Sps-Blaka comments

They might hate war but they hate it more when you try to meddle into their affairs.

Who's meddling? Russia invaded a sovereign nation, isn't that the epitome of meddling in another country's affairs?

Pedestrians in this country unfortunately have no rights - the motorists and cyclists have seen to that. The disrespect is evident on a daily basis. I have nearly been wiped out on numerous occasions, just walking on the sidewalk - w a l k being the operative word! Cyclists continue to disregard every road rule available with absolute impunity.

I don't understand why won't the Japanese gov just use paramedics, med students, vets, pensioners, etc. Heck, even I can administer that injection, it's a simple one, straight to the muscle, no need to find a vein. Give them a 30 min crash course and BOOM, you've got ten thousand more people that can administer the vaccine.

My thoughts exactly! All this caution, hand-wringing, indecision, vacillating and uncertainty is costing peoples' lives.....

"Everything is connected to vaccine hesitancy behaviour."

That should be a future problem - deal with vaccine hesitancy after you've vaccinated everyone that's willing to be vaccinated.

Breathtaking arrogance

Indeed!

What on earth has the government been doing for the last 18 months?

Good question! Hand-wringing at its best!

We'd also like to accommodate the timing of the Olympics to fall on a month that will not be so excruciatingly hot and humid for fans and athletes alike thus avoiding unnecessary heat strokes and/or deaths. 

Precisely! When rescheduling the games from last year, they chose exactly the same two, most brutal weeks in Japan - the last week of July and the first week of August. When the Olympics are eventually rescheduled, maybe they can reconsider this...

My actual point is that many here and many other countries keep criticising Japan for not cancelling the Olympics, but they are not ready to do the same like Australia's tennis open, USA master's tournament, etc.

The Australian Open is very different from the Olympics in that you have only tens of tennis players and hundreds of their staff as opposed to tens of thousands of athletes and thousands of their staff in the case of the Olympics so the comparison isn't the same.

Spot on!

Japan's only way out now is for the IOC to cancel, otherwise Japan has the games or pays the penalties for cancelling.

There's much more to it than meets the eye - it's a game of chicken and who has to back down first.... All about insurance and reinsurance for the money already spent.....

@pepelepew - spot on!

This headline should have been written in December, not February 9th.

What on earth have these hand-wringing bureaucrats been doing all this time?!! They couldn't organise a p-up in a brewery if they tried!

It’s all about testing...

Andrew Cuomo (NY governor) said some 5,000 pharmacies would be able to carry out testing, with the aim to provide 40,000 per day.

Japan’s living in the dark ages...

@Borscht:

Second, if Person A has no symptoms and stays at home and infects his or her spouse or child, the newly infected person can go about their business and infect dozens of other people before discovering that they, too, have the virus.*

Precisely! Why don't people understand this!?

It came after Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike raised the idea on Friday of moving the event to a less hot and humid time of year.

I think they've got seriously short memories! Just in July 2018 we had a devastating heatwave.... They have a golden opportunity to move it to a cooler, less humid time but they know better (as usual!).

Here's a link from the Japan Times published on the 19th July 2018:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/07/19/national/tokyo-emergency-personnel-respond-record-number-calls-amid-heat-wave/#.XoBQhYgzaM8