Weekly Update: News on Japan & the Netherlands – Week 34, 2020

Japan’s total death toll stood at just above 1,130 as of Tuesday, including fatalities from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was quarantined in Yokohama in February. Over 640 new cases of novel coronavirus infection were confirmed nationwide on Monday, dipping below 1,000 for the first time in five days.

“The big decline can be explained by the decrease in consumption and exports,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute. “I expect growth to turn positive in the July-September quarter. But globally, the rebound is sluggish everywhere except for China.”

The world’s third-largest economy shrank an annualised 27.8% in April-June, government data showed on Monday, marking the biggest decline since comparable data became available in 1980 and slightly bigger than a median market forecast for a 27.2% drop.

While the contraction was smaller than a 32.9% decrease in the United States, it was much bigger than a 17.8% fall Japan suffered in the first quarter of 2009, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers jolted global financial markets.

The size of Japan’s real GDP shrank to 485 trillion yen, the lowest since April-June 2011, when Japan was still suffering from two decades of deflation and economic stagnation.

The main culprit behind the dismal reading was private consumption, which plunged a record 8.2% as lock-down measures to prevent the spread of the virus kept consumers at home. External demand – or exports minus imports – shaved a record 3.0 percentage point off GDP, as overseas shipments plunged 18.5%, with auto exports hit particularly hard.

Falling global vehicle sales have hurt automakers like Mazda Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co, among the biggest drivers of Japan’s economy, and their parts suppliers. Capital expenditure declined 1.5% in the second quarter, less than a median market forecast for a 4.2% fall, as solid software investment made up for weak spending in other sectors.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura conceded the GDP readings were “pretty severe,” but pointed to some bright spots such as a recent pickup in consumption. “We hope to do our utmost to push Japan’s economy, which likely bottomed out in April and May, back to a recovery path driven by domestic demand,” he told a news conference.

Japan has deployed massive fiscal and monetary stimulus to cushion the blow from the pandemic, which hit an economy already reeling from last year’s sales tax hike and the U.S.-China trade war.

While the economy has re-opened after the government lifted state of emergency measures in late May, a worrying resurgence in infections cloud the outlook for business and household spending.

Meanwhile, Emperor Naruhito, the country’s first emperor born after the war, made a rare public appearance amid the pandemic with his wife Empress Masako and expressed “deep remorse” during the annual memorial service, as he did last year.

“Looking back on the long period of postwar peace, reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never again be repeated,” he said in his address.

With the coronavirus spreading across the country, the 60-year-old emperor who ascended the throne in May last year has postponed or canceled all of his regular regional tours.

A moment of silence was observed at noon for the approximately 2.3 million military personnel and 800,000 civilians who perished in the war, including those killed in the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The ceremony was held in Nippon Budokan, with around 540 people attending, the lowest on record since the government started holding the event in 1963 and less than 10 percent of the number last year, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The attendees wore masks, sat in chairs placed over a meter apart and did not sing when Japan’s national anthem “Kimigayo” was played as part of measures to prevent the spread of the virus. While limiting the number of attendees, the government livestreamed the ceremony for the first time.

In fact, however, many patients choose to stay at home, citing reasons such as care of children or older people. As of Monday, 745 patients were staying at home to rest while 287 patients were resting at hotels.

An app has already been in use for hotel stayers, who use it to send information twice every day, such as their body temperature, blood oxygen saturation levels and symptoms they notice. Doctors and nurses stationed at the hotels check the information.

The metropolitan government will adopt the system for patients staying at home, too, relieving public health center staff from making telephone calls to check how the patients are.

“Many people don’t answer the telephone,” a senior metropolitan government official said. “The introduction of an app will help cut the time (taken) for the work.”

The official emphasized the importance of reducing burdens on people working on the ground, with the government now having been tackling the virus crisis for an extended period.

Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies will make up to 60 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate, developed by the U.S. biotechnology firm, for supply to the U.K. at a site in Billingham. The Billingham site is capable of producing up to 180 million doses a year. Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies is considering supplying the vaccine candidate to other countries.

