BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:Indybay-18843581 SEQUENCE:19002435 CREATED:20210705T011200Z DESCRIPTION:Sunday 7/11 Protest Tokyo Olympic Madness Threatening To Expand The Global Covid Pandemic\nStop Restarting NUKES & No Dumping Of Fukushima Radioactive Water In Pacific Ocean\n6/11 SF Rally At SF Japanese Consulate \nSpeak Out On & Bring Your Banners!\nSunday July 11, 2021 3:00 PM \nSan Francisco Japanese Consulate \n275 Battery St/California St. \nSan Francisco \nSponsored by No Nukes Action \n\nThe Japanese government supported by the International Organizing Commiittee IOC, the Biden administration and the G7 is moving ahead with the holding of the Tokyo Olympics in the middle of a world pandemic which is now\nengulfiing Japan. \nThe Delta virus has hit the country and less than 5% of the people are even vaccinated. This means that thousands could die and the hospitals staff are already at the breaking point.\n\nThe government controlled corporate media is also suppressing the growing protests against the Olympics and the massive corruption of the government. \n\nAt the same time over 80% of the people oppose having the Olympics in the midst of a full scale pandemics but the profits for NBC and the media companies come first for the IOC and the Japanese government. \n\nThe people of the world need to demand that the Olympics be cancelled and these politicians, governments and the IOC be held accountable for this criminal insanity. Japanese medical doctors are even warning of a possible Tokyo Olympic virus strain coming out of these events which will bring tens of thousands of people from around the world to Japan for the Olympics. \n\nThe Suga Japanese government is also planning to restart more nuclear plants and also release over a million tons of radioactive water from Fukushima where the burned nuclear reactor plants continue to leak radioactive material more than ten years after the melt-downs. \n\nNuclear clean-up workers including workers from overseas and other workers continue to get contaminated with no proper health and safety education and tens of thousands of bags of radioactive waste continue to remain scattered throughout the prefecture with no place to go. The government is also seeking to spread the contaminated waste throughout Japan in road construction and other projects. \n\nThe denialism of the dangers of having the Olympics in Japan is directly connected to the denialism of the dangers of Fukushima, the denialism of the Comfort Women and the Japanese government’s denialism during the 2nd World War that they could not lose the war. This effort to deny the present reality is connected historically to the rulers of Japan and it has led to the cost of millions of lives. \n\nNo Nukes Action asks you to join us and speak out to demand the cancellation of the Olympics, the halt to re-opening Japan’s nuclear plants and defense of the Fukushima people. We oppose as well the militarization of Asia supported by the US and Biden along with Congressional leader Nancy Pelosi. Thiis includes the building of the new Haneko base in Okinawa. \n\n\nPhysical distancing and masks for all participants at action \nSpeak-out In Stop The Japan Olympics In The Middle Of Covid Pandemic \nDefense of the Residents of Fukushima \nDon’t Dump The Radioactive Water In The Pacific Ocean and Stop The Nukes \nSunday July 11, 2021 3PM \nSan Francisco Japanese Consulate \n275 Battery St/California St. \nSan Francisco \nNo Nukes Action \nhttp://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/ \n\nJapan Municipalities forced to suspend vaccinations due to dire shortage in midst of pandemic & the Tokyo Olympics\nhttp://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14386679\n\nTHE ASAHI SHIMBUN\nJuly 3, 2021 at 14:40 JST\n\n Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura, third from left, speaks with reporters July 2 after meeting with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. (Koichi Ueda)\nAlready far behind many other countries, Japan's plans for a national rollout of COVID-19 vaccines--Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's ace in the hole for pulling off the Tokyo Olympics this month--appear to be fast degenerating into yet another ill-conceived policy effort.\nSuga set a goal of 1 million jabs a day, along with an expansion of vaccination programs to ones handled by the Self-Defense Forces, workplaces and universities.\nLocal government officials tried to comply with those moves, working hard to find locations and medical staff to carry out the task. The goal of 1 million shots was reached in June.\nIt now turns out that the rush to vaccinate may be behind a shortage of vaccine supplies from later this month.\nOnly about 30 percent of requests submitted by local governments for vaccines developed jointly by U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. and German biocommerce company BioNTech will likely be met in the two-week period from July 19, health ministry officials said.\nThat led local governments to temporarily suspend accepting reservations for vaccinations due to uncertainties about how many vaccine doses will be available.\nThe Osaka city government on July 2 decided to postpone the scheduled July 12 start of reservations for those 60 and older who have yet to receive a single jab.