More PLAGUE SHIPS for Japan...

[Russell]

Interesting podcast about the topic:

Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology.

I watched it this morning, and can highly recommend it. Very interesting interview.

[Coligny]

https://www.gohkokhan.com/corona-virus- ... d-tweaked/

[CrankyBastard]

https://covid19japan.com

[Thanatos' embalmed botfly]

Interesting podcast about the topic:

Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology.

that was great

my takeaways:

-hand washing and masks are largely cosmetic and really only serve to assauge our panic by being a "something we can control" measure
-the fucken thing is in the fucken air
-it's not an oldies thing.
-it's goign to carve up merkas fatty bastard population like Rieko Ioane carving up the Lions backline
-once China releases their poor lockdown pricks theyre all gonna get sick anyway.
-jury's out on closing schools
-6 months+ from now its gonna taper off when everyone who was gonna get sick has gotten sick, to whatever degree, and MAY have developed some immunity so they dont get it again (cant recall this exact part)
-exercise is a great thing. all fat fucks should be forming an orderly queue to take it in turns bench-pressing my cock and balls.

[Russell]

Interesting podcast about the topic:

Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology.

that was great

my takeaways:

-hand washing and masks are largely cosmetic and really only serve to assauge our panic by being a "something we can control" measure
-the fucken thing is in the fucken air
-it's not an oldies thing.
-it's goign to carve up merkas fatty bastard population like Rieko Ioane carving up the Lions backline
-once China releases their poor lockdown pricks theyre all gonna get sick anyway.
-jury's out on closing schools
-6 months+ from now its gonna taper off when everyone who was gonna get sick has gotten sick, to whatever degree, and MAY have developed some immunity so they dont get it again (cant recall this exact part)
-exercise is a great thing. all fat fucks should be forming an orderly queue to take it in turns bench-pressing my cock and balls.

You misinterpret the hand washing thing. He still recommends it in the video.

[Mike Oxlong]

https://covid19japan.com

LOL! It counted backwards for me this morning.

[Russell]

[CrankyBastard]

https://covid19japan.com

LOL! It counted backwards for me this morning.

Fugg'n great ain't it!!
Batten down and wait it out is all I can do at my age.

[Russell]

Pence gonna hope and pray the infected back to health.

Seriously though, the CDC tends to have their shit together:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/summary.html

It looks more and more likely that this is going to be a major disaster in the US.

Coronavirus: Trump's stumbles and testing failures pave way to disaster, experts say

Efforts to avoid panic backfired, says surgeon as country braces for wave of infections without coherent government response

The US is on course to be severely ravaged by the coronavirus outbreak due to a delayed and dysfunctional testing regime and misleading messaging from the Trump administration, public health experts have warned.

As of Friday, there were more than 1,600 confirmed cases of the Covid-19 virus across the US, with 41 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. However, the actual number of infected Americans is certain to be far higher, with the true toll obscured by a calamitous lack of testing.

A lack of planning and restrictions that barred testing people without symptoms, even though the virus can be asymptomatic for some time, or those not arriving from overseas virus hotspots has needlessly worsened the situation, critics said.

In the period from last Sunday until Wednesday morning, the CDC tested just 77 people in the US. By stark comparison the Utah Jazz basketball team alone managed to test 58 people as the NBA, along with scores of schools, Broadway shows and various other cultural and sporting events were shut down. Even in Washington state, where 31 people have died, health officials have had to ration test kits.

On 31 January the Trump administration restricted travel from China, where Covid-19 originated, but then efforts to ramp up testing and ensure containment stalled. In a key setback, the administration rejected World Health Organization testing kits in favor of developing its own, which turned out to be faulty.

“The response has been frustrating and disappointing,” said Thomas Chen-chia Tsai, a surgeon in Boston and faculty member of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “The strict quarantine measures in China bought the rest of the world a few weeks of time but in the US we were on the sidelines rather than reacting. It was a missed opportunity. If there was a targeted response we’d be in a very different position now.

