Japan Declares 3rd State Of Emergency, 3 Months Ahead Of Olympics (npr.org) 96
Japan's central government has declared a third state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic with new restrictions imposed in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. Local leaders requested the move as they face a sharp rise in new coronavirus cases. From a report: The declaration comes as Tokyo prepares to host the Summer Olympics, slated to begin in July, and just before Japan enters one of its biggest holiday seasons, Golden Week, in late April. The emergency measures stop short of a full lockdown, but they impose limits on restaurants and other businesses. The strictest rules will apply to places that sell alcohol or offer karaoke. They'll be asked to close entirely, while many other establishments will close at 8 p.m. The new policies, which carry fines but largely rely on voluntary compliance, go into effect on Sunday and will run through at least May 11. Nationwide, Japan is seeing spikes in new cases and hospitalizations, both of which are soaring toward the record heights that were seen at the start of 2021. Some 5,452 people tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
Re: Died of COVID (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are a fairly small number of athletes. It's under 12,000 total. Maybe an additional 1000 coaches.. It shouldn't be hard to get them in country 4 weeks ahead of time and bubble them. The NBA bubble was successful. It might cost a lot of money, they've already invested $16 billion, so they should be able to afford it. And given that athletes tend to be meeting and fucking each other, you don't have to worry as much about people trying to smuggle in outside booty calls.
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I supposed since it is Japan, they could require some sort of vaccine proof for spectators, but they could do it without spectators entirely too.
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We can do that too. If Japan wanted, they could probably make the athletes arrive early enough to get Pfizer/Moderna (so their doctors can confirm it) and have the US supply the doses.
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Hard to believe you actually did read the article. Before the clickbait headline, it was about the latest state of "emergency". Don't worry, folks. Two more weeks of mashing on the brakes will fix Covid-19.
Just saw the Osaka governor making a comment on the fresh state of emergency. He started out with economic concerns. WRONG. Actually, this latest disaster is largely his own fault, because he was (politically) motivated to end the last lock-down sooner than he should have. Mashing on the gas. That's proba
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Driving while stomping on the gas and brakes somehow reminds me of watching a guy land a plane without the ailerons. Just trim tabs and rudder. Can't remember if he also played with the flaps or throttle at the same time or if he just set them as he began the approach. Stupid pet trick?
Sounds like a good skill to have in case your ailerons ever get jammed.
Of course, being a pilot is different from being a governor. There's no need for the prefecture to practice locking down.
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Much of pilot training is redundancy training. For example, one of your instruments is suddenly covered so you have to react to loss of that instrument. Very tenuous link to this story.
However the Japanese government has several clear examples to follow. South Korea showed how to control Covid-19 through intensive testing. China showed the extreme response, which is probably beyond any other country's capacity, but I also think that China might be the only country ready to face a contagious zombie apocalyps
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[...] China might be the only country ready to face a contagious zombie apocalypse.
Of course, because China might be the only country to have the guts to kill their own citizens, if it is deemed necessary for survival of the others.
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NAK. Even for Slashdot, that's an absurd reply.
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To me it's a binary decision.
To me it is a quantum decision, determining risk/reward probabilities.
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Just vaccinate the athletes.
While some countries have indicated they would prioritize their athletes, if that is what it took, others have stated they will not prioritize their athletes ahead of others at higher risk in their country, which would presumably mean those countries could not participate. Both choices indicate something about the countries priorities.
Re:Died of COVID (Score:5, Insightful)
Just vaccinate the athletes. The real concern would be the crowds.
The crowds are about 300,000 people.
America vaccinates that many people every 4 hours.
Japan is a modern developed country, yet their consensus decision-making process makes them surprisingly inept at dealing with many problems. Nearly 30% of Americans are fully vaccinated. Only 0.7% of Japanese are.
Disclaimer: I lived in Japan for two years.
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As for the crowds...they could do it sans spectators in the worst case scenario.
It's the TV money that's where the real money comes from, eh?
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Japan is a modern developed country, yet their consensus decision-making process makes them surprisingly inept at dealing with many problems. Nearly 30% of Americans are fully vaccinated. Only 0.7% of Japanese are.
America 1759 dead per million [worldometers.info]
Japan 78 [worldometers.info]
Who was actually inept at dealing with covid?
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Who was actually inept at dealing with covid?
Japan is better at problems that can be solved through cooperative public behavior.
America is better at problems that are solved with organization and decisive leadership.
So Japan is better at preventing the spread of the virus.
America is better at researching, manufacturing, distributing, and administering vaccines.
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America is better at problems that are solved with organization and decisive leadership.
Trumps decisive leadership sure solved America's covid problem...
Japan is better at problems that can be solved through cooperative public behavior.
America is better at researching, manufacturing, distributing, and administering vaccines.
