Space Cochonne comments

Shopping center and super Market are crowded on Monday and Tuesday because people are purchasing food and goods for the next 2-3 days as it is the only time of the year super market and department store are vastly closing: so just to correct that new year is actually absolutely not a time of a the year for shopping but quite the opposite.

I think there are economy concepts that explain why you cannot just increase salary to match inflation without fixing the structural problems, so this will not work though it might encourage some companies to be less greedy on the increase. Anyway there are so many articles along the year mentioning request for salary increase from different entities.

Previous GoTo campaign worked also through booking/agoda/Rakuten travel and Airbnb etc…it took time for it to be setup but once it worked you could take good advantage of it. However at that time border were closed so I wonder how they will manage to check your residency status which may lead to it being more cumbersome hopefully not… because discounting JTB is just getting close to a normal price.

Until pre-departure testing is scrapped, it's a solid no from me.

Absolutely, unless it is a strong necessity. Everything could be fine but we are still having people getting stuck abroad because they would test positive 72H before taking the plane and unsure when they can come back to Japan. Why would you take that risk for vacations ?

That being said, I think it is the same situation for US that require pre-testing as well.

Prestigious Sophia University ? I am not saying it is a bad university but it is not what you would usually call a prestigious university.

Isn’t it difficult to see a decrease in the speed of increase of case as the number of test is limited ? it is doubtful we would see an increase as sharp as in other country.

japan is trying to limit the number of test to not overload its testing capacity.

if it is mild enough to not create any major issue in hospital so it is fine, but as we are at 50-75% positive rate in Tokyo testing not sure we can yet see if we are passed a peak or not.

Before introducing a state of emergency that will just further shorten business hours for some eateries and department store, just encourage more wfh and online classes or hybrid mode for some weeks.

that would be the first sane action to request if the objective is really to reduce the pace of contamination ton or overload the medical system.

there has been absolutely no effort to decrease traffic so in that case just call it a day and let it go because this quasi state of emergency was not doing much before and is doing even less now as everybody is ignoring it.

I am actually wondering, if Tokyo / Chiba and Kanagawa made the testing capacity 100 000 test a day would people actually take the test ?

I am really not sure as many here would prefer not to be detected even if they were positive and to not become a positive or create contact case. As far as I know still few companies offer flexible WFH policies and government didn’t ask to limit commuting or switch to online work and meetings when possible.

What is Salary man Kintaro supposed to tell his boss if he is tested positive with Covid ? Does he get sick leave or the possibility to wfh ? Also no kids at school… well he would rather not be tested event with a little fever and a cough. Gaman Shimasu, come stamp the inkan on the fax and fax it back.

I think we had the same news one month ago and it was already pointed out it was not an acceleration but more getting back to the norm as actually many countries are already more on a 4-6 months booster shoot.

In any case this acceleration has been pretty slow, close to 8 months after second shoot in Kawasaki and still waiting for any contact, voucher etc…

While increasing military spending and still pumping money into construction company and better preparation of the healthcare system for the next pandemic. Oh and the effort to put in place for reducing carbon footprint.

you can do anything if you assume you have unlimited funding and ressources otherwise happy to hear the global strategy.

Not having to quarantine anymore is a good thing, I would be finally able to take my family back home for vacation.

But keidanren, after making absolutely no effort when being asked to promote up to 70% WFH during august, defending the use of fax because of its « high security »…what did they learn from this pandemic ?

Probably nothing so Salarymen Kentaro will probably soon be able to stop using zoom and teams and restart his questionable business trip.

Even if the declaration is lifted, the government will consider shifting to quasi-state of emergency measures to prevent infections from surging again

So after SOE will come back to quasi SOE which is almost the same as SOE.

Still despite the constant 4-5k case for weeks in Tokyo the serious cases decreased by one today.

We will probably need to look out for the number of deaths. Hope we didn’t enter a cycle where new serious cases replace equivalent amount of deceased cases.

If the government is trying to prevent people from traveling around, why are articles like this encouraging people to go travel around?

i think it is proven that covid19 in Japan will only attack you after 20:00 if you are drunk. Also it doesn’t know how to ride the train so probably will not be able to ride the ropeway either, it should be safe up there.

What is the message we are trying to convey to people living in Tokyo now with such announcement ? This type of news should be communicated carefully with warning saying to get vaccinated / stay careful during the SOE.

otherwise it just mean « everything is fine guys, we have a treatment for covid19 if something happen to you and plenty of beds in hotel to welcome you »

the same day we announce we will stop the little bit of tracing and testing that was still happening in Tokyo ?

It's a race. The vaccinations in Japan are also continuing at about 500,000 per day. The percentage of vaccinated population climbs about 3% each week. My whole family and all my wife's relatives here in Japan have been double-vaccinated. They are widely available. Between those already infected who gain natural immunity, and the increasing vaccinations, at some point the virus will not find enough hosts to replicate.

You are probably right and this is the explanation of the trend being seen in India and UK in regard to the delta variant ( with a mix of Stay Home measures ). Though it never really drops back to 2 digits number.