\nChiba city next to Tokyo decided to stop taking reservations for senior citizens 65 and older trying to get their first jabs.\nThe Yamagata city government on June 25 stopped taking reservations for shots at local doctors’ offices.\nYamagata Mayor Takahiro Sato was clearly miffed with the central government over the confusion that has arisen.\n“In compliance with the government's policy, medical care professionals and city government officials did their level best to expand the vaccination program,” Sato said June 23 when the decision was made to suspend reservations. “But now limits have arisen on the supply of vaccines. There is incredible confusion among those handling the vaccinations.”\nIn Osaka Prefecture, only about 80 percent of requests for vaccines from municipal authorities have been filled since June.\nThe figure is expected to fall to 55 percent for the period between July 5 and 18.\nOn July 2, Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura met with Taro Kono, the state minister coordinating the vaccination program at the central government level, and asked that prefectures that had been under a state of emergency due to the novel coronavirus pandemic be given priority for receiving vaccines.\nA similar request was made to Kono and Norihisa Tamura, the health minister, the previous day by the governors of Tokyo and its three neighboring prefectures.\nThe Pfizer vaccine has been used to inoculate senior citizens aged 65 and older, the first group to receive jabs outside of medical care professionals.\nBut the central government also announced plans to allow shots to be administered at workplaces and universities from June 21. The vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. of the United States is being used for the workplace vaccinations.\nInundated with requests from companies and universities for vaccines, the Moderna supply of 50 million doses quickly ran out, leading the government to shift some of the Pfizer vaccines that would have been used by local governments at mass vaccination centers to the workplace program.\nHealth ministry officials said they had received requests for about 100 million Pfizer doses from local governments for June and July. But only around 60 million doses are available for that period.\nAssociates of Suga suggested that local governments may have to ask local residents in municipalities with a vaccine deficiency to wait longer than the normal three-week period before getting their second and final jab.\n\nJapan Tozen Union Opposes the Tokyo Olympics\nhttps://tokyogeneralunion.org/tozen-union-opposes-the-tokyo-olympics/\nMay 7, 2021 by TozenAdmin\nShare\nTweet\nPin\n0\nSHARES\n\n\nAs a labour union we fight for workers’ rights, and worker safety. And the Tokyo Olympics has had numerous counts of worker deaths and injuries, and workers have reported a “culture of fear” that discouraged them from making complaints about working conditions.\n\nAnother major reason that we do not support the Olympics is that the world is currently in the midst of a global pandemic. Corona cases in Japan have been constantly rising and dropping, and with no large-scale vaccination in sight, going ahead with the olympics would be an unnecessary risk to all.\n\nOther reasons that we oppose the Tokyo Olympics are:\n\nFinancial costs\nLoss of homes\nReports of corruption and bribery\nThe militarisation of the police\nUnsafe temperatures.\nCategories Uncategorized\nTags corona virus, covid-19, Japan, job, labor, labor union, olympic games, olympics, Tokyo 2020 olympics, Tokyo General Union, tokyo olympics, Tozen, Tozen Union\nPost navigation\nフィリピン人家事労働者が抱えている労働問題が記事になりました。 TOZEN mentioned in article about Filipino domestic workers.\nBread & Roses: Covid, Not Olympics, Requires Our National Effort\n\nU.S. medical experts: Olympic virus plan lacks scientific basis\nhttp://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14359391\nBy KEISUKE KATORI/ Staff Writer\nMay 27, 2021 at 16:35 JST\n\n \n\nA monument of the Olympic logo in Tokyo's Shinjuku district (Shinnosuke Ito)\nAn article in a respected medical journal blasted the infection-prevention “playbook” of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee as vague on detail and “not built on scientifically rigorous risk assessment.”\nThe article, released by the New England Journal of Medicine on May 25, was written by four public health experts, including Michael T. Osterholm of the University of Minnesota who formerly served as an adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.\nThe article noted the huge increase in COVID-19 cases in Japan between March 2020, when the decision was announced to postpone the Tokyo Olympics for one year, and now.\nIt also pointed out that only about 5 percent of the Japanese population has been vaccinated, the lowest level of any member of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.\nGiven such factors, “the IOC’s determination to proceed with the Olympic Games is not informed by the best scientific evidence,” the article said.\nThe playbook version released in April has not taken into consideration the lessons learned from the holding of games in the NFL and NBA, the article said.\nThe playbook, according to the article, contains few details about infection-prevention measures for the accommodations of the Olympic athletes and other indoor facilities.