Weekly Update: News on Japan & the Netherlands – Week 41, 2020

Wearing face guards, participants in the kumite event kicked and punched their opponents while shouting energetically. One competitor from Keio University said she did not feel hindered by the face guard. She said she could focus on her performance because she was allowed to shout.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday that he did not particularly want the Brexit transition period, which runs until the end of the year, to run out without a trade deal in place, but that Britain could live with such an outcome.

The Nikkei report, however, underscores how a failure to agree a new trading relationship could prompt foreign companies operating in Britain to reconsider the viability of operations in the face of extra tariffs that erode profitability, and customs checks and regulations that slowed operations.

Toyota operates a plant in Derbyshire, central England, and produced roughly 8% of the 1.52 million cars made in Britain in 2018. It also produces engines at a factory in Wales. Nissan has a manufacturing plant in Sunderland, north-eastern England, which employs 7,000. That factory would be “unsustainable” if Britain leaves the EU without a trade deal, Nissan said in June.

Nissan said in March that it was pushing ahead with plans to build its new Qashqai sports utility vehicle in Sunderland. When it first announced the 52-million-pound (about €57.1 million) investment in 2016, the carmaker said it had won reassurances from the British government that Brexit would not affect its competitiveness.

The company said in a statement it decided to conclude its F1 participation due to “a once-in-100-years period of great transformation” the auto industry faces. Red Bull Racing said it appreciates Honda for its “exceptional efforts as power unit supplier” with Dutch driver Max Verstappen securing Honda’s first victory since 2006 at the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix followed by three victories and 13 podium finishes in 31 race starts.

Honda initially took part in F1 between 1964 and 1968, becoming the first Japanese automaker to do so. It returned in 1983 and dominated the championship with 15 wins out of 16 races in 1988 with legendary drivers Ayrton Senna of Brazil and Alain Prost of France. Honda halted its participation again in 1992 but resumed it in 2000 and continued until 2008.

The pressure on the test capacity must decrease now that steadily scaling up is taking place. The testing capacity has recently been expanded to 56,200 corona tests per day, over 6,000 more than the Ministry of Health had expected around this time. Due to expansion, fifteen thousand more tests could be taken last week than in the previous week.

Doctors are not yet alarmed by the shortage, according to Financieele Dagblad. Mark de Boer, internist-infectiologist at LUMC who is involved in drawing up treatment guidelines for coronavirus patients, called the shortage “unpleasant” but “not a disaster”.

Remdesivir was originally created to treat Ebola. In June, the European drug authorities approved the medicine for coronavirus patients hospitalized with breathing problems. On average, they recover faster after being given Remdesivir.

The studies on how effective the virus inhibitor is on Covid-19 patients are divided. According to Diederik Gommers, head of the Dutch association for intensive care NVIC, about half of the studies are positive and the other half show no difference with the control group. “Because the drug is not harmful, it is still given,” he said, according to NOS.

But according to Kuipers, the situation remains worrisome. “It’s going a bit slower than we said before, but the upward trend continues.” He compares it to an emerging tide line, which sometimes does not reach your feet, but which you know will.

Almost all hospitals in Noord-Holland and Flevoland are scaling down regular care by 20% in order to keep care as accessible as possible during the second corona wave, reports the Regional Consultation Acute Care Chain (ROAZ).

Despite the collaboration with the National Center for Patient Distribution (LCPS), which helps to distribute corona patients across the country, the increase in the number of corona patients means that the hospitals are unable to continue regular care at the normal level.

Non-urgent appointments, operations and interventions are postponed. Emergency care will continue as with the first corona wave. “We are trying to scale down 20% in a safe way,” says Yvo Roos, chairman of the ROAZ. “The difference with the previous wave is that it is now more controlled.”

The municipality of The Hague has stated in a response that it does not yet see any reason to preventively close supermarkets and night shops to curb the sale of alcohol. “In Utrecht the reason was different, because there were still lines for certain supermarkets after 22:00. We have not seen that to that extent.”

“Of course we are also on top of it in The Hague and we do what is necessary,” said a spokesman for that municipality. After 22:00 alcohol may no longer be served in food and beverage outlets in The Hague, but this rule does not apply to retailers.

Last weekend, the new early closing times for the catering industry applied for the first time nationwide in the Netherlands. In Utrecht, mainly young people between the ages of 18 and 27 visited each other to drink alcohol together in parks and on the street immediately after these establishments closed.

Night shops in the municipality of Utrecht will temporarily close from Thursday to Saturday after 22:00. Some supermarkets, which previously received an exemption, will also close their shops earlier. In addition, it is prohibited to visit the Griftpark, Wilhelminapark and park Lepelenburg between 22:00 and 6:00 in the morning.

However, Rabobank cannot promise that the threshold for the negative interest rate will not lower in the future. When Rabobank first applied negative interest in February of this year, it applied only to customers with more than 1 million euros in their savings account.

Last year, ABN AMRO was the first of the major banks to announce that it would reduce the interest on savings to 2.5 million euros to 0%, and charge interest above that. The other banks followed that example.

From 1 January 2021, ING also charges negative interest on more than 2.5 tons of deposited money.  Again, this concerns an interest rate per account and not per customer. At Triodos, the limit is even 100,000 euros.

This summer on 7 July in Amstelveen, all people who passed away in the corona period were remembered with the ‘Heart of Compassion‘ in the City Gardens. On 6 October, the Heart of Compassion will be given a permanent place at Zorgvlied cemetery in Amstelveen.

Hans Jansen, Chairman of SAKB KunstLokaal, was also present at the handing over of the pendulum. The Japanese community has a meeting space in the same building as SAKB KunstLokaal and does various activities together.