“The US government didn’t want to cause panic but Americans panic when there they sense there’s no plan. That vacuum creates panic.”

This muddled response was exacerbated by Donald Trump who, reportedly fearful of the impact upon the stock market and his own re-election prospects, initially dismissed fears over the coronavirus as a “hoax” before stating that infections were “going very substantially down, not up”. The administration promised millions of testing kits would be easily available to Americans.

All of these pronouncements have proved untrue, leading to sharp criticism of Trump.

In an unusually stinging editorial, Holden Thorp, a chemist and editor-in-chief of Science, said the president’s “distortion and denial is dangerous and almost certainly contributed to the federal government’s sluggish response. After three years of debating whether the words of this administration matter, the words are now clearly a matter of life and death.”

The worsening situation has been acknowledged even by allies of the president. “We probably lost the chance to have an outcome like South Korea,” said Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration chief under Trump, referencing a country that has helped curb the outbreak by testing nearly 20,000 people every day. “We must do everything to avert the tragic suffering being borne by Italy.”

Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, admitted in testimony to Congress this week that authorities had failed to respond swiftly to the spread of coronavirus.

“The idea of anybody getting [testing] easily the way people in other countries are doing it, we are not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes. But we are not,” he said. “It is a failing. I mean, let’s admit it.”

The US is now bracing itself for a huge wave of new infections without a coherent federal government response.

Hampered structurally by the country’s lack of paid sick leave and a for-profit healthcare system that makes going to the doctor prohibitively expensive for millions of Americans, states and cities are falling back on “social distancing” measures such as shutting down large gatherings and promoting good hygiene.

Belated actions by Trump, such as banning travel from much of Europe, have done little to tackle a virus that has already raced across the American continent, with experts now predicting that tens of millions of people will become infected.

Andy Slavitt, former head of Medicare under Barack Obama’s administration, tweeted that there were expectations of “over 1 million deaths in the US since the virus was not contained & we cannot even test for it. This will be recorded as a major preventable public health disaster.”

Even a sudden surge in testing, combined with accurate, sober advice from the Trump administration, won’t prevent a huge strain placed upon a fragmented American healthcare system that delivers wildly different outcomes for people depending upon their financial means. Ominously, there are far fewer hospital beds per capita in the US compared to the Lombardy region in Italy, where the coronavirus has overwhelmed the healthcare system.

“We don’t have all the beds we need and if this thing hits us full on we are going to be up the creek,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

“We started with a very crippled public health system that has been underfunded for many years and we knew that something like this would cause us huge challenges. We are seeing that now. We are planning for the worst but hoping for the best.”

Link

A very sobering outlook.

Also in the Guardian there is an interesting article on why coronavirus testing in the US has been such a disaster.

I must admit that I was a bit skeptical about the policy followed by Japan, but looking at the results up to now (i.e., the number of deaths), it seems to be working. All people who died are in their 70's, 80's, and 90's, which are the most vulnerable groups. Surprisingly, there are no deaths yet of people younger than that. I am still worried that they do not test enough, but let's see how it works out. It is unlikely that they will be able to suppress this virus in Japan, but at least they seem to be able to delay it, so that the healthcare system does not become overwhelmed.

[yanpa]

Unless there's an extremely watertight coverup going on it certainly is muddling through well enough to have dropped out of the global spotlight.

Meanwhile over in the Untied Brexitania Kipperdom of Gammonistan people are about to find out whether Covid-19 will respect the country's newly gained independence from the oppressive EU with its fancy pan-continental medical agency etc.

Herd immunity: will the UK's coronavirus strategy work?

[Russell]

Unless there's an extremely watertight coverup going on it certainly is muddling through well enough to have dropped out of the global spotlight.

Meanwhile over in the Untied Brexitania Kipperdom of Gammonistan people are about to find out whether Covid-19 will respect the country's newly gained independence from the oppressive EU with its fancy pan-continental medical agency etc.