\nThe article also questioned the playbook’s call for using apps to confirm infection routes. Athletes will not be holding smartphones containing these apps when they are competing, it noted.\n“With less than two months until the Olympic torch is lit, canceling the Games may be the safest option,” the article stated.\nBut it also provided various suggestions if the Olympics are held, such as limiting the number of people at indoor venues, conducting polymerase chain reaction tests at least once a day, and allowing wearable devices when using contact-tracing apps.\nThe article also recommended the World Health Organization “immediately convene an emergency committee,” like the one ahead of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, when the Zika virus was a public health concern.\nToshiro Muto, the director-general and CEO of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, declined to comment on the article at his May 26 news conference, saying he had not confirmed its contents.\nBut he also said the playbook released in April was based on discussions with the IOC and the WHO, and it included the lessons learned from other sporting events held during the pandemic.\nThe organizing committee plans to release a revised playbook in June.\nOne author of the article was Annie K. Sparrow, an associate professor of global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.\nSparrow tweeted, “We don’t have to cancel the Olympics--we still have time to make them safe.”\nBut she also criticized the IOC, tweeting, “To save money, it is passing the risk to the athletes and the people of Japan.”\nThe article is available at .\n\nProtecting Olympic Participants from Covid-19 — The Urgent Need for a Risk-Management Approach\n\nhttps://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2108567\nList of authors.\nAnnie K. Sparrow, M.D., M.P.H., Lisa M. Brosseau, Sc.D., Robert J. Harrison, M.D., M.P.H., and Michael T. Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H.\nArticle\nFigures/Media\nMetrics\n5 References\nIn late July, approximately 11,000 athletes and 4000 athletic-support staff from more than 200 countries will gather for more than 2 weeks of competition at the Tokyo Olympics. One month later, another 5000 athletes and additional staff will attend the Paralympics. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Tokyo 2020 playbooks,1 which are intended to protect both participants and the people of Japan from SARS-CoV-2 infection, Olympic athletes are instructed to supply their own face coverings, are encouraged (but not required) to be vaccinated against Covid-19, and will undergo testing at unspecified intervals after they arrive in Japan.\nWhen the IOC postponed the Tokyo Olympics in March 2020, Japan had 865 active cases of Covid-19 against a global backdrop of 385,000 active cases. It was assumed that the pandemic would be controlled in 2021 or that vaccination would be widespread by then. Fourteen months later, Japan is in a state of emergency, with 70,000 active cases. Globally, there are 19 million active cases. Variants of concern, which may be more transmissible and more virulent than the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, are circulating widely. Vaccines are available in some countries, but less than 5% of Japan’s population is vaccinated, the lowest rate among all Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries.\nPfizer and BioNTech have offered to donate vaccines for all Olympic athletes, but this offer does not ensure that all athletes will receive vaccines before the Olympics, since vaccine authorization and availability are lacking in more than 100 countries. Moreover, some athletes may choose not to be vaccinated because of worries about the effects of vaccination on their performance or ethical concerns about being prioritized ahead of health care workers and vulnerable people. Although several countries have vaccinated their athletes, adolescents between 15 and 17 years of age cannot be vaccinated in most countries, and children younger than 15 can be vaccinated in even fewer countries. As a result, few teenage athletes, including gymnasts, swimmers, and divers as young as 12, will be vaccinated. In the absence of regular testing, participants may become infected during the Olympics and pose a risk when they return home to more than 200 countries.\nWe believe the IOC’s determination to proceed with the Olympic Games is not informed by the best scientific evidence. The playbooks maintain that athletes participate at their own risk, while failing both to distinguish the various levels of risk faced by athletes and to recognize the limitations of measures such as temperature screenings and face coverings. Similarly, the IOC has not heeded lessons from other large sporting events. Many U.S.-based professional leagues, including the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association, and the Women’s National Basketball Association, conducted successful seasons, but their protocols were rigorous and informed by an understanding of airborne transmission, asymptomatic spread, and the definition of close contacts.2 Preventive measures, adapted amid continuous expert review, included single hotel rooms for athletes, at least daily testing, and wearable technology for monitoring contacts, supported by rigorous contact tracing. Despite increasingly rigorous protocols, outbreaks of Covid-19 have caused multiple game cancellations. The World Men’s Handball Championship, held in Egypt in January 2021, showed the limits of housing even two people together when roommates were both forced out of games after one tested positive. In February, the Australian Open was challenged by hotel-driven exposures and two local outbreaks. In early May, the Indian Premier League cricket tournament was suspended in its third week.