Weekly Update: News on Japan & the Netherlands – Week 4, 2021

Despite its early success, experts have warned that the country’s strategy to trace clusters of cases rather than conduct mass tests could face limits as virus cases surge nationwide. Public health officials and doctors have lobbied for months for authorities to increase testing to ensure early detection and contain the spread of the virus.

Since infection cases began to rise in November, public health center officials have asked to further narrow their contact-tracing efforts due to staffing shortages. “Regarding epidemiological investigations, each public health center will focus on finding out places and groups that contain people with higher risks,” said the Tokyo metropolitan government’s letter dated 22 January seen by Reuters, referring to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions.

Asked about concerns over scaling back efforts to trace the contacts of every person, Naomi Seki, an official at Tokyo metropolitan government’s health bureau, told Reuters the new policy would help public health workers cope with the rising number of coronavirus cases.

Tokyo’s new daily infections increased to 1,026 on Tuesday, snapping a four-day decline. Neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture has also revised its contact-tracing policy to focus more on high-risk individuals.

Not only will this allow the government to monitor the number of residents who have been vaccinated in real time, municipalities will also be able to check the state of vaccinations when people move or if they lose their coupons. It will also be possible to call on people individually to get their second vaccination.

“We want to get this up and running in time for vaccinations of the elderly,” Kono told reporters. Kono, who is in charge of coordinating vaccinations, stated that a vaccination simulation would begin in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, on 27 January. “We will first conduct a simulation to determine how much time it will actually take and what kind of arrangement is necessary,” he said.

Last Friday, Kono walked back on a goal to secure enough targeted supplies of COVID-19 vaccines by June, one month before the planned start of the Tokyo Olympics, telling reporters that “old information” was behind a spokesman’s comments on Thursday that the government expects to have enough vaccines for its targeted population by mid-year. “At the moment, we are making preparations to start vaccination in late February,” Kono said. “We would like to provide information on what will come after that as things firm up.”

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged to have enough shots for the Japanese populace by the middle of 2021. But production and distribution problems have hampered vaccine rollouts across the globe, and Japan already trails most major economies in starting its inoculation campaign.

Kono said Pfizer’s vaccine will be used for the first shots, starting with 10,000 medical workers at 100 hospitals. The next priority after medical workers was to vaccinate the elderly, those with health conditions and elderly care facility workers.

Japan has made deals to purchase 144 million doses, enough to inoculate 72 million people, from Pfizer. It has also secured 50 million doses from Moderna Inc and 120 million from AstraZeneca Plc. Altogether, that would be more than enough for Japan’s population of 126 million. They require domestic trials for vaccines before granting regulatory approval. Pfizer’s is expected to be approved next month, while Moderna started its first domestic trial on Thursday. AstraZeneca has done a trial in Japan but has not yet filed for approval.

Healthcare workers are voicing concerns about the limited time left for preparations and securing the required number of staff as medical institutions across Japan are busy with coronavirus patients. The committee says it is trying to address their concerns by providing information and by considering financial support to make it easier for medical institutions to send staff.

Committee member Yamashita Satoshi says that in order for the Games to take place, infections will need to be curbed to a certain level and the stable provision of medical care must be secured. He says he will seriously consider the opinions of the medical community and prepare as much as possible.

As a little light in the middle of the negative developments, Japanese airlines have found success in the sale of in-flight meals for those who cannot fly abroad but want to savor them amid the new coronavirus pandemic.

ANA has sold its meals online three times since last December so people can enjoy them at home. All of its meals sold out within a few days, and the airline plans to add a new dish to the menu from 26 January. Japan Airlines Co. (JAL), meanwhile, has been serving in-flight meals at a restaurant near Narita Airport in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, and also started selling the fare abroad in January for the first time.

Meanwhile, in-flight meal manufacturer Gate Gourmet Japan Ltd., based in Narita, began selling Western, Chinese and Thai food online in December 2020. A chef who supervises and cooks in-flight meals for first-class customers on international flights was involved in developing the items. As the precooked meals are vacuum packed, purchasers can easily enjoy genuine airline course meals by boiling the packs.

“I obtained Swiss nationality because my job requires it, but I’m emotionally attached to Japan and this is the foundation of my identity,” the Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted him as saying.

The plaintiffs are six men who have already obtained Swiss or Liechtenstein citizenship, and two Japanese men who want to obtain foreign citizenship without losing their Japanese passports, local media said. They argued that the rule was a violation of the constitution’s right to pursue happiness and protection of equality under the law.

