The state of emergency and the 6th wave of COVID contracted patients in Japan

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 On 10 September, the Japanese government decided to extend the state of emergency in 19 local authorities until 30September, 2021.

At that time, the number of newly Covid contracted patients in Japan was around 9,000 per day. The number was still high enough to keep the restriction.

2 weeks have passed since then, and the number of COVID positive patient is now decreased to 2143 nationwide. The number of newly contracted patients in Tokyo and Osaka is still needs to be watched, but it is gradually but surely decreasing.

Apart from working from home, washing hands, wearing facemask, limit the number of people when eating out and vaccine – what did we do to decrease the newly contracted patients?

I went out today to bigger city in Kanagawa with my friend, and the station was packed with people. It looked just like any other weekend before corona.

Only the thing that we noticed was that a department store s restricting the number of people coming in – the floor was already full with people, queuing up to buy some cakes and sweets. People lined up in queues without keeping social distance.  

One guess is that people are wearing facemasks, preventing droplet infection. Also, people were talking in hushed tone, so possibly there were no spatting while they are talking.

The state of emergency will be lifted on 30 September. I reckon that business will gradually go back to normal. However, do we really go back to the lifestyle before corona? Do we carry on with working from home, or will the shops continue with limited opening hours?

Some of the doctors and specialists are already mentioning the COVID 6th wave. I have no idea if we can avoid the surge of corona positive patients like we have experienced during August 2021 (topped around 25,871). As colder and wet weather approaching, we will probably need to brace up not only for corona, but for common cold or influenza.

Looks like we need to keep some of the restrictions even the state of emergency will be lifted. Vaccine, facemasks, and sanitizer. These will still be essential thing. Unfortunately we can’t party yet, we can’t dine out with a large groups of friends yet. But with caution, I hope we can go back to our normal state once again.



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