Tag - covid-19

 
 

COVID 19

Many countries including the U.S. and China are prioritizing domestic production and shortening supply chains to enhance economic self-reliance — but they are doing so at the  risk of fueling systemic instability and intensifying great-power tensions.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 10, 2024
Economic self-reliance is a dangerous delusion
Countries around the world have given high priority to shortening supply chains, rebuilding domestic production capacity and diversifying suppliers.
An Upper House budget committee session for questions and answers on the fiscal 2024 draft budget held Wednesday
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 6, 2024
Japan's huge draft budget raises questions over fiscal accountability
The government allocates reserves and determines their use at Cabinet meetings, requiring only retroactive approval by parliament.
Health minister Keizo Takemi announces the government's decision to stop subsidizing COVID-19 medical expenses, at a news conference on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 5, 2024
Japan's government to stop subsidizing COVID-19 treatment after March
"Hospitals are making preparations to admit coronavirus patients to general wards and we think that is no problem," said health minister Keizo Takemi.
According to the latest data, new COVID-19 cases reported in the week to Feb. 11 stood at 13.75 per institution.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 24, 2024
Number of COVID-19 and flu cases remain high in Japan
Per-institution new flu cases in Japan came to 23.93 in the week to Feb. 11, up for the fifth straight week.
A building in Tokyo's Akihabara district raided by the Metropolitan Police Department's public security bureau in May last year
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 21, 2024
Chinese 'overseas police station' in Tokyo raided over benefit fraud
According to papers submitted to prosecutors, the raids stemmed from an alleged illegal receipt of COVID-19 subsidies.
CocoDesk private work booths set up by Fujifilm Business Innovation and Tokyo Metro at a subway station in Tokyo
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 20, 2024
Demand for private work booths grows in Japan
The increase in the use of private work booths reflects how working styles have become more diverse since the pandemic.
Children play at a park during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong, in 2022.
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 14, 2024
New research raises concerns about long COVID in children
The new review suggested that 10% to 20% of children in the United States who had COVID-19 developed long COVID.
Visitors at the Sapporo Snow Festival on Feb. 4
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2024
Sapporo Snow Festival crowds recover to pre-COVID levels in 2024
The recovery of visitor numbers has been helped by inbound travelers to Japan, according to the festival's executive committee.
The hippocampus is a part of the brain that controls memory, learning and emotions. Stressful life events such as disasters and terrorist attacks are known to lead to post-traumatic stress disorder and result in its shrinkage.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 9, 2024
Tokyo teens were less stressed during first COVID emergency: study
Increases in the volume of the hippocampus in their brains suggest reduced stress, according to research conducted by the University of Tokyo.
A traveler walks past a flight information display at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Feb. 2 ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday that begins on Saturday in China.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2024
Chinese visitors to Japan over Lunar New Year to fall short of 2019 level
Visa-free travel offered by some countries and last year's release of treated wastewater from Fukushima may be swaying Chinese travelers' decisions.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel (left), U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen (center) and health minister Keizo Takemi attend a ceremony to mark the opening of the U.S. agency's East Asia and Pacific regional office in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2024
U.S. CDC opens regional office in Tokyo
The regional office, located inside the U.S. Embassy, will collaborate with 26 countries and territories in East Asia and the Pacific.
Asia's pandemic-era policies must now be unwound against a backdrop of slower GDP growth, higher inflation and increased debt.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2024
A new economic policy agenda for Asia
Asia's pandemic-era policies must now be unwound against a backdrop of slower GDP growth, higher inflation and increased debt.
The number of teachers who took leave due to mental illness had fluctuated at around 5,000 in recent years, but it surged by more than 1,300 in two years since fiscal 2020.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2024
Number of teachers on leave for mental illness in Japan hits record high
The figure for the year to last March was up 642 from the previous year, marking the second straight annual increase.
The Kissa Mitikusa cafe in front of JR Kagaonsen Station in Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture, is facing a plunge in visitors.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2024
Dining sector in quake-hit Ishikawa facing difficulties
The industry had just begun to overcome a slump brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Takuro Adachi’s documentary “Sono Kodo ni Mimi wo Ateyo” follows doctors working in Aichi Prefecture’s busiest ER over nine months.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2024
‘Sono Kodo ni Mimi o Ateyo’: An absorbing dive into pressures of the ER
Filmed at the height of the pandemic, Takuro Adachi’s documentary spotlights emergency room doctors who attend to patients from every strata of society.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showed that 8.8 million people in the U.S. in 2022 were living with long COVID.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2024
A promising turn in the quest to treat long COVID
A new study doesn’t explain why the immune response is out of whack, but it is an important new piece to the vexing puzzle that is long COVID.
In the 2022 fiscal year, which ended in March 2023, Hokkaido's Niseko resort area saw a cumulative total of more than 1.4 million visitors, including day-trippers and those who spent at least one night.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Jan 29, 2024
Ski season surge tests limits of Niseko’s infrastructure
The return of tourists to the Hokkaido resort area is putting pressure on food retailers and transportation.
Medical workers prepare to enter an evacuation center in Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture, where COVID-19 infections were confirmed on Jan. 6.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 29, 2024
Japan likely experiencing 10th wave of COVID-19
The spread is being driven by the highly contagious new JN.1 variant.
A man is inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine in New Hyde Park, New York, in September 2023.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 26, 2024
COVID and beyond: Labs unite to boost genomic surveillance globally
Teams at two facilities said they were worried governments and funders may pull back from such surveillance.
A scanning electron micrograph of group A streptococcus bacteria
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 24, 2024
Cases of tissue-damaging bacterial disease hit record high in Japan
Health authorities are urging people to take basic health measures such as hand-washing to prevent the spread of the disease.

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world