\nThe IOC’s playbooks1 are not built on scientifically rigorous risk assessment, and they fail to consider the ways in which exposure occurs, the factors that contribute to exposure, and which participants may be at highest risk. To be sure, most athletes are at low risk for serious health outcomes associated with Covid-19, but some Paralympic athletes could be in a higher-risk category. In addition, we believe the playbooks do not adequately protect the thousands of people — including trainers, volunteers, officials, and transport and hotel employees — whose work ensures the success of such a large event.\nThe World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have both recognized the important role of infectious-particle inhalation in person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2.3,4 When planning any event, the first task should involve identifying the people most at risk of being exposed and the jobs, activities, and locations for which exposure will be the highest. When it comes to aerosol inhalation, the most important features of exposure are the concentration of infectious particles in the air and the length of time spent in contact with those particles. Concentration of particles depends on the number of infected people, the type of activity (i.e., the degree to which it generates aerosols), the amount of time that infected people spend in a particular space, and the degree of ventilation. Over long periods, physical distancing plays a less-relevant role in enclosed spaces, as particles become distributed throughout the space.\nWe believe that the IOC’s playbooks should classify events as low, moderate, or high risk depending on the activity and the venue and should address differences among these categories. For example, outdoor events for which competitors are naturally spaced out, such as sailing, archery, and equestrian events, may be considered low risk. Other outdoor sports for which close contact is unavoidable, such as rugby, hockey (field hockey), and football (soccer), could be considered moderate risk. Sports that are held in indoor venues and require close contact, such as boxing and wrestling, are probably high risk. Any sport that takes place indoors — even if athletes compete individually, as they do in gymnastics — will pose a greater risk than outdoor events. Protocols for keeping athletes and everyone else involved safe could vary on the basis of these risk levels.\nThe playbooks could also address differences among venues, including noncompetition spaces. Smaller, enclosed spaces where many athletes congregate, including stadiums, buses, and cafeterias, are higher-risk settings than outdoor areas. Hotels are likely to be high-risk areas, in light of close contact in shared rooms (three athletes per room will be standard), dining spaces, and other common areas and inadequate ventilation systems that were designed before the pandemic.\nBecause people with Covid-19 can be infectious 48 hours before they develop symptoms (and may not develop symptoms at all), routine temperature and symptom screening will not be effective for identifying presymptomatic or asymptomatic people. Polymerase-chain-reaction testing, at least once (if not twice) per day, is best practice, as the NFL experience shows.2 The IOC plans to provide every athlete with a smartphone that has mandatory contact-tracing and health-reporting apps. Contact-tracing apps are often ineffective, however, and very few Olympic athletes will compete carrying a mobile phone. Evidence suggests that wearable devices with proximity sensors are more effective than such apps.\n\nComparison of Best Practices to Protect Public and Athlete Health with the IOC’s Current Plan.\nWe recommend that the WHO immediately convene an emergency committee that includes experts in occupational safety and health, building and ventilation engineering, and infectious-disease epidemiology, as well as athlete representatives, to consider these factors and advise on a risk-management approach for the Tokyo Olympics (see table). There is precedent for such an approach: the WHO convened an emergency committee to provide guidance ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brazil during the Zika virus Public Health Emergency of International Concern in 2016.5\nA global health security strategy relies on understanding the interconnectedness among countries. If our experience facing Covid-19 represents a moment of truth, it also provides an unrivaled opportunity for the realization of human values and collective human interests — the world’s new contract — and for preparing to defeat future threats. With less than 2 months until the Olympic torch is lit, canceling the Games may be the safest option. But the Olympic Games are one of the few events that could connect us at a time of global disconnect. The Olympic spirit is unparalleled in its power to inspire and mobilize. We rally around the torch because we recognize the value of the things that connect us over the value of the things that separate us. For us to connect safely, we believe urgent action is needed for these Olympic Games to proceed.