At the diet, the 3rd supplementary budget was determined. It should be spent until the end of March this year. On the contrary to our hope, about 80% of the budget is for the other purposes than the expense for Corona crisis, like digitalization of the administration, the expansion of the new ID card system or even for the military expense including the payment to the US.
It seems to coincide with the policy "Economy First", that the government has adopted since last spring. The core of this policy is involved with holding the Olympic games this summer, which is unlikely to occur. It seems to drag the plan as late as possible for the interests of the related businesses. Subsidiary policy to promote travelling or eating at restaurants has turned out to let the crony companies acquire concessions. This was another example of "Economy First" policy.
The government has recently given up following up the person closely contacted to the patient/asymptomatic carrier except for those related with nursery facilities etc. Accordingly, the number of PCR tests is decreasing, which resulted in the number of new cases. Of course, this 3rd wave of epidemic since last fall could be getting settled down now. But the still increasing number of deaths may mean it is not the case. It was a fault for the administration office to have decided not to investigate the cluster cases or the people closely contacted with patients. Because it makes difficult to evaluate the effect of any policy for this outbreak.
One more thing, which surprised me a lot recently, is that those returning our country from oversea has been asked for self quarantine somewhere for a couple of weeks but they seem to have stayed home with their family for that period. It is never an isolation but could cause contagion at home. The governmental office seems not concerned about that.
The government has announced that they would give the vaccine to every people in the country at the expense of the government. It is reported, however, the contract with Pfizer says they would distribute the vaccine, not by June as formerly reported, but by the end of this year. The vaccination has not been started at present at all. The logistics and the vaccination program at periphery have not been determined nor prepared yet, even though the doctors and related personnel have been working hard to build the system.
Considering what is going on, or not going on, by the government, it seems to go after the administration of Trump in the US or of Bolsonaro in Brazil. Our government pretends to rely on scientific findings on COVID19 and on the epidemiological data in our country. But I could hardly believe they have not done that from scratch. Together with the administrative office governed by bureaucrat MDs, they are concerned only not to mitigate but to pretend to do that.
A big member of the Diet who belongs to the ruling party could be hospitalized without any symptoms as soon as he was diagnosed as COVID19 positive. There have been thousands of patients, at home, waiting for the beds in hospitals. Dozens of people have succumbed at home without any access to medical care. All the personnel at the center of LDPJ, the ruling party, have been tested by PCR for COVID19, since there was a case of COVID19 there. These disparities in managing people infected with COVID19 between the people of the ruling party and the other people clearly tells us how the government is doing with this crisis.
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