You are aware that we have a global pandemic right?
So if even you won't treat everyone as a possible threat, the chance that 'guests' bring in the virus is high. Since Japan is an island, most people will fly there by plane and most people will be inside the plane for at least 6 hours+. Even if at half capacity the chance that there is 1 infectious person/ person becoming infectious is high.
All Tests are snapshots of whether or not your infectious at time X.
Quick tests are only valid for 6 hours since they only check whether you are infectious.
PCR Tests are more accurate but take some time to get the results. Thus there is a chance to get infected afterwards and before the flight.
So all 'guests' would need to go into quarantine for 5 days just to make sure that there is no infection. Who is going to house them? Is it feasable to have large numbers of foreigners quarantined in Japan? Will they follow the rules? Will they were a mask? Looking at the news and the rule bending rule breaking that is happening in the west regarding the pandemic gives litte hope.
Furthermore, to protect your own country from a new outbreak is it really a wise decision to add another thousands of people into an already overcrowded city?
EDIT: Adding to that, since the whole world is not yet vaccinated mutations are a real threat, even in the US they found 2 new mutations in the past weeks. The later even seems to be immun to the vaccinations.
Thus to not have to cancel the whole event and all 'guest' bookings one could also argue that the best way is to minimize the risk, chaos, loss. Now everyone can plan around the restrictions and further cancelations are less likely.
I am discriminated against because I can't just move to America. I need a visa to live there and Americans don't. Discrimination! I am discriminated against because I am not considered for jobs I don't have the skills to perform. It's fine to discriminate under sensible circumstances, such as stopping millions of people coming to your country during a pandemic.
> The virus is there already, since quite a while.
Sure but adding possible new clusters, is not that good of an idea.
Furthermore, the chances that additional strains arrive there is higher. Unfortunately the Britisch strain is spreading now in Tokyo.
> What kind of tests are available that can show if you're infectuous? That would be really helpful to tackle the situation. So far, I just know about tests that can detect the presence of the virus or antibodies.
>They are accurate in terms of detecting smallest leftovers of the virus, but not in detecting if someone is infectious.
Agree
> I fail to understand how a 'foreigner' is a bigger threat (in terms of 'protection from a new outbreak') than the locals already carrying the virus and being responsible for all the recent cases (there is a staggering 22% positivity rate in Tokyo today - without these 'dangerous' foreigners).
To stop a pandemic you need to decrease mobility, to do that we had/have lockdowns. Some countries have closed their borders just like Japan (recently) and New Zealand.
The Japanese Government has decided to conduct the Olympic games this Summer with only the Atheles and Trainers getting entry.
"Guests"/ Tourists would not be limited to the games but would like to go sightseeing etc. thereby increasing the amount of people moving around and creating additional / preventable clusters. Where do you have that 22% positivy rate from? This is the total oposite of what the offical stats say. https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ I know government stats should be taken with a pinch salt. But a positivity rate of 22% would not be posible to hide, since 22% of the kanto region is 16million people....
> Is discrimination okay, if there are 'reasons' for it? Is discrimination okay, if a majority agrees with it?
So is New Zealand discrimanting against foreigners for having a entry stop? Japan did the same thing New Zealand/Australia and gave the olympic teams an exception.
Furthermore, a countries purpose is to protect their citizins whether they are native or foreign. What is the best and most effective way as an Island nation to reduce the risk and danger to their populace? It is to temporarily halt the issuence of new Visa / Tourist Visa included.
And is discrimination ok? It is difficult to say here are two examples: Purely Fiction
Country X says no entry to African Americans, because they are taller than the populace. This would be not OK
Country Y temporary bans entry to the whole world because of a global pandemic. This would be OK since the goal is not discrimation but the reduction of movement of people.
Both can be argued to be discrimination but both have a different intention. Thus I would say that there is no absolute answer, as is True or False. There are greyzones inbetween. I think the intend and purpose matters as well as who is affected - everyone is affected equaly vs a single group of people. Yes you could define 98% of the world as a single group of people , but still...
BTW if for example Japan would ban all foreigners, because foreigners have a different hair colour, or because they look different in general. Then I would argue against that policy.
Um, can't we give those narrative a break even in the time of peril like this? It's just so out of context. It's global Pandemic dude! Controlling the risk from outsiders is the protocol in EVERY COUNTRY right now.
They host the Olympic, they seriously WANT everyone from every country to be in their country! and it's just can't happened right now.
If the situation is normal, and they refuse to let foreigner in, then we'll talk.
So if the vast majority of people survive, we should just let it rip?
What would happen if we would let it rip:
- Without any counter measures such as masks or lockdowns the rate of infection would be significantly higher resulting
- Tens of millions more dead (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/09/8724419...) The link shows projections done last year in May. Mutations that spread more such as B1.117 (British variant) are not even in this consideration
- More people with long term effects and need for rehabilitation, which will lead to a significant influx on the health care system in third world countries such as the USA were even now Kickstarter ist the most widely used insurance service....
Even if only 1.5% die across all age groups accross the world that would still be 117.000.000 million people.
Now the population of people above the age of 65 is 700.000.000 here the mortality rate is higher. Let's be conservative at say 20% ( since there is also an increase between ages 65 and 75+) that would be 140.000.000 Deaths
Now for the age group below age 65 and acording to stats from 2016 are 16% of the world population obese . Obese people just like older people have a higher risk of dying from covid than healthy people. 16% from 7. billion ( deducted the above 65% since they already have a higher chance) That would be 1.120.000.000 people that would have a conservative risk to die of covid of 20% = 224.000.000
total death toll = 140.000.000 + 224.000.000 + 88.500.000 (5.9bil healthy people with death chance of 1.5%) = 450.000.000
By no means are these number accurate but they show about what kind of dimension we talk about when we talk about letting it rip. Important to not is that the 5.9 billion people are not all healthy so in reality that number would be much higher.
The flu itself kill yearly 650.000 people globally ,.. so every one who says that covid19 is not dangerous is an idiot.
>So if the vast majority of people survive, we should just let it rip?
No, we should still attempt to fight it but doing so without lockdown/masks.
lockdown/masks cause misery which is should not be ignored.
> Without any counter measures such as masks or lockdowns the rate of infection would be significantly higher resulting - Tens of millions more dead
South Dakota never lockdown nor have mask mandate
Sweeden as well.
Florida mostly not lockdown
They are doing fine.
There are no significant difference between place that doing lockdown/mask compared to place that don't.
The way covid death is counted right now is highly misleading because it including everything remotely related to covid, for example death due to heart attack while being positive for covid is counted as covid death.
Death is not the sole metric, yes reducing death is a good thing but if it attempted by increasing misery due to lockdown then I don't want it.
> The connotation of discern is one of perceptive recognition of non-obvious underlying truth; the connotation of discriminate (since the 1860s) is quite the opposite, being more of an unjust imposition of difference where none is deserved.
(emphasis mine)
The key here is that discrimination is imposing different treatment of people "where none is deserved." When a pandemic is happening, you're not imposing "different" (and unjust) treatment upon foreign visitors - you're imposing necessary treatment as a precaution to help reduce the spread of the virus. This is a good thing that we want to do, not an unjust thing.
