again.

@Triring

Both you and I know that there is no ban

It is typical Japanese obfuscation. It has a long history: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/21/world/japan-admits-it-bungled-notice-of-war-in-41.html

I also purchased a monthly subscription of Zoom, but later it turned out that free version is enough for the meetings whose client number is less than 40. I am going to use it more, as I realized that most of face-to-face meetings can be replaced with online ones, saving money and time. I become adaptated to the new norm defined by the covid-19.

Abe san has been excellent at least in controlling the media to brainwash Japanese regarding S. Korean issues. Denial, obfuscation and distortion of facts has been a feature of Japanese diplomacy, but many Japanese are well brainwashed, partly due to the Japanese Galápagos syndrome.

It is not surprising at all that some people here self declare themselves as experts on infectious disease and control, qualified better than scientists at the Korean CDC, when considering that even some national leaders recommend some specific prescribed drugs, including toxic detergents, to their own people. Disinformation is as widespread (and dangerous) as the pandemic itself.

A merit of the COVID-19 is that it reveals the true colors of people around the world, including those who have sometimes self declared as first-class citizens.

I am rather critical of the support group, but it is very premature to judge the past of the new elected lawmaker. Investigations are ongoing and many S. Koreans are waiting for the results. It is very dangerous to verdict too early based on all allegations provided by the Korean media, which is infamous for propaganda and partisanship, not to mention the government-controlled Japanese press such as “kisha clubs”.

Anyway, Japan needs to stop brainwashing the Japanese people with distortion of history by assuming themselves as a victim rather than an aggressor. In the future, they may teach a truthful history to future generations, and allow more freedom for the Japanese press.

https://www.heritage.org/asia/report/the-pearl-harbor-anniversary-japan-still-says-dont-blame-me

https://rsf.org/en/japan

Press freedom in Japan is better than N. Korea, Singapore or China, but is at the same level as Mongolia, technically a communist country. https://rsf.org/en/ranking

The statistics of COVID-19 in Japan is unreliable, as they have changed the method too many times. https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/350610

https://www.newsweekjapan.jp/marukawa/2020/05/post-62_6.php

Nevertheless, the ratio of confirmed to tested number of people in Tokyo had decreased during the past weeks approximately from 70% to 10%, but it is puzzling that the both number of tests and confirmed cases has decreased at the same rate:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49907937646_2f487d45e4_b.jpg

The ratio (blue) and the number of tested people (red) in a 7-day moving average compiled from https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/ I took the moving averages because of the delays between test and confirmation.

In retrospect, it was miraculous and lucky that the city of Seoul could keep the official death toll from coronavirus at just 2 so far, compared with 171 of Tokyo or even with 20 of Singapore and 4 of Hong Kong. The mayor of Seoul is always wary of the public opinion, and probably hesitated to shutdown the night clubs which could be easily backfired from business owners. Now nobody can criticize the mayor for the order of shutdown. This event highlights the complexity of interactions between biology and politics.

@bicultural

average infection rate for first week of May was 7.5% in Tokyo.

Their official site says the rate is more than 40%.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49872820617_9cf166c10f_b.jpg

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

What's wrong?

Japan can do mass testing at anytime by automatizing the PRC test process. Please enlighten me as to why they did not and do not yet.

change.org/PCR_researcher

@oldman_13

She isn't saying to forget about what she and other women endured, she's saying this blind hatred preached by anti-Japan Korean fanatics doe nothing towards fostering understanding and forgiveness.

I agree that she isn't saying that. There are a few bad apples in any country and in any group. I also do not like the tactic of the civic group, and some of the group members may be more interested in earning money by marketing the comfort women issue. That civic group in S. Korea is comparable to Japanese various right wing groups. They tend to appeal emotionally to young people who are mostly indifferent to politics and history. Nowadays demagogues are more popular around world together with fans and cult-like zealots. Look at the U.S. You do not need to single out Korea or comfort women issue.

I thought the civic group would eventually disappear by lack of supporting from S. Koreans. But, miraculously, it has survived, and I guess the best supporter of the civic group has been actually Abe san and the Netto-uyoku.

The number of case seems low because the number of tests was low.

The ratio of confirmed to tested number of people in Tokyo had decreased during the past weeks approximately from 60% to 30%, but during the past few days, it rebounded to more than 40%, according to the chart I made for myself:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49868802847_7d70975a27_b.jpg (by May 7)

The ratio (blue) and the number of tested people (red) in a 7-day moving average compiled from https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/ I took the moving averages because of the delays between test and confirmation.

Above all, the Japanese government has done their best to suppress the official number of deaths by various statistical manipulations, and few people except some Japanese would believe the numbers:

https://www.newsweekjapan.jp/marukawa/2020/05/post-62_6.php (in Japanese)

@changamangaliay

Don't understand what's the challenge in conducting more test in Japan? Many developing countries have conducted far more tests than Japan.

