After three booster campaigns in 2022, the Japanese are now in a league of their own among mRNA consuming countries, administering far more boosters than countries that had far more coercive vaccination campaigns.
Japanese over-65s have done their best to reduce Japan’s 612-million-dose stockpile of mRNA jabs, with third, fourth and fifth jab rates of 91%, 82.5%, and 56%, respectively. But unfortunately, Japan has started 2023 by reporting its highest ever daily Covid death tolls. During the booster era starting in early 2022, each wave has been noticeably higher than the last.
What could possibly explain this? Let’s ask Takaji Wakita, Chairman of Japan’s Covid Response Advisory Board: “The cause of the rise in Covid deaths is hard to explain.”
What about Dr. Satoshi Kamayachi, Director of the Japan Medical Association? “There’s a lot we don’t know, and we don’t have evidence.”
Nice to see an expert admit the limit of his knowledge. But there must be something Dr. Kamayachi can tell us, right?
Dr. Kamayachi, citing the rapid spread of Covid infections as one reason, explained that the majority of those who died were over 60 and many had underlying medical conditions. The direct cause of death is often heart failure or kidney disease, and he said that “thorough analysis is needed”.
Heart failure, you say? Well, it’s not like most Japanese over 60 have been injected multiple times with anything that causes cardiovascular problems, is it? And kidney disease is coincidentally a side-effect of Remdesivir, an approved Covid treatment in Japan.
Of course, Japan has been counting anyone who dies with a positive test result as a Covid death regardless of actual cause of death since 2020, but Dr. Kamayachi and the rest of Japan’s experts haven’t bothered bringing up the issue of attribution until now. In fact, they were more than happy to cite inflated mortality data to help promote the jabs. But now that people may question why daily reported Covid deaths are higher than ever after the majority of over-65s have taken the experts’ advice to get multiple boosters, underlying medical conditions can apparently be discussed.
But although he’s three years late, Dr. Kamayachi has a point. Although reported Covid deaths have been much higher in the booster era, far fewer Covid cases have been receiving mechanical ventilation (the grey line shows the number of ventilators (with ECMO) secured for Covid patients).
But even if hardly any of them have been struggling for breath on mechanical ventilation, Japan’s elderly have been dying in higher than expected numbers in the booster era. The national figures for December won’t be out until late February, but Yokohama (Japan’s second largest city) has already releases its all-cause death numbers for 2022. Somehow I doubt Dr. Kamayachi will call for a “thorough analysis” to find out the cause of the increase since August.
Although there’s no good news here for Japan’s vaxxed-to-the-max elderly, there is for Japan’s medical establishment: high numbers of Covid deaths mean the publicly funded Covid gravy train will keep going. From the Nikkei.
On January 11th, experts offered their on views reclassifying COVID-19 under the Infectious Diseases Act. In light of the current situation where the number of reported Covid deaths per day is the highest ever, the experts called for the Government to continue to provide a certain amount of financial support to cover treatment and hospitalisation costs and for securing hospital beds.
Basically, the Government’s selected experts, including Dr. Wakita above, recommend that Covid should be downgraded ‘gradually’, i.e., medical costs should continue to be covered by public funds rather than health insurance or out-of-pocket payments like every other medical condition. This might seem reasonable. But under the current scheme of Covid support payments, hospitals can be paid ¥436,000 ($3,370) per day to ‘secure’ a single ICU bed regardless of whether anyone is in it. And overpriced Covid treatments include glorified cold medications like Shinogi’s Xocova.
So let’s recap what the experts have told us. The cause of increased Covid deaths? “Dunno.” Should the Government keep showering medical institutions and pharma companies with money? “Absolutely!”
Well, what were you expecting them to say?
Guy Gin writes regularly on his Substack page, Making (Covid) Waves in Japan, where this article first appeared. Subscribe here.
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Amazing published on the same day as Labour announce their energy policy.
The BBC might as well be the media arm of the Labour Party
Propaganda Arm of the Liberal Elite. Which is why we junked our TV 20 years ago. Gets worse with every passing year.
