We’re publishing a new postcard today in our ongoing series – “Around the World in 80 Lockdowns”. This one is from Itoshima in Japan. As the author points out, restrictions were voluntary during the first state of emergency in Japan, it only lasted six weeks, and then there were practically none until January 15th of this year when a second state of emergency was declared – and now that’s been ended everywhere apart from Tokyo. In spite of this, Japan’s total death toll is only 8359. Here’s an extract:
I’m not sure about the lockdowns in other countries, but during our state of emergency the Japanese government didn’t have the legal authority to restrict people’s actions. They essentially asked people to stay home, work from home and limit their movements, and generally the public has been extremely co-operative. This is because Japan has been traumatised by the Government having too much power in the past so now the Government tries to first rely on citizens complying voluntarily before resorting to force. We didn’t have any fines for not wearing face masks or opening businesses until much later.
The first state of emergency was only for about a month and half and Japan successfully flattened the curve, but it was simply because of the citizens’ discipline, obedience and social pressure. Regardless of no forced restrictions, businesses and individuals voluntarily followed the request, which led to less compensation from the Government because they didn’t force us to stop working.
Worth reading in full.
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“That’s quite early for raspberries”.
St. John’s Wort is early too for us. I’ve no idea why…
“All our judges on our ‘supreme court’ are ‘woke’ “.
Thank you very much, Mr. Blair…
“Lithuania has blocked the rail passage to Koenigsberg [it’s not pronounced “Konnigsberg] (its only land bridge)… because Beijing Bidden administration is pushing to escalate the [Ukraine] war”
Before this year I hadn’t realised that Koenigsberg had a land bridge with Russia, but if it does Russia will certainly want to keep it. I told my Lithuanian friend earlier this year that Lithuania would be safe for now. But with this sort of nonsense (on top of blocking the passage of potash from Belarus through Lithuania), I’m not sure how long this will hold. One of my big fears has been that the EU and NATO will be drawn into direct confrontation with Russia over the Baltic states, and it seems to me beyond reckless if Beijing Bidden’s administration is inflaming this situation. Make “America” safe again? Make us all safe again!
Oh, and the strawberries really are doing well this year. If we go hungry, it won’t be their fault…
“My son Charlie”.
Yes, I heard about that. I saw a story a bit ago about some comedian who had the job of geeing up the crowd at Loftus Road for a friendly against Rangers and related how QPR supporters all had names like Charlie and had never threatened anyone in their lives (possibly in contrast to Rangers supporters) so his job was going to be a bit difficult.
Also I seem to remember a story some years back about how the middle classes go through spells of choosing certain names for their children and at the time were doing Victorian names. Such as Charlie?
(P.S. what’s a space ranger? And what have the natives of a Greek island got to do with this film Lightyear?).