Herd immunity: will the UK's coronavirus strategy work?

Yep, this!

Having the population get herd immunity is the least of the worries now. Eventually they will get it anyway. But important is to get it with the least number of casualties. Promisingly, Boris has suddenly changed course, and now there is even talk of the military marching through the streets.

In the mean time I am just wondering what Japan is doing right. I came up with this:

• Japanese greeting is by bowing, rather than by shaking hands. This cuts down on the germs being exchanged each time.
• Public toilets in Japan are relatively clean. Toilets seem to be a major source of transmission of this virus. That said, there are too many of those hand dryers, blowing shit around.
• Fish is common in the national diet. It contains vitamin D, which makes one resistant to catching colds.
• There is not much obesity in Japan, and the population is in relatively good health.

I am sure there are also things that Japan is doing wrong.

Any opinions/speculations what they do right/wrong are welcome!

[Mike Oxlong]

Yep, this!

Having the population get herd immunity is the least of the worries now. Eventually they will get it anyway. But important is to get it with the least number of casualties. Promisingly, Boris has suddenly changed course, and now there is even talk of the military marching through the streets.

In the mean time I am just wondering what Japan is doing right. I came up with this:

• Japanese greeting is by bowing, rather than by shaking hands. This cuts down on the germs being exchanged each time.
• Public toilets in Japan are relatively clean. Toilets seem to be a major source of transmission of this virus. That said, there are too many of those hand dryers, blowing shit around.
• Fish is common in the national diet. It contains vitamin D, which makes one resistant to catching colds.
• There is not much obesity in Japan, and the population is in relatively good health.

I am sure there are also things that Japan is doing wrong.

Any opinions/speculations what they do right/wrong are welcome!

Quick question: are any of these points on the list shared in common with Worst Korea?

[Grumpy Gramps]

• Japanese greeting is by bowing, rather than by shaking hands. This cuts down on the germs being exchanged each time.

Any opinions/speculations what they do right/wrong

• Compared to parts of Europe, especially the south of it, Japan has become less family-centered, more "hikikomori" imo.

[Russell]

Yep, this!

Having the population get herd immunity is the least of the worries now. Eventually they will get it anyway. But important is to get it with the least number of casualties. Promisingly, Boris has suddenly changed course, and now there is even talk of the military marching through the streets.

In the mean time I am just wondering what Japan is doing right. I came up with this:

• Japanese greeting is by bowing, rather than by shaking hands. This cuts down on the germs being exchanged each time.
• Public toilets in Japan are relatively clean. Toilets seem to be a major source of transmission of this virus. That said, there are too many of those hand dryers, blowing shit around.
• Fish is common in the national diet. It contains vitamin D, which makes one resistant to catching colds.
• There is not much obesity in Japan, and the population is in relatively good health.

I am sure there are also things that Japan is doing wrong.

Any opinions/speculations what they do right/wrong are welcome!

Quick question: are any of these points on the list shared in common with Worst Korea?

Not only a quick, but also a good question, because Worst Korea is considered by the WHO as an example of how a country should react (and BTW Taiwan is another one, IMHO).

As far as I am aware, Koreans do not bow, certainly not to their old colonial masters. Regarding public toilets, I do not recall a bad impression about that at the times I visited them. At the very least, their toilets are cleaner than Chinese toilets, but that is of course a very low bar. Fish seems to be pretty common in their diet, and their populations seems to be in reasonable shape, though older people may be less fit, since pensions there seem to be worse than in Japan (which is also not too good, as compared to many European countries).

What I consider Koreans (at least the southern variant) good in is that they address problems more head-on than Japanese do. Once they discovered their corona virus problem, they did a hell-of-a-lot of testing, and that is why they are now in a reasonable shape.

[Russell]

• Japanese greeting is by bowing, rather than by shaking hands. This cuts down on the germs being exchanged each time.

