Week 15 - Friday in Tokyo sees Ian and Minako thinking twice before venturing outside amid a rise in COVID-19 cases

Edited BY

G P Kennedy

Ian & Minako – Tokyo

 We are both very well, hope you are too!

 

 The number of daily reported cases for Tokyo has continued to rise through this past week reaching over 200 on 4 consecutive days and the 7 day average moving up to 152 cases. Total deaths in Tokyo however is still 325 (unchanged since June 24!). Nationally there have been 21434 cases and 982 deaths.

 

 Again the increase in cases is being attributed mainly to more thorough testing, especially in targeted areas but nearly 50% of recent cases have been untraceable which is more worrying. There are now reports of clusters at US military bases in Okinawa.

 

Japan's contact tracing app

 The tracing app launched recently for smartphones has not been a great success. It has been suspended twice for a few days to fix bugs. It has had over 6 million downloads but we don't know how many actually registered, we read that only 3 people in the whole of Japan have registered on it as COVID-19-positive. As the onus is on the individual to register it's unlikely that many will do so despite assurances that all the data is anonymous.

 

 Despite Tokyo’s sharp spike hike in infected cases with a record high of 243 people this week (higher than the any other time even during the state of emergency), the Chief Cabinet Secretary denied any imminent possibility of another state of emergency being put in place, since the hospitals aren't over-stretched like in April.  

 

 The country is forging ahead with re-opening society and the economy with up to 5000 people attending events from the 10^th of July.

 

 The government is rolling out a scheme called the ‘Go To Travel’ campaign, which subsidizes accommodation and travel expenses for the domestic holiday makers to boost the virus hit tourism sector. Initially it was planned to be launched in early August but it was announced that the scheme will be brought forward to the 22^nd of July in time for the long holiday weekend.

 

 This puzzled the public obviously, amid Tokyo’s sharp resurgence of the infected cases: when Tokyo’s governor is urging people to be considerate about non-urgent, non-essential cross-border journeys.  It’s very unlikely that many of the regional tourist destinations would be welcoming visitors from the capital whole-heartedly anyway.

 

 Many parts of Western Japan, mainly in Kumamoto, Kyushu have been devastated by the record breaking rainfall and floods this week and the tourist destinations which had already been hit hard by the economic impact of  COVID-19 are suffering from significant damage.  

 With the fear of possible Coronavirus infections being brought in to the area, some cities had to make the difficult decision to recruit volunteers only from Kumamoto prefectures, even though there is a lack of volunteers locally and there are keen volunteer applicants who wish to come over from other parts of the country.

 

 More effort and funds should be pumped into the recovery of these disaster-hit areas more than anything else.

 

We stayed within a kilometer (0.62 miles) radius all this week. We didn’t even go to the nearest town center, which is about 2 kilometers away.  This was partially because of the resurgence of the cases and partially due to the persistent rain in the height of rainy season.  A mobile supermarket still comes to our apartment grounds every week. We also buy summer vegetables from the local farm shop nearby. We don’t wish to go to big supermarkets and commercial buildings so they are very helpful and good to meet neighbors there too.

 

 The annual residents’ potato picking day took place at the veg patch owned by our landlord’s family on Saturday, we were lucky to avoid rain, from toddlers to senior citizens we all enjoyed our hands getting muddy for the treasure hunt with masks on.

 

Rich pickings from the local potato harvest

 Usually after the harvest, we enjoy drinking and eating together until late at night but this year we had a simple, brief gathering with beer and nibbles in the well ventilated function room by the veg patch.  We are very fortunate and grateful to have such lovely neighbors with the community spirit which is very precious especially in these difficult times in Tokyo.

 

 The rising number of infected cases is worrying.  There are a few doctors’ appointments lining up next week and shall we go ahead or postpone them? It must be the same everywhere in the world but hope we will find a fine life balance of safety and freedom.