“Ah yes science, one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact” ——-Mark Twain. —-Jeez I really wish Mark Twain was around these days to humiliate this crowd of climate doomsters and their manipulated and adjusted data. Their phony graphs and their cherry picked facts. Their harassing of scientific journals that dare to publish anything remotely indicating there isn’t much in the way of a climate crisis at all, and their blaming of every single thing that happens as “likely due to the burning of fossil fuels”. ——-Who pays the piper calls the tune and it is sad to see that “science” has just become another government department.
Ah yes.
Our old chum Bob “fast fingers” Ward, with his super “Scientific” qualification of PhD in “Paleopiezometry” (failed).
His level of mendacity, incompetence and sheer malice makes even scum like Michael E (hockey-stick) Mann seem fractionally less egregious.
Some of us have been on to Bob Ward and his sinister employer for some time. Indeed, using libel laws has been a tactic of Grantham/Ward for some time, but it has long been the case that only the Guardian has much sympathy for Bob’s activities. He pops up on Sky News’ from time to time but he isn’t the most appealing of advocates.
Grantham is more interesting. His interest is very much in Biomass (destroying plants and trees in the fight against CO2), and that his wife is something of a green zealot and, er, photographer.
Indeed it has long been the case that it isn’t so much the billionaires that are so dangerous when it comes to the damage done by the promotion of eco-lunacy but their idiot wives, worse, ex-wives. After all it was Laurie David, ex-wife of Larry, who ‘produced’ Al Gore’s now risible ‘An Inconvenient Truth’…
Maybe DS should do an expose into ‘billionaires’ wives’
I guess she no longer photographs trees.
The BBC hails making the poor poorer. The true purpose of collectivism, socialism, communism is to hand more power to the state and create dependency.
“A similar ‘scientists’ stunt was pulled last month by Damian Carrington in the Guardian, who polled 400 so-called scientists and in an ocean of emotional guff concluded the world is heading towards a “semi dystopian” future.”
Well this Carrington quack was right on the last bit but he needs to be more assertive; he can drop the “semi.”
I hate these people.
Carrington etc are inadequate ppl who couldn’t repair a puncture on their bike but think they can reorder the energy grid/world. The true purpose of their actions is to offload their self hated and loathing on to everyone else.
If you are a scientist and don’t subscribe to any kind of alarmism you will never have the distinction of being classed as “distinguished”. You will be a “maverick”. A bit of an odd old chap due to retire to his bungalow looking over the Sussex County Cricket Ground where the sooner he gets the white hanky on his balding dome the better and let the “distinguished scientists” deal with the impending climate catastrophe that somehow requires no evidence but SSSSSHHHHHH. You don’t need evidence in Post Normal Science, all you need is a show of hands from a bunch of government funded data adjusters.
1,931 signatures of more qualified people saying “There is No Climate Emergency” at the World Climate Declaration
https://clintel.org
https://clintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/WCD-240529.pdf
We control things on many levels that most aren’t aware of. The forces of human mood and mind do have a profound effect on the level of moisture in the atmosphere. But these people know nothing about this. Their postulates are essentially the opposite of the truth because they are ultimately predicated on human misery.
If Blairites (such as Cameron – Clegg) can run government policy on the basis of The End of History (Fukuyama) it is a small jump to running public policy on the basis all science has been done and nothing is left to learn.
Looks like I should have gone to
Barnard CastleSpecsavers before reading the names of the ‘climate scientists’. I could have sworn ‘Karen’ was the middle name of every one of them.The notion and audacity of subjecting the nation with such BS is reprehensible & who could have exposed these charlatans better then themselves
I work (aged 79) for a company that benefits from the EV push. Therefore I benefit. Exactly the same principle applies to the signatories.
As a trained scientist/engineer and with some experience IMHO there is no scince associated with climate change, particularly the forecasts for the next 75 years. However there are a lot of politics so an pushback against the climate narrative must be a political one, hence the letter pushing one way
If I push the other way, I may lose the benefit I receive. People vote with their pocket.
The green idiots who support this nonsense are best represented by this comment (on one anti comment that the BBC had removed):
“I agree they shouldn’t open comments on this topic. All you get are right wing science deniers shouting slogans and facile misconceptions. Reform are swimming in oil money. But you wouldn’t think that matters, I’m guessing?”
I bet Nigel wishes that Reform were swimming in oil money.
It’s funny how when you quote scientific research at these people they claim you are shouting slogans.
Ha ha ha hilarious. The BBC are the biggest comedy show these days.