Any opinions/speculations what they do right/wrong

• Compared to parts of Europe, especially the south of it, Japan has become less family-centered, more "hikikomori" imo.

Hmm, that is an interesting thought.

Being hikikomori may be an advantage in a corona virus-infected country. Kind of survival of the fittest.

[yanpa]

Very subjective and broad-brush-stroke kind of thing, but the national ability to gaman and shoganai without getting all pissy about individual "rights" seems to be quite advantageous in this context, following the UK situation (trying to persuade elderly parents that "now" rather than "soon" would be a good time to go all hikikomori) it seems a lot of public events are going ahead at the same point in the cycle where Japan was voluntarily shutting stuff down.

Also the ingrained facemask habit, sure not much use in warding off infection, but presumably somewhat useful in reducing the effectiveness of infectees for sharing their virus-laden bounty with all and sundry.

[Thanatos' embalmed botfly]

yeah reckon its the relative lack of fatties as well as the madcap stiffy for face masks

But mainly the prevalent hikokomori mindset and fuck-all of the seppo "wahhh, wahhh but what about MY rights" mindset.

"You mean I'm now actually encouraged to stay home and avoid subjecting myself to the daily societally-crippling twin cornerstones of hatred and resentment upon which Japan's hierachal system of pyramidical bullying and mysogynistic denigration and objectification of women is founded? Oh fuck yeah, where do I sign up u vicious fucking arseholes?"

[matsuki]

Very subjective and broad-brush-stroke kind of thing, but the national ability to gaman and shoganai without getting all pissy about individual "rights" seems to be quite advantageous in this context

Quite obvious when you hear the entitled tales of quarantine from the cruise ship passengers. "We're being treated like prisoners!!" At least they're off ship...that's probably the most obvious good move that was made in dealing with that floating virus hotbox.

I think the lack of data is leading to too many false assumptions. General lack of testing push coupled with healthy, not "at risk" carriers who show no symptoms not being tested us artificially keeping the infected numbers low. Reoccurring stories of people testing positive with no symptoms, then coming down with a fever seem to show mitigation efforts aren't going to be as effective as we thought. If the expert on the Joe Rogan podcast is to be believed, this shit spreads like wildfire and no amount of caution is going to protect you if you're out and about, coming in contact with carriers. Not that Japan/Asia cares but nearly every professional is pointing out that the cheapo surgical masks that everyone is wearing will NOT protect you. The effectiveness of it stopping wearers who are infected is also very limited.

I'm most curious as to how things are on the ground in China. They've already declared victory and published a book on their glorious fight against this evil bioweapon of US origin...but I really want to know how effective their shutdown actually was. (not the BS data they are producing but the real situation)

[Mike Oxlong]

I'm sure the bioweapon was of US origin - now if the Chinese would kindly tell us which lab they stole it from we could clear this whole mess right up.

[Russell]

[Mike Oxlong]

Japan testing for coronavirus at fraction of capacity

[yanpa]

PLAGUE SHIP DISGORGES CORONAZOMBIES IN SYDNEY

[Russell]

Looks like I am not the only one wondering...

Japan was expecting a coronavirus explosion. Where is it?

Japan was one of first countries outside of China hit by the coronavirus and now it’s one of the least-affected among developed nations. That’s puzzling health experts.

Unlike China’s draconian isolation measures, the mass quarantine in much of Europe and big U.S. cities ordering people to shelter in place, Japan has imposed no lockdown. While there have been disruptions caused by school closures, life continues as normal for much of the population. Tokyo rush-hour trains are still packed and restaurants remain open.

The looming question is whether Japan has dodged a bullet or is about to be hit. The government contends it has been aggressive in identifying clusters and containing the spread, which makes its overall and per capita number for infections among the lowest among developed economies. Critics argue Japan has been lax in testing, perhaps looking to keep the infection numbers low as it’s set to host the Olympics in Tokyo in July.