Japan's cooperative public behaviors will let them catch up and vaccinate everyone first. It won't matter how good America is at administering them, if half of Republicans are refusing to take them. America may never get there.
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Vaccination does not prevent the spread of this disease.
Only isolationism can.
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died *with* COVID
And yet you still post?
Maybe just braindead.
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it's a joke, moron.
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Seems most people didn't realize it was a joke either and modded you down.
Sorry.
Maybe work on your delivery
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A very wise response. Mod Parent Up!
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You think there aren't enough athletes who would agree to get vaccinated and go to the Olympics? It takes about six weeks for the full effect with the mRNA vaccines, so there's still enough time for everybody who wants to go. Here's something you need to understand about the Olympics: For many athletes, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. If they cancel it, then next time it will be different athletes. These people have trained for years. They will go, and that's a rational decision, weighing a very smal
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Vaccination does not stop the spread of the virus.
Vaccinated people can still be carriers.
The only true preventative measure against an invasive species- is ending human travel.
Re: Died of COVID (Score:2)
No way, we should still have it. I am willing to represent the US in the 100 .. uh, 50 meter sprint donut in hand. A gold would look nice on my wall.
Remote Olympics? (Score:1)
Remote Olympics won't work for team sports or one-on-one things like wrestling, but it seems like individual countries could use a standard setup to take videos of things like gymnastics, and judges could work remotely. Many track and field events could be run solo--not the usual pacing dynamics, just athletes knowing it's the Olympic race they're running. Perhaps they could make it indoors as much as possible to eliminate differences due to wind, heat, etc. The marathon would have to be cancelled for th
It's bad, but not cancel the Olympics bad? (Score:2)
Re:It's bad, but not cancel the Olympics bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
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People are desperate for R&R, just announce people need vaccine passports now and some countries might be able to arrange something in time to fill enough seats.
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A couple countries already jumped in on vaccine passports any way.
If Japan announced this now maybe more countries could join in time, put bums in seats and make the economic clusterfuck a little less fucked ... it's very rushed, but better than almost no audience and no tourism income for Japan.
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A couple countries already jumped in on vaccine passports any way.
Vaccine passports are probably going to be a thing. This disease is not going away in the foreseeable future, as much as people think things will be normal again on some imminent date. COVID is global and most of the world will be dealing with this, and creating new variants along the way, for years to come.
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No, it's a perfectly valid point. Anti-vaxxers were around before COVID. They will be here after COVID. And no amount of kowtowing to them will change the fact. History has shown that it's pointless to try. And if we keep indefinitely kowtowing to those scum, we'll *NEVER* have our normal lives back. So why in the name of the great Cthulhu would you want to play their game?
It's taken too goddamned long as it is. But in the US we can all go get our shots right now. Assuming Biden is not lying, he's g
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Seeing the track record fo the W.H.O....I wouldn't give them any decision making authority for pretty much anything at this point in time.
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What could possibly go wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Japan has almost no vaccine, and they are going to host a big events with participants from all over the world.
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As much vaccine as we have in the states, it would be pretty trivial to get every olympian vaccinated before the games (along with various coaches and support members). Thing is, they'd need to get on it NOW to make that happen.
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As much vaccine as we have in the states, it would be pretty trivial to get every olympian vaccinated before the games (along with various coaches and support members). Thing is, they'd need to get on it NOW to make that happen.
Of course the USA could do that. If helping the Olympics is its priority. Otherwise it could just send them to do actual good, vaccinate the old and medical staff all over the world.
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It's not really an either/or at this point. Plus, the number of olympians is tiny compared to the global need. Enough to vaccinate all olympians wouldn't even make a dent in a single city, let alone the world.
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I could throw all my trash in the ocean. It's not going to make a dent in the amount of total trash in the ocean, isn't it?
The fact remains that the world do not have enough vaccine. Far from it. So the question is what do we do with the doses that we have. The USA chose to vaccinate its population first. It's understandable. Now that it will soon have excess, what should it do with it? Vaccinating the elite sports do not come on the top 100 on my priority list.
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Well, if the event is happening one way or another, it could be a pretty big vector for infection of others. Plus, olympians are easy to identify and distribute to. Just shipping vaccine off to India is not the same thing as getting shots in arms.
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Well it's not too late to cancel if they can't make sure it's safe.
India and many other countries (including many rich ones) do not lack the means to distribute the shots. They lack vaccine doses.
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And many events, including "people going to work using the subway in India" are happening one way or another. Shouldn't you care about making it safe too?
Re: What could possibly go wrong (Score:3)
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No. It's political.
It's just the US hoarding vaccines "until everyone is vaccinated", and to a lesser extent, India. This only leaves Oxford/AZ as a viable option, but a lot of psyops have been made about "moderna and pfizer good, everything else is shit", that people think moderna and pfizer are the only good vaccines and the rest is crap.
