It’s been 10 days since I came back to Tokyo.
On the 7th, the government called for a state of emergency for the second time and “asked”, yes “asked” the citizens to stay home unless urgent and absolutely necessary.
So, what did the people do? You bet! The exact opposite.

The pandemic that ‘s prevailing or actually plaguing the country is doing a good job of contracting people.
The other day, there was the entrance exam for college held around the country.
Young boys and girls took the test under strict rules.
They even flunked a boy who did not wear his mask properly (although he was warned 6 times).

To me, this is going too far.
Then why held exams like this?
Fascism in the educational system.

Suga Prime Minister, Albert Einstein, President elect Biden

Has anything changed in the past 10 days?
The way I see it around Akihabara and Ueno, NOTHING!
The only change I have seen was the Tokaido train ride to Tokyo, which was very empty (that’ at 11AM).

After walking back from Akihabara, I went to Ueno to purachse few items.
After arriving Ueno (less than 10 minute walk), I realized that I could have bought everything at the store nearby. Well, it was a good exercise (optimistic).

Do people know that COVID-19 is creaping up on you?
What about the vaccine? Is it safe? Does it work on Japanese who have had many vaccine shots all their lives?
Japanese not really dying as many as Americans is baffling the world.

This is the statistics as of today:
335,432 people infected, 973 people critical, 4580 deaths, 252,787 recovered (excluding Diamond Princess).
4580/335,432=1.365% death rate.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/coronavirus/data-all/

Then, let’s look at the stats of the USA.

According to John Hopins University:
23,936,773 cases, 379,600 deaths.
379,600/23,936,773=1.5858% death rate.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Well, what you know! The death rate isn’t so much higher than the USA or Japan.
Then why are people panicing?
For one reason, there is no cure.
The other is it’s highly contagious.
Then the last is that there is no medicine for it.

As I wrote in the previous posts, I have few friends who have contracted but recovered.
Is it just a hype that media is making?
I don’t think so at all.
IT IS HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS AND YOU WILL SUFFER.

But one of the doctors wrote that death from COVID-19 is peaceful.
You just sleep due to lack of oxygen and never wake up.
He’d rather die from COVID-19 than cancer where the Japanese don’t usually view as honorable unless you endure pain. Some still believe that but there are palliative care.

Whether good or bad (Remember “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”?), COVID-19 is here to stay.
People will have to live side-to-side with it.
The 2020 Olympics is in debate of “Go or Bust” this summer 2021.
How do we survive this era?

Let’s be more optimistic of life without spreading the disease.
According to the Cabinet Office information released on December 23, 2020 (3 weeks ago), the number of people dying from suffocating “mochi” — the rice cake, there are over 3500 people each year.

Which is more deadly? COVID-19 or Mochi?
But sufforcating only occurs to people who ate mochi (Heimlick Manuever) does not work well.