Weekly Update: News on Japan & the Netherlands – Week 3, 2021

Nationwide, the number of reported cases was 5,295. After Tokyo, the prefectures with the most cases were Kanagawa (737), Osaka (525), Chiba (487), Saitama (421), Aichi (247), Hyogo (218), Fukuoka (200), Kyoto (143), Okinawa (113), Tochigi (94), Hokkaido (92), Ibaraki (66), Gifu (65), Miyagi (61), Gunma (48), Yamaguchi (47) and Shizuoka (40). Seventy-nine coronavirus-related deaths were reported nationwide.

The governors will have the power to fine businesses that fail to comply. Under a state of emergency, the fine could be up to about 500,000 yen (4,000 euros), and up to about 300,000 yen (2,000 euros) in places where “preventative measures” are being implemented. Refusal of an onsite inspection could be subject to a fine as well.

Another bill includes new stipulations that will allow governors to request people who are infected to stay at designated accommodations. If people refuse, governors can recommend they be admitted to a hospital. If they still fail to comply, or if they escape from the hospital, they could face a maximum fine of 1 million yen (8,000 euros) or a prison sentence of up to one year.

One of the three bills is a revision to the quarantine law. The bill stipulates that officials will be allowed to ask people arriving in Japan from abroad to self-quarantine for 14 days in principle. Officials will be able to have people who refuse self-quarantine to stay at facilities. If people fail to comply, they could also risk a 1 million yen fine or one-year prison sentence. The government plans to approve the draft bills in a Cabinet meeting later this week and have them passed swiftly in the current session of the Diet.

The government hopes to start vaccinations for medical workers around late February and for the elderly in late March, followed by those with underlying health conditions. They plan to step up coordination with municipalities, so they will be able to administer vaccines smoothly to residents. It also plans a public relations campaign to encourage people to get their shots. The government will continue to call on people to cooperate to reduce commuting by 70% and refrain from nonessential outings.

Vaccinations are slated to begin in Japan by late February, starting with medical workers, followed by people aged 65 or older from late March, then people with pre-existing conditions and those caring for the elderly. Suga, who turned 72 last month, falls in the second category and will be inoculated when his turn comes, said an official from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Administrative reform minister Taro Kono, who was appointed to lead the vaccination efforts, promised the swift distribution of doses across the country. “I will do everything in my power to ensure safe and effective vaccines can be given to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday. The distribution of the vaccines has various logistical challenges, including the need to store some types at subzero temperatures.

Kono said his job would be clearing those hurdles, but the government’s coronavirus response would continue under the purview of economic and fiscal policy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and health minister Norihisa Tamura.

Suga has vowed to secure vaccines for Japan’s population of 126 million by the first half of 2021, with the government having agreements with Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna Inc. to receive enough doses for 145 million people.

The Pfizer vaccine, the only one already under review by the health ministry, is expected to receive fast-track approval based on clinical trials conducted in other countries. Tamura said for vaccinations to move forward according to the government’s timeline, approval would need to come in mid-February. “We are making plans with that in mind,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The government increased the upper limit of the subsidy from 40,000 yen when Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide declared the country’s second state of emergency over the virus in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures last week amid a third wave of infections.

The declaration was expanded on Wednesday to cover a total of 11 prefectures also including Osaka, Aichi and Fukuoka. Under the state of emergency through 7 February, restaurants and bars are asked to stop serving alcohol by 7 p.m. and close their business by 8 p.m. The central government had allocated about 270 billion yen by the end of last year for local governments to provide such subsidies.

The government has set aside a total of 11.5 trillion yen in reserve funds under two extra budgets for the current fiscal year from April to be used in response to the pandemic. Following Friday’s cabinet approval, 5.66 trillion yen remains in the funds.

The changes are expected to last at least until 7 February, the current end date of the virus state of emergency. Railway operators have already decided to bring forward last train departures in the Tokyo area from this spring. In addition to responding to fewer passengers traveling late at night, they aimed to improve conditions for maintenance staff who work overnight after train services conclude.

“The time to intervene is now,” he said. Kuipers was concerned about the B117 coronavirus mutation which originated in the United Kingdom. He said that he believes that every 100 people contagious with the strain more common to the Netherlands will infect 95 others. A hundred infected with the B117 variant will pass the virus on to 130 others. “That is still a conservative estimate,” he stated. “In the bleakest scenario, there will be 1,700 people in the ICU by the end of March, more than the peak of March last year.”

Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) and Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Health, CDA) will shortly introduce additional measures to prevent the spread of the corona virus, Minister Hugo de Jonge wrote in a letter to Parliament on Tuesday. A press conference will be held on Wednesday afternoon. De Jonge writes in his letter that the press conference will take place at the beginning of the afternoon. It has not been disclosed which measures will then be announced.

It is known that the introduction of a curfew has been discussed for some time. The cabinet has asked the Outbreak Management Team (OMT) for urgent advice, and the mayors in the Security Council will discuss the measure on Tuesday evening. The curfew should ensure that social contacts in the evenings are limited. Many infections now take place in people’s homes, for example through visits to the floor.

By announcing its resignation, the Rutte III cabinet is now officially an “outgoing cabinet”. This means the cabinet resigned, but remains in office until a new cabinet is chosen, because someone has to run the country. The cabinet will still deal with current cases – which here means mainly the coronavirus pandemic – but controversial or sensitive subjects will be left to the next cabinet. What is controversial or sensitive will be determined by parliament and the Senate.

The four coalition parties also agreed that as outgoing cabinet, Rutte III will remain in charge of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, as Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said before the Council of Ministers. “In this area everything will stay the same. So there will still be a majority for the corona plans in parliament,” a source close to the cabinet said to NOS.

The Netherlands will be holding parliamentary elections on 17 March, with some polling stations opening earlier this year to allow for more social distancing during the pandemic.

The GGD expects to vaccinate 66,000 healthcare workers per week, and will scale up the operation as more vaccine doses are delivered to the Netherlands. This week, vaccination for the disabled is taking place in more than ten care facilities across the country.

Care home residents will receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Transportation of the Pfizer vaccine is complicated due to the low -70 degrees Celsius temperature required to store the medicine. “RIVM has worked out how the vaccine can be provided to these institutions,” the Health Ministry stated.

“These are large institutions with residents who are spread over numerous small locations across the country. The hospital pharmacists take care of the distribution and provide support to guarantee quality and medical care,” said the LNAZ, the national network of acute care providers.

In the upcoming weeks, the coronavirus vaccine, Moderna will also be used in the fight against the disease. It will primarily be given to the elderly and people with a disability living in small care facilities. These vaccinations will be carried out by their general practitioner. Acute care workers will receive their second dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine beginning on 27 January.

The government made the decision based on advice from the OMT, emphasizing that it was an important way of reducing the amount of close-contact moments between adults, which “should be avoided as much as possible. Organized urgent care will continue for children who are disadvantaged or in a vulnerable circumstance, or whose parents work in a critical job.

The OMT said it has not yet found evidence proving that children are more susceptible to contracting the B117 mutation of the COVID-19 infection than the variant more common to the Netherlands, but it also said there were still too many unknown factors. Previously, Rutte said that the decision to reopen schools early would be primarily based on research into the spread of the B117 variant, a more contagious version of the coronavirus which quickly spread through the United Kingdom.

After an outbreak at a schools near Rotterdam, a study looking at B117 infections among residents of Lansingerland, Zuid-Holland was being carried out by the Erasmus Medical Center, the GGD municipal health service there, and public health agency RIVM. That study began over a week ago.

“There are also too many concerns about the number of infections in the Netherlands and the spread of new variants of the virus in society,” the government said in its statement. “The opening of primary education and childcare will be included in the reconsideration of all lockdown measures, which apply until at least 8 February.” Secondary schools were already included on the list of locations closed up to that date.

According to the AWVN, combining working from home with teaching children increasingly leads to stress and tension among employees. “Now that the schools remain closed for longer, it is clear that this problem will not resolve itself. This week there are talks between the unions, employers and the government about a form of leave.”

Of course, if employees take leave, they cannot work. “But then it is flexible. Then you can look at what times people can or cannot work. For example, it is not convenient to have a meeting in the morning when a child needs the parent’s attention.” Time off in combination with other working hours could help, the employers’ association thinks.

Corona leave should also apply to quarantine cases as far as employers are concerned. “Of course there are also a lot of people who have to go to work to do that. But increasingly they cannot come because they have corona or have been in contact with someone who has it.”

In such cases, the employees are not allowed to report sick, this is only allowed if you are really sick, and then the employer pays for the costs. “Or people have to take leave.” But who ultimately has to pay for the desired corona leave? “The question is whether the government can contribute to this in the context of crisis management,” says the AWVN spokesperson.

More than two hundred authors have been made statements on their social media as well, to buy books through the websites of ailing local bookstores rather than major sales websites.

The CPNB says it is very happy with the success of the campaign, but above all hopes that the effect will be permanent. “We hope that readers will continue to find their way to local bookstores, even if the lockdown continues for weeks longer than it is now,” said a spokesman.