The production in Britain comes after Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies recently started making the vaccine candidate at a site in North Carolina for use in a clinical trial of up to 30,000 subjects in the United States expected to start in autumn.

The first relief team, consisting of officials from the ministry, the Japan Coast Guard, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, has been already in operation since last week.

The Panama-flagged bulk carrier Wakashio, owned by Nagashiki Shipping Co., was carrying about 3,800 tons of fuel oil when it ran aground on 25 July. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., the operator of the vessel, said earlier that more than 1,000 tons of oil have leaked from it.

The 2020 Sumida River Fireworks Festival, slated for 11 July, was canceled in the 43rd year of the event, which draws nearly one million visitors annually. But videos of fireworks in past festivals are projected onto windows of the observatory of the Tokyo Skytree tower, which stands near the venue of the fireworks event.

At the observatory 350 meters above the ground, visitors can see 360-degree views of fireworks in a special service until the end of this month. An official of the tower’s management company expressed hope that the fireworks festival, originally an event to drive away bad illnesses, will be held next year.

Omatsuri Japan, a Tokyo-based company promoting regional revitalization through festivals, will hold an online event Saturday to allow participants to experience eight festivals, including dance festivals Awa Odori in the western city of Tokushima and Kiryu Yagibushi in the eastern prefecture of Gunma.

It will give dance lessons in cooperation with the organizers of the festivals and sell local food and sake through online platforms so participants can enjoy a festive mood. Online festivals may appeal to those who do not like crowded places, not only to elderly people and parents with small children.

Such festivals “may prove useful” to communities struggling to continue local traditional festivals due a lack of participants and funds, said an Omatsuri Japan official.

Last week going partially offline and online, a traditional bonfire festival in Kyoto, western Japan, was held Sunday night on a smaller scale than usual due to the novel coronavirus epidemic. In the Gozan no Okuribi festival, held every year on 16 August, firewood arranged in the shape of symbols and kanji characters is set on fire on mountains.

The religious ritual is meant to send off the spirits of ancestors that have visited their descendants during the Bon holiday period. This year’s event was held with a smaller number of bonfires than usual.

At 20:00, spectators cheered as a fire was lit on Mount Nyoigatake in the Higashiyama district. At the time of the ceremony, people at home could follow the event in a livestream on YouTube.

One of the company’s longline fishing boats was subject to the certification. In 2018, the boat caught 55 tons of bluefin tuna. The total allowable catch for that year was 28,200 tons, according to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

Usufuku Honten plans to sell its bluefin tuna products bearing the MSC blue fish label in the Japanese and U.S. markets. Some environmentalist groups argued during the screening process that it is too early to hand out sustainability certifications, as the bluefin tuna population is still in the process of recovering. But the Japanese fishery obtained certification after an independent legal expert assessed that the company’s measures had reflected such concerns.

Not all of the confirmed cases, hospital admissions or deaths that were reported during the past week also occurred within the last week. Some patients are reported later. For this reason, the figures are often supplemented with previous reports that had not yet been included. Since it is likely that not all people who have COVID-19 will get tested, the actual numbers in the Netherlands are probably higher than the numbers stated here.

De Jonge also calls on everyone to voluntarily cooperate with the instructions of the GGDs and to actually go into quarantine if requested. “We are investigating the mandatory quarantine and the mandatory participation in the source and contact investigation, but that will take a few more weeks,” he says. Regarding the period of quarantine, this will be shortened from 14 days to 10 days, says Minister De Jonge. OMT’s advice is thus followed.

De Jonge hopes that the House of Representatives will quickly deal with the legislation for the introduction of the corona app, so that it can be officially introduced on 1 September. That is very important to detect the infections, he says. Certainly because there are large regional differences in the number of infections.

He compares two cities to indicate how big the differences are. “Assen had 2 and Amsterdam 1400.” A trial is currently underway with the corona app. More than 430,000 people have downloaded the app since yesterday, despite the criticism of the app. The Dutch Data Protection Authority is not yet satisfied with the app, due to concerns about privacy.