The nation’s initial slow response to the virus, its handling of the Diamond Princess cruise ship — where about one in five people aboard became infected while it was quarantined in Yokohama — and the decision not to initially block travel from China left the nation open to criticism it could become home to a “second Wuhan.” Steps taken to contain the virus — such as shutting schools and calling off large events — now look tame in comparison to what others have done.

But as of March 18, Japan has only had a little more than 900 confirmed cases — excluding the cruise ship. The U.S., France and Germany were all above 7,000 cases and Italy was nearing 36,000. Neighbor South Korea, which tested aggressively amid a surge of confirmed infections from late February, was at about 8,500 cases but its new infections are now tapering off.

In Tokyo, among the world’s most densely packed metropolitan areas, cases made up 0.0008 percent of the population. Hokkaido, Japan’s worst-hit area, has already lifted a state of emergency as new cases have slowed.

Kenji Shibuya, a professor at King’s College London and a former chief of health policy at the World Health Organization, sees two possibilities: that Japan has contained the spread by focusing on outbreak clusters, or that there are outbreaks yet to be found.

“Both are reasonable, but my guess is that Japan is about to see the explosion and will inevitably shift from containment to delay-the-peak phase very soon,” he said. “The number of tests is increasing, but not enough.”

Japan’s proximity to China may have helped in raising the alarm when the disease was in a more controllable phase. In late January, shortly after Japan’s first infection of a person who had not been to China, hand sanitizers started popping up in offices and stores, mask sales spiked and people began to accept some basic steps to protect public health. This may have also helped flatten the curve for infections in the country.

“Japan has been fortunate that only a small number of cases of SARS-CoV-2 were brought into the country, and they seem to have remained concentrated in finite areas, easy to control,” said Laurie Garrett, an American global health writer, referring to the technical name of the coronavirus.

Despite the infectiousness of the virus, a March 9 report by a government-appointed panel said that about 80 percent of the cases identified in Japan didn’t pass on the infection. But there’s little consensus over why and skepticism over whether the same government that was issued a rare rebuke by U.S. health authorities for letting the Diamond Princess outbreak get out of hand is getting it right on coronavirus.

“Many infection clusters have been identified at a comparatively early stage,” the panel said in a report this month. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cited those findings when he said Saturday that Japan didn’t yet need to declare a state of emergency.

Japan may have some built-in advantages, such as a culture where handshakes and hugs are less common than in other Group of Seven countries. It also has rates of hand-washing above those in Europe.

Cases of seasonal flu have been declining for seven straight weeks, just as the coronavirus was spreading, indicating Japanese may have taken to heart the need to adopt some basic steps to stem infectious diseases. Tokyo Metropolitan Infectious Disease Surveillance Center data shows that influenza cases this year are well below normal levels, with nationwide cases hitting a low according to data going back to 2004.

Japan has ramped up its capacity but has tested only around 5 percent the number of people as in neighboring South Korea, despite a larger population. But the situation in Italy, which tested extensively only to see hospitals overwhelmed, has also given some pause.

“Italy’s mortality rate is almost triple Japan’s,” said Yoko Tsukamoto, a professor of infection control at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido. “Part of the reason is if you get tested, you get quarantined, so it means that they don’t have enough beds for relatively nonsevere patients.”

Japan has tested more than 15,000 people as of Wednesday, and despite discouraging checks on those who don’t have symptoms or contact with a carrier, the infection rate lies at 5.6 percent . That compares to around 3 percent in South Korea, but 18 percent in Italy. But Japan still faces an uphill battle to contain the infection.

“It is really difficult to identify every case, because so many infections are mild. Containment has been working in Hong Kong and Singapore by aggressive case-finding,” said Ben Cowling, an epidemiology professor at the University of Hong Kong. “I would expect a gradual increase in cases in Japan because of silent transmission in the community.”

Japanese officials say they’re confident in their testing regimen. “We don’t see a need to use all of our testing capacity, just because we have it,” health ministry official Yasuyuki Sahara said at a briefing Tuesday. “Neither do we think it’s necessary to test people just because they’re worried.”