Chile is using the chinese vaccine and Argentina is mostly using the Russian vaccine (they are going to start making it here). Japan most likely doesn't want anything to
Re: What could possibly go wrong (Score:5, Informative)
No. It's political.
It's just the US hoarding vaccines "until everyone is vaccinated", and to a lesser extent, India. This only leaves Oxford/AZ as a viable option, but a lot of psyops have been made about "moderna and pfizer good, everything else is shit", that people think moderna and pfizer are the only good vaccines and the rest is crap.
Pfizer and Moderna are producing in Europe as well, and exporting to the world. Japan just didn't commit to buy these, while others (UK, Israel, even Canada and of course the EU itself) did.
Japan most likely doesn't want anything to do with "third world" vaccines like those and prefers to wait for the "good stuff".
The same is happening in Europe.
Europe is far ahead of Japan in its vaccination. Not the same order of magnitude.
Of course Japan did very well during the pandemic so far, so the rush to vaccine is not the same. But still, I am not sure hosting the Olympics is a good idea.
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Japan has been holding sporting events for a while so presumably they have some good data about transmission rates. In particular the Sumo has been running at up to 75% capacity, with spectators asked to clap instead of shout and not to do the traditional zabuton throwing.
The current plan for the Olympics is for it to be only open to Japanese spectators. Japan won't open for tourism, only athletes will be allowed to come. All tested regularly.
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I still think spectators should have been vaccinated before the event.
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The incidence of "Blood Clots" is about the same for all the vaccines. The only difference is the press coverage.
The cause of "Blood Clots" post vaccination is a defective immune system response. While vaccination appears to prevent ARDS because "priming" the immune system helps in it not going "crazy" (by cytokine storm) and killing the host, the other "defective" immune responses (such as auto-immune responses) still occur with the same incidence as they occur in "natural infection".
This is to be expect
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Did I not LITERALLY say it was a smearing campaign?
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I thank God every day that I don't live in your country. Tell us again how awful we are, please!
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Not awful but you do take everything personally, I can tell.
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I think I saw recently that even China lowered the efficacy ratings on their own China vaccine....so, if that's the case, I dunno how much faith I'd put in that over other available vaccine choices you might have.
I don't get this...the US jumped in and contracted and paid for vaccines early in the game.
You don't expect a country to take care of it's own first before others?
That's the PURPOSE of a govern
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Problem is vaccines are going bad because of antivaxxers not wanting to vaccinate in some regions.
And you could sell 10% of your production abroad and still not make a dent in your vaccination rate.
But yeah take care of yours first.
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Problem is vaccines are going bad because of antivaxxers not wanting to vaccinate in some regions.
You can't fix stupid.
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Japan has vaccinated healthcare workers and is now working down the age ranges. They have vaccine supplies and it is expected they will have enough to do all 125 million people by September.
The roll out has been a bit slow. Because they don't have trade deals that include automatic recognition of other country's medicine safety certifications they had to certify the vaccines themselves, which was only done in February. Then supply was initially slow.
Having said that they have had a total of 9.8k deaths so f
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The sad thing is that if the government had gotten itself organized and gotten a proper supply of the vaccine, they probably could have very closely approached 100% vaccination by now given the strong cultural adherance to social duty.
Why not have the US vaccinate all the athletes (Score:3)
Total athletes are under 12,000. Coaches and support personel are going to be less. The US could just donate that many doses to every athlete/coach worldwide so the games could go forward. It would look pretty good to the rest of the world, and probably pay for itself given the investment by NBC in olympic coverage.
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It doesn't have to be perfect. A 95% successful vaccine, combined with testing, should be pretty safe. Even with a crowd of 15,000.
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95% immunity, plus testing to get into the bubble, plus isolation at the beginning to make the testing more accurate, and I can imagine a zero cases result. You can also force the athletes to quarantine for 3 weeks on the way home, get tested, etc. I'd imagine they're all willing to do it to attend what they've literally trained their whole life to do.
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You obviously dont have a clue about the real world.
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OTOH, donating to athletes instead of healthcare workers and such might not look that good to the rest of the world.
To me, prioritizing athletes while countries are seeing their healthcare systems being overwhelmed does not seem like a good idea. The athletes will suffer, but I'm seeing nurses really suffering.
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If they could vaccinate the group "athletes" or "healthcare workers" I would agree with you. But that's not the case here. It's maybe 100-120 people per country (on average). And the biggest countries already have their own supplies already
What looks bad is sitting on tens of millions of doses of AZ vaccine we refuse to use and won't share.
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I guess it is the optics as much as anything. Locally we already went through similar with hockey, some wanted to vaccinate the NHL players because it is our national sport etc, generally the population looked down on the idea so instead my cities team, as an example, missed weeks of playing as the virus roared through the team.
