Winston wrote: ↑September 17th, 2021, 8:01 pm
Yohan seems to be neutral. He's not telling anyone to get the vaccine or not get it. He just shares the latest news in Japan it seems.
This is correct, the situation here in Japan is relaxed. Life in general almost as always.
In Japan nobody can be forced by the government into vaccination or into any other restriction because of covid-19.
The government cannot lock up individuals in their homes either, it can only recommend individual citizens to follow government guidelines.
However the government can interfere with general actions like closing down public schools and places like exhibition halls, museums or insist on early closing time of restaurants, closing down cinemas or cancel some sport events and it also restricted international travel for tourism etc.
After August summer holidays and obon (grave visits for Buddhists) and Olympic / Paraolympic Games the number of patients exploded - not unexpected however and instead of nationwide about 16.000 patients after wave 4, around beginning of September there were suddenly more than 230.000 registered infected patients by covid-19.
However most of them recovered and were released already and today there are only 90.600 people considered as infected and asked to stay in quarantine.
Every day now several thousands of patients are released as recovered.
There are not so many patients anyway, when you consider Japan has more than 126 million people and in the large cities there is a very dense population.
Anti-vaxx people are not a special issue in Japan, surely not like it is with violent demos in USA, UK, Australia or France.
They are silent and when invited to show up for 2 x free vaccination by their ward office, they just do not come, that's all.
Nobody really cares about, I have no idea when I see people in the street if they are vaccinated or not.
Some opinion polls in Japan found that people who refuse vaccination or cannot be vaccinated because of health risks etc. are about 11 % of the population - At this moment medical services are still very busy to vaccinate healthy people who are showing up by themselves or contact medical doctors and report they feel bad and are diagnosed as infected with covid-19.
If you apply for vaccination 2x shots, you get a certificate from the clinic for the ward office, and if you apply with your passport the ward office will issue for you an international official vaccination certificate with seal in English for free. It will be required and accepted by some countries when you travel abroad.
So far totally about 134 million shots have been administered, about 50 million people got their 2x vaccine shot = 100 million shots. More than 30 million people got 1 shot, still plenty of people left over waiting for vaccination - maybe 100 million shots more required - and not to talk about the third shot at the beginning of next year.
Nobody cares here in Japan if you are vaccinated or not - if the person remains silent, how do you even know he is not vaccinated?
My family members in Tokyo and here in Okayama are all vaccinated 2x and had no unexpected side effects at all.
However I don't know if neighbors living near to me are vaccinated or not and openly said, I don't care.