Tag - covid-19

 
 

COVID 19

Domino's Pizza will close 172 unprofitable outlets out of about 1,000 stores in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 9, 2025
Domino's pizza to close 172 outlets in Japan
The global delivery pizza chain will prioritize investments in areas that will help it improve earnings.
People who were onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship when the COVID-19 cluster infections in the ship broke out in February 2020 pray Monday in Yokohama for those who died of the disease.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2025
COVID-19 victims of Diamond Princess ship remembered five years on
Of a total of 3,711 passengers and crew members on the ship, 712 became infected with the novel coronavirus and 14 died from the disease.
Many attribute the far right’s recent global rise to “anti-incumbency” bias, but this overlooks how the COVID-19 crisis fostered division and distrust, turning voters against their governments. 
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2025
Confronting the pandemic’s toxic political legacy
Libertarian resentment over past restrictions and mandates is one thing; an abiding distrust of scientists is quite another.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, Jr. salutes U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as he arrives at the Pentagon in Washington on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 28, 2025
Trump takes aim at DEI, COVID expulsions and transgender troops
Some of Trump's plans have been heavily criticized by advocacy groups, which say his actions would be illegal.
H.I.S. CEO Motoshi Yada holds a news conference on Monday in Tokyo's Minato Ward.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 28, 2025
H.I.S. says it received COVID aid inappropriately
H.I.S. will return about ¥6.4 billion in subsidies, which were provided by the government to pandemic-hit companies to help them pay leave allowances to their workers.
The P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, in April 2020
WORLD
Jan 26, 2025
CIA now favors China lab leak theory to explain COVID’s origins
A new analysis that began under the Biden administration is released by the C.I.A.’s new director, John Ratcliffe, who wants the agency to get “off the sidelines” in the debate.
Institute of Science Tokyo Distinguished Professor Yoshinori Fujiyoshi (left) and Assistant Professor Shun Nakamura, who developed a peptide that can bind to the spike proteins of the novel coronavirus to prevent COVID-19 infections, at the Institute of Science Tokyo's Ookayama campus in Tokyo on Monday
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 23, 2025
Japanese researchers develop peptide preventing COVID-19 infections
The peptide, which is a short chain of amino acids, has shown effectiveness in experiments involving various coronavirus strains.
A keen fisherman from Tokyo (Masaki Suda) moves to a tight-knit community in Miyagi Prefecture during the COVID-19 pandemic in “Sunset Sunrise.”
CULTURE / Film
Jan 21, 2025
‘Sunset Sunrise’: Rom-com finds pathos in peak pandemic setting
Yoshiyuki Kishi’s film delivers a deliciously uplifting story with humor and heart in a tight-knit community impacted by disasters.
A nurse prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 27, 2020, at Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. Five years since COVID-19 started upending the world, the virus is still infecting and killing people across the globe — though at far lower levels than during the height of the pandemic.
WORLD / Society
Jan 20, 2025
Vaccine misinformation: A lasting side effect from COVID-19
Concerns have emerged over whether vaccine hesitancy could inhibit the world's ability to fend off another pandemic.
People attend a New Year's celebration in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 1.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 19, 2025
Wuhan keen to shake off pandemic label five years on
There is nothing to mark the location of the world's first COVID-19 lockdown — in fact, there are no major memorials to the lives lost to the virus anywhere in the city.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump greet each other at a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA, in Duluth, Georgia, in October.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 18, 2025
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to stop COVID-19 shots six months after rollout
Donald Trump's pick to lead U.S. health agencies, petitioned the FDA to revoke authorization of the shots at a time when they were in high demand and considered life-saving.
A damaged school bus is seen after residents fled from the Eaton fire, one of six simultaneous blazes that have swept across Los Angeles County, in Altadena, California, on Saturday.
WORLD / Society
Jan 15, 2025
LA schools rush to reopen as memories of COVID-19 disruption linger
Educators, administrators and parents are taking steps to mitigate learning loss and provide relief to families adversely affected by wildfires.
Japan's first COVID-19 case was confirmed on Jan. 15, 2020, and there have been reports of cases of prolonged COVID-19 aftereffects having impact on social life.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2025
Caution still needed five years after Japan's first COVID-19 case
Waves of infections have continued even after Japan lowered the classification of COVID-19 under the infectious disease law in May 2023.
Toyota is one of many large employers in the U.S. ordering workers to their desks in recent months, ending policies implemented during the COVID pandemic.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 14, 2025
Toyota wants salaried staff back in office four days a week
Toyota denied the move is designed to reduce headcount but warned failure to comply could lead to "termination of employment.”
Five years since COVID-19 started upending the world, the virus is still infecting and killing people across the globe — though at far lower levels than during the height of the pandemic.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 8, 2025
Is the world ready for the next pandemic?
While the U.N. health agency considers the world more prepared than it was when Covid hit, it warns we are still not nearly ready enough.
A woman receives a COVID-19 vaccine in Minato Ward, Tokyo, in October.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Dec 29, 2024
Meiji Seika Pharma files suit against lawmaker over 'unfounded' vaccine claims
CDP Lower House lawmaker Kazuhiro Haraguchi has said that the drugmaker's replicon vaccine is "akin to a biological weapon."
A member of the medical staff treats a woman with COVID-19 next to her four-day-old baby at a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, in November 2021.
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 27, 2024
COVID pregnancies may have boosted autism risk, study shows
"There’s something really going on,” pediatric infectious diseases physician Karin Nielsen says. "We don’t want to alarm the world, but that’s what our data are showing.”
Furaha Elisabeth applies medication on the skin of her child Sagesse Hakizimana, who is under treatment for Mpox, an infectious disease caused by the Mpox virus that causes a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever, at a health center in the Congo on Aug 19.
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 24, 2024
Global disease resurgence in 2024 shows rising health threat
The findings seek to renew the focus on the rise of preventable and climate-sensitive diseases, as well as a coordinated global response.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2024
Trump transition team plans immediate WHO withdrawal, expert says
The plan would mark a dramatic shift in U.S. global health policy and further isolate Washington from international efforts to battle pandemics.
Some of the same mistakes made during COVID-19 can be seen in the U.S. government's response to H5N1, which started in poultry before a new variant began infecting the nation’s dairy cows.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2024
Another pandemic is inevitable, and the U.S. isn't ready
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to lead the nation’s top public health agencies also don’t inspire confidence.

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?