With signs of a lockdown coming, or here depending on location, local travel restrictions starting to happen, hospitals filling up, close to a consensus that international travel nee
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The costs of vaccinating a relatively small number of athletes seem pretty small to me. The US has tons of vaccines, so donating to athletes shouldn't hurt vaccination efforts in any given country.
If you think it's depressing that you cannot travel without being stopped and fined, trust me, the "anyone can go anywhere and do anything without a mask because asking someone to wear a mask elicits a violent reaction and people won't stay home for a week" sucks more.
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I'm not sure it can be done in time. If they need 2 doses 4 weeks apart, plus a further 4 weeks to gain full immunity and make sure any lingering effects of the vaccine itself have worn off, plus time to get to Japan and get used to the timezone, do pre-competition training...
They would have to get that vaccine out to athletes very quickly, in many different countries with different import rules, some of which have not approved the vaccines for use yet.
Unfortunately Japan is going to have to rely on testing
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It takes 4 weeks from the first Pfizer stick to immunity. And the can have people travel to Japan and do it there to get around different country's rules.
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A modest proposal (Score:2)
I propose that the IAOC eliminate the fifty thousand track and swimming heats (what the hell is a heat anyway) thus forcing NBC to air other, more interesting events.
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I propose that the IAOC eliminate the fifty thousand track and swimming heats (what the hell is a heat anyway) thus forcing NBC to air other, more interesting events.
Track, swimming, and women's gymnastics is what people watch. So NBC schedules it during prime time so it's what there is to watch. It's a self-fulfilling cycle at this point.
I would say they should put together a really nice streaming site with everything in the proper order, easy to locate, no spoilers, in order to find out what hidden draws exist, but NBC still covers the Olympics like it's 1992. They have billions of dollars in advertising they must sell, because they drastically overpaid for the rig
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Your trolling was better when you had the binary nickname and you tricked people into modding you up. What's the point of your most recent efforts OMBad etc etc?
Vaccinations? (Score:3)
Background info (Score:4, Interesting)
Some observations from living in Tokyo...
The Japanese government has been trying to find a sweet spot between lockdowns and keeping the economy running. It's not working. What looks to be the largest wave of infections has kicked off in Osaka and Kyoto, and Tokyo is joining the party. 95% of new infections in Tokyo are reported to be more highly infectious new variants of the virus.
So far, the death toll has been low because the hospital system wasn't overwhelmed. But it came close last wave, so there is real cause for concern.
Japan has started vaccination very slowly. There's many contributing reasons. Hidebound bureaucrats were slow to order vaccines. So slow that it is reported the prime minister tasked various ambassadors to contact foreign manufacturers and start negotiations as an end run around their inefficiency. A similar story unfolded around applications for vaccine approval: the bureaucrats were supremely passive and much time was lost. No politician wanted to take risks, so local trials with a handful of people were run before the Pfizer vaccine was approved in late February. Since then, basically only health care workers have been vaccinated. They are just starting on people in nursing homes over the age of 75. Shinjuku will start vaccinating over 75s in the community on May 17. There is still no vaccination schedule for those under 65.
The government recently floated the idea of priority vaccinating Olympic athletes. That turned out to be so politically toxic that it clearly won't happen.
Around 100,000 athletes and hangers-on are expected for the Olympics. This is likely to be a superspreader event given the scale, the fact that people come from all over, and an unvaccinated local population. You couldn't design a better opprtunity for the virus to mutate. The government says everything is going to be perfectly safe. Everyone knows that's a lie.
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"Not working" is a relative term. Compare with the UK where we have had 150,000 deaths with a population of 65 million. Japan's population is 125 million and there have been only 9,800 deaths.
The UK has had 3 waves and 3 lockdowns now. They have been hard lockdowns, with all non-essential businesses shut, schools shut, and a stay at home order with non-essential travel and household mixing banned.
That is despite the UK being the first in the world to approve a COVID vaccine and having a decent roll-out of i
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"The government recently floated the idea of priority vaccinating Olympic athletes. That turned out to be so politically toxic that it clearly won't happen."
Really!? Toxicity from the general population, or particular segments?
Politics (resource distribution) in the US is whack, but I don't think there'd be any serious pushback for something like the Olympics. In the US one side is pushing for vaccines, and while the other side doesn't believe it is necessary, I don't know that they'd kick off a big fuss ab
Re: Background info (Score:1)
Recent polls show a super majority of the population wanting the Olympics postponed or cancelled. The idea of giving vaccines to athletes when the most vulnerable of the population is still waiting their turn flew like a lead balloon.
Olympics (Score:1)
How many people goto weighlifting or power walking tournaments ?