Tokyo Covid-19 daily infections in six-month high: The Olympics!
Sawako Utsumi and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
The Tokyo Olympics start officially in 48 hours despite some sporting events already starting. With this in mind, it is shocking that the highest daily coronavirus (Covid-19) infection rate in six months was announced in Tokyo. This will further strain the anxiety of many in Japan who are indignant about these games going ahead.
Tokyo announced another 1,832 daily new infections and the omens look set to witness even higher numbers in the following days. However, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike are fine that medical staff will attend sporting events – even if the health care system once more comes under enormous strain in parts of the country.
The current increase of coronavirus is also happening in other parts of Japan. This includes the prefectures of Kanagawa and Saitama that border with Tokyo. Therefore, people hit hard by the economic convulsions of the coronavirus in Tokyo – and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama – will have to buckle down once more.
Hence, while privileged athletes compete in front of privileged spectators (people in Japan and international spectators are forbidden to attend Olympic venues), ordinary people will bear the economic and mental strain alone. After all, the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga – unlike former leader Shinzo Abe – will not provide wholescale economic support. Instead, the Suga administration, like the Tokyo Metropolitan Government under Koike, seems obsessed with funding the Olympics irrespective of how many billions of dollars it costs.
The younger generation is being taught that squandering tens of billions of dollars on the Olympics during the coronavirus pandemic is deemed responsible. Similarly, the deaths of over 4 million from coronavirus seem unimportant to Suga, Koike, the IOC, and privileged athletes when it comes to the holding of the Olympics. Instead, it is all about gold medals, commercial contracts, and prestige despite the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
New coronavirus variants also keep on popping up in Japan – from variants first witnessed in China, the United Kingdom, and more recently India – which one next?
The IOC, Suga, Koike, and privileged athletes have all ignored the wishes of the majority of people in Japan. After all, countless Olympic polls show that the majority wanted the games either postponed or canceled.
One person remarked near a specialist cancer hospital in Tokyo, “It is frightening to see so many people connected to the games already being seen within easy reach of the hospital I have to visit. I am scared because my immune system is low with having cancer.”
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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