So we will get there at some point but when.

in any case I see the comments on vaccine being easily available, it really depends where you live and even your district in Tokyo. As long as it will be a fight to be able to have a vaccination slot and that Hospital are saturated this is a very inconfortable situation to be in and it should never have happened in a country like Japan.

Looking at what is happening in Israel, vaccination efficacy decrease significantly after 6 months hence the reason why they start seeing serious case even with people that were vaccinated in January.

we are in for a long fight and several booster shots so Japon better get prepared and have the logistics ready otherwise we will still have unvaccinated younger group while elder will need to have their booster.

You left out that the majority of those 5% are now fully vaccinated. They were not earlier in the year. You didn't bother to think about that since it doesn't support your opinion

well actually if they were tested there is a great chance they had symptoms like fever and cough requiring testing, otherwise you will never get tested ( they even stopped testing you if someone in your family has covid19 unless you show fever or symptoms ). So either they were not vaccinated or the vaccine partially worked.

i don’t think the vaccination covers 100% of Japanese over 60 years old, even at 70% we are not out of trouble as we can see in other countries more advanced in terms of vaccination ( France / Israel / IS / UK though it is getting better there ).

95% of all these cases are people under 50!

no it is not. JT ignore case for people over 60 as it is now a minority but it is not 0, so you have 679 people over 50 years old. It is not at all 5%, including within them 200 people over 60 years old.

then ok for people over 60 years old you could say 5% but as Zorotto mentioned when you start hovering at such a high level of cases per day then even 5% starts to be a significant number.

The increase of serious case is probably the important number to watch out and it doesn’t look like it is going in the right direction now.

These numbers are far from ideal - let's be honest about that.

But some good news.

50 million people in Japan have now had at least one dose of the vaccine.

Over 36 million have had 2.

86.2% of over 65s have had at least one dose of the vaccine.

75.4% of over 65s are fully vaccinated.

this is good news but the reality is that it is still hard to get a vaccination slot if you are below 40 and sometimes over 40 depending where you live.

When you look at delta variant data, situation in UK / US and Israel and take into account japan will never force its population to be vaccinated and will probably reach the 30% marks of people unwilling to be vaccinated…we are in for a long fight and we are still in a very bad spot for at least 2 months.

Covid19 also has been getting a new gold medal almost everyday setting up new record, and, unlike athletes gold medal, we will probably remember and feel them after Olympics are finished.

This is what happened to all the foreigner who were holding tickets. Despite living in Japan I had several tickets bought from the France reseller in 2019 that were cancelled last May. Still waiting for the refund.

it is a pity as I was so happy to think about taking my kids there back then however things are what they are and the situation is complicated.

Also wished they delayed enough to allow for à proper Olympics but we know this is not happening.

Before asking other countries, Japan should first show what it will be doing with its strict quarantine.

exctaly what I was asking myself, so after I get my vaccination passport I can be exempted from quarantine and PCR test if I travel back to Europe but still not clear at all what happens when I fly back to Japan. I assume there will be no quarantine anymore but prefer to see it clearly written.

Yes small wave are a concern for surfer and considering japan covid19 situation it is a great time to talk about waves because some will be bigger than others.

Well a lot of us think those measures are not enough and question the Covid-19 cases numbers. What is actually pretty scary is to think of what will happen after they lift the measure, as vaccination will not have made significant progress by beginning of June.

i am pretty sure several salary men are in the starting blocks and will run faster than Usain Bolt to the first nomikai organized to celebrate the victory over the 4th waves and…we know what happens next…

Very good news as this is a needed step …once you finished vaccinated the general population…once you finished vaccinated elderly, medical staff and people with pre-conditions.

so as it stands it is a quite irrelevant story considering what japan has on its plate right now.

IOC says it's up to the host country.

The host country says it's up to the IOC.

Which one is lying? It's really hard to say as both are completely corrupt and inept.

exactly my thought, yesterday we had the article saying IOC were sure game will be held because the prime minister repeated the game can be held safely.

we are running into an infinite loop

he replied: "No, there's not.

"The prime minister of Japan said that to the president of the United States two or three weeks ago. He continues to say that to the IOC. We're working with him (Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga) on all of the safety measures. It's going ahead."

Quite interesting actually, he is saying there is no scenario of Olympics being cancelled because this is what Suga keeps repeating to them. so politically he is basically putting the responsibility of this decision of absolutely going ahead without any other scenario on the Japanese prime minister.

Yet they announce a soften version of the SOE for the next 3 weeks and think we will be happy with the announce that Olympic Athletes will all be vaccinated before the Olympics ( while the problem is not about vaccinating the athletes only…).

it surprises me everyday but not funny when some people in Osaka and Hyogo are dying at their home and hotel room suffocating due to lack of hospital bed availability.

The SOE certainly has some effects, not sure if enough but it needs to be extended to prevent things from getting worst. Learning from the end of the previous SOE, which we kind of seen coming, what do you think Salarymen Kintaro will do has soon as SOE is lifted ? izakaya with his necktie around the head…

nothing will get better until vaccination take off seriously.