This also applies to children who have been in countries with an orange or red travel advice. Recently returned travelers from the age of thirteen are not expected at school due to the recommended quarantine period. Schools will not report them to the school attendance officer.

Younger children do have to go to school, because, according to the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), they hardly play a role in the spread of the corona virus. However, they are not supposed to be brought to school and picked up by a person who is in quarantine.

As a parent you are only allowed to enter the school and the playground after answering a number of questions about your health. If it turns out that you may be infected or have had contact with someone who may be infected, you are not allowed to enter the school grounds.

A student with possible corona complaints must stay at home and can only go back to school when he or she is free of complaints for 24 hours. You also stay at home if a family member is infected, has a fever or is short of breath. Pupils of groups 1 and 2 are allowed to go to school, unlike others with a cold, because children of this age often have a cold.

Anyone who is tested for the corona virus will stay at home awaiting the results. In case of a positive test, the GGD decides on the basis of the circumstances whether additional measures are needed and whether students should be tested. Corona patients immediately go into isolation.

In addition to the basic rules, schools are also taking extra measures to prevent the spread of the corona virus. These measures may differ per school. Sector organizations have drawn up protocols with the most important regulations.

For exampla all students should wash their hands regularly, for example at the beginning of class. In many rooms soap or hand gel will be present as well as cleaning products for the tables. Daily cleaning focuses on door handles and other items that are often touched.

Based on the RIVM guidelines, the sector organizations of schools have drawn up a guide on the ventilation of rooms, which states, among other things, that rooms must be regularly aired and that the recirculation of air in one room must be avoided.

Student do not have to keep their distance from each other, even if they are already eighteen years old. Before the holiday, that one-and-a-half meter rule still applied between secondary school students. However they still have to keep their distance from their teachers, which primary school children don’t have to do.

Furthermore, adults always keep their distance from each other. In secondary school, teachers are only allowed to deviate from the one-and-a-half meter rule during practical lessons with students, but they must keep their distance as much as possible.

According to the protocols, schools will try to spread the breaks so that the corridors and the auditoriums do not overflow with students. If possible, they only take a break with their own class. Furthermore, everyone goes home immediately after school. Preferably on foot or by bicycle. Public transport is there for students who have no other options.

Travelers from France, Monaco, Malta, Aruba and the Turks and Caicos Islands must also be quarantined from Saturday when they travel to the UK. France announced earlier on Friday morning that it would be introducing similar measures for travelers from the United Kingdom.

Due to the flare-up of the corona virus in Europe, many countries recently decided to adjust their list of ‘safe countries’. Finland, among others, decided to adjust the travel advice for the Netherlands, after which the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued an orange travel advice to Finland.

Last week, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced during a press conference that he would set up a test street at Schiphol to test travelers from high-risk areas. The tests at Schiphol are conducted by the GGD Kennemerland, in collaboration with the Ministry of Defense.

Only travelers from countries where code orange (only necessary trips) or red (travel completely discouraged) are eligible for the test. They do not have to have any complaints for this. However, Schiphol must be the final destination of the travelers. Passengers who only have a transfer at Schiphol are therefore not eligible.

The figures from Statistics Netherlands show that the number of jobs only increased until the first quarter of 2020. This increase started after the previous economic crisis in 2014. A total of 1.1 million jobs were created. In the years from 2014, the number of unemployed fell from almost 700,000 to 277,000 in the first quarter of 2020. The number of vacancies also increased. At the end of 2019, there were still a total of 286,000.

But the situation has therefore turned in the past quarter. Since the corona crisis, the number of unemployed has been increasing and vacancies have decreased. Trade and catering are the hardest hit industries. In the first half of 2020, the number of vacancies in trade fell by more than 20,000. The number of catering vacancies decreased by more than 13,000.

The government’s macro-economic think-tank CPB said on Monday that the economy has not shrunk as much as expected but warned that the contraction will last into 2021 if there is another lockdown.