Japan news: Covid-19 deaths surpass 7,000 but infections continue to fall
Sawako Utsumi and Sawako Uchida
Modern Tokyo Times
The coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis in Japan began on January 16 last year. Yet deaths remained relatively low in the first nine months. Thus by the middle of September, below 1,500 people had died. However, in recent months, the death toll gradually increased and surpassed 7,000 deaths recently.
Unlike the crisis in America, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and countless other nations, deaths are relatively low in Japan. Despite this, the last few months witnessed increasing daily infections and deaths. Therefore, compared with other Asian nations in Northeast Asia and the Mekong Delta, Japan is now one of the worst-performing regional nations.
In the last few weeks, a gradual decline in daily infections is noticeable and the number of deaths is following the usual time lag. However, with the vaccination program being reliant on foreign vaccines, teething problems are noticeable concerning syringes and obtaining the appropriate doses like promised.
At the same time, the fear of different variants of coronavirus entering Japan because of the Olympics scheduled later this year remains. Hence, once the State of Emergency is lifted in areas hit hardest, the real current picture will become clearer. After all, a fresh coronavirus wave may materialize again if the usual angles provide the virus the opportunity to re-emerge stronger again.
Overall, local governments need to remain vigilant in the following weeks after the lifting of the State of Emergency because coronavirus infections might increase again given the right conditions. Equally, new variants of coronavirus entering Japan – and possible internal variants – need to be monitored. Therefore, with the Tokyo Olympics on the horizon, this is an added burden given the delicate international nature of the coronavirus crisis.
https://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/en.html – Japan and Tokyo Covid-19 news with more analysis
https://covid19japan.com/ – Japan regional coronavirus statistics
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ World coronavirus statistics
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