Should Japan see a jump, it may be better suited than many peers to handle the surge. It has about 13 hospital beds per 1,000 people, the highest among G7 nations and more than triple the rate for Italy, the U.S., U.K. and Canada, according to World Bank data.

Even if Japan may not be counting all those infected, hospitals aren’t being stretched thin and there has been no spike in pneumonia cases, health officials said. While the prime minister has stepped up border controls, a government expert panel said Thursday it may be possible to reopen schools in areas without new confirmed cases when the academic year begins in April.

“We will do all that is possible to intensify the coronavirus outbreak,” Abe told his ruling party this week.

Link

OK, I edited that last sentence; replace "intensify" by "end".

[yanpa]

My developing internet armchair handwavy theory is that Japan got plain lucky with a number of factors which overall have helped stem the casual spread of the virus (so far).

First, China is the big giant country right next door relatively speaking so people take a bit more notice of what's going on; I guess had it started say in Brazil, it would just have been exotic crisis in far away place for a long time until shit! Everyone dying!

Then you have this whacking great plague ship parked in Yokohama for a couple of weeks giving a very practical demonstration of what this thing can do if you're not careful. People are aware earlier, the hand sanitizers get put out, it's mask season anyway.

Government makes enough decisions early enough to further change behaviour and reduce social contact (closing schools, encouraging people to work from home, stagger commutes etc.). I'm not claiming they were necessarily the bestest decisions, but at least they weren't denying it was a hoax by the Democratic Party or coming up with "herd immunity" plans based on the wrong premise etc..

Vectors like hand shaking and hugging and cheek kissing simply don't exist. People tend not to sneeze loudly and publicly (all that practice sniffing the snot back inside behind the facemask is starting to be an evolutionary advantage). Fairly easy to find somewhere to wash your hands, quite often these days without having to touch the tap or soap dispenser.

Etcetera etcera. Probably no one decisive factor. Question is how long it will hold up...

The alternative is that there's a massive cover-up going on, but if so it must be a damn watertight one.

Anyway just to put some cheer on things: We’re not going back to normal - Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever.

[wagyl]

While we are linking stuff, another time sensitive Private Eye link. Classic cover this fortnight!

[The author] works in the world of post-viral fatigue and so is expecting an increase in workload further down the line. Evidence suggests that if you’re fearful and anxious when and after you contract a virus, it makes the symptoms and long-term sequelae worse. And the UK is currently bingeing on fear.

He goes on to suggest some simple activities we can do to boost our immune systems, reduce transmission and improve lung function. I recommend we all take part.

[Russell]

My developing internet armchair handwavy theory is that Japan got plain lucky with a number of factors which overall have helped stem the casual spread of the virus (so far).

First, China is the big giant country right next door relatively speaking so people take a bit more notice of what's going on; I guess had it started say in Brazil, it would just have been exotic crisis in far away place for a long time until shit! Everyone dying!

Then you have this whacking great plague ship parked in Yokohama for a couple of weeks giving a very practical demonstration of what this thing can do if you're not careful. People are aware earlier, the hand sanitizers get put out, it's mask season anyway.

Government makes enough decisions early enough to further change behaviour and reduce social contact (closing schools, encouraging people to work from home, stagger commutes etc.). I'm not claiming they were necessarily the bestest decisions, but at least they weren't denying it was a hoax by the Democratic Party or coming up with "herd immunity" plans based on the wrong premise etc..

Vectors like hand shaking and hugging and cheek kissing simply don't exist. People tend not to sneeze loudly and publicly (all that practice sniffing the snot back inside behind the facemask is starting to be an evolutionary advantage). Fairly easy to find somewhere to wash your hands, quite often these days without having to touch the tap or soap dispenser.

Etcetera etcera. Probably no one decisive factor. Question is how long it will hold up...

The alternative is that there's a massive cover-up going on, but if so it must be a damn watertight one.

