COVID 19 - The Fourth State of Emergency in Japan

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 Yet another State of Emergency was declared in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo, on 22 April, 2021.

There was the fourth wave of Corona virus from April until June. This time Osaka and surrounding area were badly hit.

The reason was not clear. It was possibly due to May holiday season. This year we had three consecutive national holiday after the first weekend of May. So we had a 5 consecutive holiday from 1st to 5th of May. People might have travelled far compared to last year’s May holiday period. 

The tourism industry had a glimmer of hope, because some of the local authorities resumed their own travel campaigns. This campaign is known as GoTo Travel campaign, which subsidize about the half of the cost for accommodation. Each local authorities gave unique names to their own campaigns, such as "Himitsu no Tabi (non-crowded trip) by Fukuoka prefecture, or "Gokan ni Gochisou" (Feast to the five senses ) by Ishikawa Prefecture. Some of them even offered discount for the meals at restaurants. Many people seemed to have went out using the discount by this campaign, despite the surge in the number of patients in large cities. Apparently some hotels had more booking compared to last year when people literary stayed in at home. 

The rise of COVID positive cases among younger generation was one concern. People between 20 to 39 years old were the most virus contracted generation. I felt they should be given more priority for vaccine rollout.

I briefly worked in Tokyo from April to August. The area of Tokyo where I worked seemed to be quiet and not crowded. I felt safe there. Besides, the peak of the fourth wave once seemingly subsided around the end of June. However, the number of COID patients remained high, far from the ideal number. I could not resist to check the number of patients in Tokyo every evening, just to be sure that the number of patients in Tokyo was on the decline.


 Then came the fifth wave in July. This time the number of patients increased  rapidly. The government declared the fourth state of emergency in some large cities, such as Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba. Later on, the governors of many local authorities requested to the government to declare the state of emergency in their areas as well. In the end, the state of emergency was declared in 19 local authorities, with prevention measures were imposed on 8 local authorities. 

This time, there was overshoots. The highest number of COVID positive case hitted 25,871.

Coincidently, Tokyo was hosting the Olympics during the COVID fifth wave. I could only pray for the safety of the Olympians and staffs.



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