Reporter Zhao Shifeng
On the evening of July 31, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio took a special plane from Tokyo Haneda Airport and went to New York, USA to attend the 10th review meeting of the " Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons ". Before Kishida left, Takashi Shimada, the secretary-general of the Prime Minister who had originally planned to accompany him, was diagnosed with the new coronavirus. After arriving in the United States, another secretary of Kishida, Yamamoto Takayoshi Yamamoto was diagnosed with the new coronavirus, which was the third Prime Minister's secretary to be confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus. Recently, Japan is deeply involved in the seventh wave of the epidemic, and government officials and MPs have been "hit".
On the evening of July 31, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (Central) set off from Tokyo Haneda Airport to New York, USA.
According to Japan's Sankei Shimbun, Shimada originally planned to go to New York with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the evening of July 31, but was forced to cancel his trip due to sudden confirmed infection with the new coronavirus. After being diagnosed with , Takayoshi Yamamoto was unable to return home with the Prime Minister's team, but stayed in the United States for isolation and treatment. As cabinet officials who have close contacts with Kishida and senior officials of Liberal Democratic Party have been constantly diagnosed with the new coronavirus, Japanese public opinion is worried that Kishida himself will be at risk of infection at any time.
htmlOn June 1, Japanese Foreign Minister Lin Fang correctly diagnosed the new coronavirus. On July 12, a senior official in charge of propaganda affairs of the Liberal Democratic Party and former Foreign Minister Taro Kono was diagnosed with infection. On July 15, Prime Minister's assistant and former Defense Minister Moto Nakatani was diagnosed with infection. On July 23, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroichi Matsuno was "hit". Matsuno was coughing continuously at a press conference held on the morning of July 22. He started to have fever in the evening of that day. He was confirmed to be positive for the new coronavirus after being tested in a medical institution on the 23rd. On July 24, Acting Secretary-General of the Liberal Democratic Party, Kamikawa Yoko , was diagnosed with infection, and she had just had a dinner with Kishida on the evening of the 19th. On July 27, Prime Minister Secretary Yu Bo Honggui was diagnosed with the new coronavirus and was isolated and treated at home.More than 100 members of the Japanese Parliament have been infected with the new crown.
In addition to the officials and staff around Kishida's side, five members of Congress, including former leader of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party Yukio Erino and former Vaccine Minister Shiko Horiuchi, were also diagnosed with the new coronavirus. On July 25 alone, 10 members of Congress were confirmed. According to Japan's Fuji TV, as of July 27, a total of 115 members of Congress have been infected with the new coronavirus, including 86 members of the House of Representatives and 29 senators, more than one-seventh of the total number of members.
It is reported that due to the continuous emergence of infected people in the Prime Minister's residence, the Japanese government stipulated on July 25 that all guests who have dinner with Kishida must undergo antigen reagent tests before the meal. If they are positive, they will be refused attendance.
On the afternoon of July 12, pedestrians at the intersection of Shibuya, Tokyo.
Under the seventh wave of the new crown epidemic, Japan has the largest number of new infections among the G7 countries. According to statistics from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, the number of infections in Japan in the past month is more than 10 times that of the previous one, surpassing the United States. As of July 30, Japan's new confirmed cases of new coronavirus have exceeded 200,000 for four consecutive days. Data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan on July 29 showed that as of 0:00 on the 27th, the number of patients infected with the new coronavirus at home exceeded 1 million for the first time, reaching 1.098671 million. During the sixth wave of the epidemic, the number of home-based care patients nationwide reached 578,000 in February this year.
Kyodo Telephone public opinion survey results implemented on July 30 and 31 showed that the support rate of Kishida cabinet was 51%, a sharp drop of 12.2 percentage points from the survey on July 11 and 12, hitting a new low since Kishida took office in October last year. The survey results show that the proportion of respondents who "affirmed" the government's response to the epidemic decreased by 7.7 percentage points compared with the last survey to 53.3%, which is also the lowest since Kishida took office. In Kyodo News' survey, in the answer to "Which one should be given priority between epidemic prevention and economic activities?", 51.9% of respondents chose "epidemic prevention" and 46.2% of respondents chose "economic activities"; 49.1% of respondents believed that new restrictions were needed.
Nurse receiving COVID-19 vaccination.
A research team composed of Akimasa Hirata, a professor at Nagoya University of Technology, Japan, and others recently estimated the seventh wave of the epidemic. Assuming that the infectiousness of the new coronavirus mutant strain " Omickron " subtype BA.5 is 1.3 times that of BA.2, the peak infection in Tokyo is expected to occur around August 6, with an average daily number of new cases in seven days being about 39,000, which will be more than twice the peak number of infections in Tokyo during the sixth wave of the epidemic.
htmlOn July 29, data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan showed that the average life expectancy of Japanese people in 2021 is 87.57 years for women and 81.47 years for men. Compared with the previous year, women fell by 0.14 years and men fell by 0.09 years. This is the first time that the statistics have dropped from the previous year since the 2011 "3.11" earthquake. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare analyzed that changes in the mortality rate caused by factors such as the new crown epidemic have reduced the average life expectancy of the people.