It also has puzzled me. Japan has enough money, equipment and people to test at least 60,000 people per day by automatizing the PCR test. https://youtu.be/1yyZHfypTIY

They can do it at anytime if the government is willing to do. They just don't do it, making me think the low number of tests is actually intentional.

He seems eligible for the PM more than Abe san.

Do not underestimate the 40% of population who believe 'Chinese' people are responsible for all misery caused by the coronavirus. And remember that, to them, 'Chinese' include all East Asians such as Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Singaporean, and etc. Politicians in any country at any time have been excellent in politicizing the pandemic to instigate and manipulate their people to hate each other except themselves.

The ratio of confirmed to tested number of people in Tokyo had decreased during the past weeks approximately from 60% to less than 40%, but during the past few days, it rebounded to more than 40%, according to the chart I made for myself:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49861408611_14522f11f1_b.jpg (by May 3)

The ratio (blue) and the number of tested people (red) in a 7-day moving average compiled from https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/

The ratio of Tokyo (40%) is higher than S. Korea in its peak days (1-6%) by a factor of 10. In S. Korea, it peaked at 6% on Feb 29, but thereafter dropped below 1%. Long way to go to a level less than 1%.

Some Japanese media claims that the ratio greater 40% is a fake news, but my figure shows that it is not. Disinformation and censorship is widespread in Japanese media. For example:

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/article?a=20200506-00060411-jbpressz-soci

The link of nkgendai-life does not work. A working link:

https://www.nikkan-gendai.com/articles/view/life/271310

@socrateos

The numbers show a success to a degree.

US, where most aggressive testing are performed, shows the number of corona related deaths as 207 per million. Japan, where testing is limited, shows the number as 4 per million.

That is solace for many Japanese, but the number of deaths is proportional to the number of tests, not the population. Without test, how can people know whether the death was related with COVID-19?

Above all, the Japanese government has done their best to suppress the official number of deaths by various statistical manipulations, and few people except some Japanese would believe the numbers:

https://www.newsweekjapan.jp/marukawa/2020/05/post-62_6.php (in Japanese)

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200403-00000008-nkgendai-life (Japanese)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/04/14/underreporting-of-covid-19-deaths-in-the-us-and-europe/#488f16a182d7

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/27/those-covid-19-death-toll-figures-are-incomplete/

Several big fires have occurred under the Moon administration, arousing some critics from the opponents. Safety measures in construction sites have improved during the past decades, but still need more efforts in S. Korea. However, the opponents have been quite about the extraordinarily successful subdue of the wildfire on this time last year when people assumed that it is impossible to control it, but the government managed to do it:

https://thediplomat.com/2019/04/responders-quickly-extinguish-one-of-koreas-largest-wildfires/

BTW, the Japanese media has been quite on news from S. Korea during the past 3 months. Even here in JT, the recent news on S. Korea in the World section was dated on April 21, 10 days ago:

https://japantoday.com/category/world/s.koreans-return-to-work-crowd-parks-malls-as-social-distancing-rules-ease

I have no clue on the reason.

The ratio of confirmed to tested number of people in Tokyo has decreased during the past week approximately from 60% to less than 40%, according to the chart I made for myself:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49827508838_bce40541b3_b.jpg

The ratio (blue) and the number of tested people (red) in a 7-day moving average compiled from https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/

The ratio of Tokyo (40%) is higher than S. Korea in its peak days (1-6%) by a factor of 10. In S. Korea, it peaked at 6% on Feb 29, but thereafter dropped below 1%. Long way to go to a level less than 1%.

The published COVID-19 data in the web sites of the Japanese government (NIID) and Tokyo are difficult to interpret, as they are not well compiled and summarized.

The ratio of confirmed to tested number of people in Tokyo has decreased during the past week approximately from 60% to 40%, according to the chart I made for myself:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49822192972_97c89ae09d_b.jpg

The ratio (blue) and the number of tested people (red) in a 7-day moving average compiled from https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/

The ratio of Tokyo (40-60%) is higher than S. Korea in its peak days (1-6%) by a factor of 10. In S. Korea, it peaked at 6% on Feb 29, but thereafter dropped below 1%. Yesterday it was 0.32% in S. Korea: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a20501000000&bid=0015

Trump should have learned and followed Abe regarding press briefing: reading the script, followed by no question, no answer. And silent media control.

Virus is equal in infecting people, but test is not in its eligibility.

At home: R0 is greater than 0, but less than (the number of family) -1

The media control and censorship regarding the covid-19 in Japan is outrageous, making most Japanese ill-informed on the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Really? That could not have happened if they were in a hotel? Why?

In a hotel: R0 = 0

At home: 0

@drlucifer

wasn't there an article here on JT last week or week before last that the government had secured 200,000 hotel rooms.

At that time, the government was considering securing 200,000 hotel rooms.