Covid cases in Japan reach global high: Kishida does zilch
Kanako Mita, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, a nationalist in sheep’s clothing, insists that foreign tourists must have tour guides to enter the country. However, with Japan having the highest new coronavirus cases (Covid-19) in the world for three weeks running – what planet is Kishida on?
Indeed, Kishida’s recent internal coronavirus plan entails “do nothing.” Yes, despite more deaths in 2022 from coronavirus already under Kishida (despite vaccination take-up being high) than in 2020 or 2021, it is now the holiday season in Japan – but no restrictions whatsoever.
According to the World Health Organization, Japan accounted for the highest new rates of new infections in the world for three straight weeks. Individuals, including former prime minister Taro Aso, gloated about “Japanese exceptionalism.” Yuriko Koike, the Tokyo Governor, equally implied the virtue of Japanese culture in keeping coronavirus cases low. However, Japan is now ranked as the 11th most infected nation internationally (ranked very low until Kishida took office) – and the highest in recent weeks.
NHK reports, “The country’s weekly death toll during the same period was 1,002, up 53 percent from the previous week. The figure was the fourth-highest in the world, after the United States, Brazil, and Italy.”
The reality is that the Coronavirus is a virus. Hence, if nations take no measures (irrespective of the country) and follow the Kishida “do nothing” approach, then cases will mushroom. It appears that Kishida – the nationalist who seeks to double military expenditure to protect Japanese lives (allegedly – after all, never attacked since the ending of World War Two) – isn’t so concerned about deaths from coronavirus to the extent of the past two prime ministers of Japan, who at least imposed minor emergency and quasi-emergency measures to stem the spread of the virus.
In the first week of August, Japan accounted for approximately 20 percent of all new international coronavirus cases. Yet, in the nationalist world of Kishida, while foreign tourists need tour guides to visit Japan, internally planes, trains, and other modes of transport are mainly full during the holiday period.
Of course, while Kishida seeks petty nationalist political point scoring by picking on foreign tourists, he doesn’t mind relying solely on international vaccines (being Japan, then vaccines from China and Russia were never in the pipeline – only vaccines from America and the United Kingdom initially).
Japan isn’t alone in seeking to return to a full normal concerning the economic angle. However, why start this policy during the height of the crisis? Soon, 90 percent of all coronavirus cases in Japan will have happened under Kishida – similar to 50 percent of all deaths in Japan when he reaches his first year in office. This is despite the vaccine program already running before he became the leader of Japan. Therefore, while Kishida was swanning around the world sprouting anti-China and anti-Russia sentiments – the coronavirus crisis internally continued to spiral.
Deaths will soon reach 35,000 in Japan. However, with population decline reaching new highs in Japan (figures notably higher) – the fear is that the real death toll is higher.
Infections of coronavirus totaled just over 1.7 million before Kishida took office. This figure now is just over 15.1 million. Hence, soon 89 percent of all coronavirus cases are under Kishida.
Overall, the coronavirus numbers will eventually subside by themselves. However, a fresh wave might occur once more, given the lack of concern by the Kishida administration outside of the monetary angle.
Hence, 50 percent of all deaths happened between the middle of January 2020 – when coronavirus first entered Japan – to early October 2021. Yet, since Kishida took office, deaths have increased at a higher rate despite over 90 percent of people having two injections and the majority having three injections.
The above sums up Kishida’s coronavirus policy – rely on foreign vaccines and basically “do nothing.”
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ – Tokyo Metropolitan Government website for updates about the coronavirus crisis in Tokyo.
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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