Anyway just to put some cheer on things: We’re not going back to normal - Social distancing is here to stay for much more than a few weeks. It will upend our way of life, in some ways forever.

You could be right on many of those factors.

BTW, there is a report from Japan's health ministry (admittedly, not the most reliable source) that states that the spreading factor R, which determines how fast a disease spreads, is in a range from well-below 1 (disease dying out) to just above 1 (disease slowly spreading). It would explain why the graph of the number of infections over time is increasing only linearly and not exponentially. That said, Mike seems to have observed that reported infection numbers are sometimes adjusted downwards, so I do not know how reliable the numbers are.

But yes, your point that Japan has just been plain lucky rings some truth to it. Though the number of tourists to Japan has been increasing steadily over the years, it is still not that high. Barcelona, for example, has already more tourists visiting than Japan as a whole. Though there have been lots of Chinese tourists to Japan, it is nothing compared to Europe, which is now paying the price. I don't blame the Chinese, BTW, but it is a fact that the disease started there, and its timing with the Chinese New Year was really unfortunate.

[matsuki]

Though there have been lots of Chinese tourists to Japan, it is nothing compared to Europe, which is now paying the price. I don't blame the Chinese, BTW, but it is a fact that the disease started there, and its timing with the Chinese New Year was really unfortunate.

Timing was really fucked but unless the Chinese tourists had been in Wuhan or in contact with someone who was, they likelihood they brought it to Japan isn't so high. Could be lucky on that front.

The blame lies with the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese people. Allowing those disease producing wetmarkets, subsequent cover up, and the ongoing lies and disinformation coming out of China is all CCP bullshit.

If this is indeed a bullet dodged, I imagine a fully functional Olympics on schedule will likely be like trying to dodge a gattling gun. What happens then? Maybe Abe will make Tokyo 2020 "Japanese only" It's not racism, you understand, so sorry.

[wagyl]

If this is indeed a bullet dodged, I imagine a fully functional Olympics on schedule will likely be like trying to dodge a gattling gun. What happens then? Maybe Abe will make Tokyo 2020 "Japanese only" It's not racism, you understand, so sorry.

My prediction: no other country will risk allowing their elite athletes to travel. No need for Abe to act to make it a "Gold Silver and Bronze all Japan dais."

[matsuki]

If this is indeed a bullet dodged, I imagine a fully functional Olympics on schedule will likely be like trying to dodge a gattling gun. What happens then? Maybe Abe will make Tokyo 2020 "Japanese only" It's not racism, you understand, so sorry.

My prediction: no other country will risk allowing their elite athletes to travel. No need for Abe to act to make it a "Gold Silver and Bronze all Japan dais."

It's starting to look that way.

Imagine looking back at this in 2040...

With questions of safety due to radiation and an ongoing pandemic, Japan refused to cancel the 2020 Olympics, resulting in record Japanese medalists, competing in front of an entirely Japanese audience. Then Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo, had this to say recording the unlikely medalists: "The conditions of the Olympics matter not! We are za champions!" Although Abe Shinzo died in a mainland prison years ago, citizens of the Chinese province of Japan still revere him with a day of eating rotten pig guts to show their solidarity with his gastrointestinal condition.

[Wage Slave]

If this is indeed a bullet dodged, I imagine a fully functional Olympics on schedule will likely be like trying to dodge a gattling gun. What happens then? Maybe Abe will make Tokyo 2020 "Japanese only" It's not racism, you understand, so sorry.

My prediction: no other country will risk allowing their elite athletes to travel. No need for Abe to act to make it a "Gold Silver and Bronze all Japan dais."

Is it Abe's decision to make? Or is it in fact the IOC's in the first instance on the grounds that it is their games? I saw DT on TV today saying that Mr Abe has an important and finely balanced decision to make and assuring us all that he had given him the benefit of his wisdom (He's almost always right you know) but actually it isn't really Mr Abe's decision at this stage. Or is it?