But on Thursday, the Tokyo District Court rejected their suit and request for damages, a spokesman said, upholding the constitutionality of the rule. The government argued there was no national interest in permitting multiple citizenships, Kyodo news agency reported.

“The threat of cyberattacks has been increasing and becoming more sophisticated by the day, and it is our pressing task to improve our capabilities,” Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said.

Kishi expressed hope the contest, for which the ministry accepts entries since Monday 25 January up until 12 February, will help the ministry discover recruits of the highest order. The names or pseudonyms of the top-five finishers will be released on the ministry’s website.

In its annual white paper released last year, the ministry said “cyberattacks are recognized as an asymmetrical means to impede the military activities of adversaries at low cost.” It also warned bad actors could “seriously impact the lives of individuals” through the destruction of critical infrastructure including power systems.

Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require two injections to be protected against COVID-19. From 27 January, people will be given a second dose of the vaccine. The Netherlands was the last EU-country to start vaccinating on 6 January. The government wants to add more data about vaccinations to the dashboard later, including information about the willingness to vaccinate, the vaccination coverage and the number of doses that are currently in stock.

Grapperhaus added that the police and Koninklijke Marechaussee are taking tough action against those who participated in the riots. They will be subject to summary judgement and can face unconditional prison sentences, he said. The government is not powerless, he said. According to him, this is evident from the number of arrests that have been made. “We are ready and we are going against it.”

During the third night of rioting in many places in the Netherlands on Monday, the police arrested a total of 184 people, including over 50 in Rotterdam and 52 in Den Bosch. 1,741 fines were handed out, most for violating curfew.

On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned the riots, calling them “criminal violence” that had “nothing to do with the fight for freedom”. He stressed that the violence and rioting will not have any effect on the measures in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus. “The curfew remains necessary. It is the virus that is robbing us of our freedom. This criminal violence must stop.”

In its advice, the OMT also said that source and contact tracing after someone tests positive for Covid-19 needs to be expanded. Currently only the patient’s housemates and people they were in close contact with for longer than 15 minutes at a stretch are warned.

With the more contagious variants of the coronavirus also popping up in the Netherlands, the team of experts also wants to warn people who had were in contact with the patient a total of 15 minutes or more, even if it was not all at once but spread over 24 hours. People who maintained social distancing of 1.5 meters, but had 15 minutes or more contact with the patient also need to be notified.

The current advice is for COVID-19 contacts to quarantine. But the OMT wants to change that so that housemates and close contacts are tested as quickly as possible. If they test positive, quarantine will switch to complete isolation. If they test negative, they must quarantine and be tested again after 5 days to be completely sure they don’t have the virus.

The OMT advised a “visitor bubble” for residents of nursing homes. In such a bubble, nursing home residents are still allowed one visitor per day, but can have up to three regular visitors instead of only one. In this way, visitation is not limited too much for the residents and the risk of bringing the coronavirus into the nursing home is still small, according to the OMT.

The OMT, therefore, issued advice for an alternative protocol for aviation personnel, and the cabinet has now adopted that advice. Instead of a quick test, staff are now subject to stricter quarantine rules, write Ministers Hugo De Jonge of Public Health and Cora Van Nieuwenhuizen of Infrastructure in a letter to the Lower House.

Staff are strictly quarantined during their stay abroad in order not to come into contact with the local population. They should stay in their hotel room as much as possible. Crew members who have corona-related symptoms are allowed to return but must be isolated during the flight.

In the second scenario, vacations abroad will become possible again in the summer. Then, numbers are expected to stay at roughly the same level they were at last year. The worst-case scenario predicts that tourism will plummet by another 40%, due to international travel being largely impossible.

Whichever scenario turns out to be true, “one thing is certain, 2021 will also be a tough year for the sector”, Vranken said.

The number of small companies with only one employee increased significantly in the past decade, from 888 thousand to 1.5 million – an increase of 69%. Ten years ago 69% of Dutch companies employed only one person, which was 78% in January this year.

In percentage terms, the education sector saw the biggest increase in new companies at 8.2%, with the number of companies helping children with school work increasing by 9%. The number of healthcare companies also increased relatively strongly last year at over 6%, with home care companies in particularly seeing a big increase (10%). The construction sector also saw a 6% increase in companies in the sector.

In absolute numbers, the number of companies increased most in the construction industry at 11,700, in trade with 11,600 more companies, and health and welfare with 10,600 more companies. The increase in the number of trade companies is entirely due to a sharp increase in the number of online stores (+13,000). The number of companies in market trade fell by 4%.