\n\nStudy: Olympics with spectators would cause 10,000 infections \nhttp://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14374923\nBy KAI ICHINO/ Staff Writer\nJune 17, 2021 at 17:15 JST\nShare\nTweet list\nPrint\nThe Olympic logo seen on Feb. 3 in Tokyo’s Odaiba waterfront district (Asahi Shimbun file photo)\nIf spectators are allowed to attend the Tokyo Olympics, an additional 10,000 people in the capital would be infected with the novel coronavirus within a month, health experts warned.\nThey also said the figure could rise further, depending on the spread of coronavirus variants.\nThe experts from Kyoto University, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and other institutions estimated the number of new infections in the capital between July 23, when the Olympics are scheduled to open, and late August.\nThey compared the projected virus situations in Tokyo if the Summer Games are held with or without spectators, and submitted the results to an expert panel advising the health ministry at a June 16 meeting.\nGovernment officials and Olympic organizers are nearing a decision on whether to let spectators attend the Olympic events. Although fans from overseas have already been banned, government officials appear leaning toward letting domestic audiences attend the Games.\nThe experts’ study assumed that the flow of people in the capital will jump by 10 or 15 percent after the COVID-19 state of emergency is lifted for Tokyo on June 20 as scheduled.\nSuch human traffic would further rise by 4 or 9 percent if the Games are held without spectators, and by 5 or 10 percent if the attendance is allowed.\nTheir COVID-19 projections were also based on the assumption that 150,000 vaccine shots will be administered to Tokyoites daily from June 20, with an 80-percent effectiveness rate in preventing infections.\nAbout 84,000 doses were administered to senior citizens in the capital on June 15, according to the metropolitan government.\nThe experts also took into account the potential spread of the Delta variant that emerged in India.\nUsing the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee’s estimates on the number of spectators, the experts reckoned that around 250,000 people will travel in the capital and surrounding areas per day to watch the Games at the venues or public viewing events, some of which have been canceled.\nThe calculations showed that the difference between holding the Olympics with spectators or without fans would be more than 10,000 new COVID-19 cases in Tokyo by around Aug. 25.\nThat means the capital would have to deal with an additional 300 or so new cases daily if spectators can attend the Games.\nThe figure is based on the scenario of a 15-percent increase in the flow of people after the state of emergency is lifted and an additional 10-percent rise after the Olympics kick off, even if the impact of the Delta variant is kept to a minimum.\nAccording to another estimate presented by the experts, Tokyo’s daily number of new infections would exceed 500 by mid-July if the movement of people increases by 10 or 15 percent, regardless of whether the Olympics take place or are called off.\nAn area with that number of daily new cases is deemed at the equivalent of stage 4, the most serious situation in terms of the spread of infections. A stage 4 condition calls for the government to consider issuing a state of emergency.\nYuki Furuse, a program-specific associate professor at Kyoto University and one of the experts, said people’s behavior and the government’s anti-virus measures will change once infections start rising, indicating that the actual figures may drop.\n\nUganda Olympic team member tests positive for COVID-19 \nhttp://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14377030\nTHE ASAHI SHIMBUN\nJune 20, 2021 at 13:14 JST\nShare\nTweet list\nPrint\nPhoto/Illutration The Ugandan Olympic delegation at Narita Airport on June 19 (Toshiyuki Hayashi)\nPhoto/Illutration\nPhoto/Illutration\nPhoto/Illutration\nA member of Uganda’s national team tested positive for the novel coronavirus on arrival in Japan on June 19 and remains in quarantine, marking the first such case among those coming from overseas for the Olympic Games, Japanese government officials said.\nAll nine delegation members were given two shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine before their departure, according to the Cabinet Secretariat.\nThey produced certificates of negative test results to quarantine officials on arrival at Narita Airport outside Tokyo. Each of them took two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests within 96 hours of leaving Uganda.\nTeam members include a boxer, weightlifter, swimmer and coaches.\nThey turned up at the arrival gate just past 6 p.m. after 80 or so passengers had disembarked from the aircraft.\nThe team members were required to provide saliva samples for antigen testing.\nOne individual had to undergo a PCR test as the result of the antigen test was not definitive. The individual’s infection was confirmed after the PCR test, which is more sensitive than an antigen test.\nThe rest of the team later left on a chartered bus for Izumisano, a city in Osaka Prefecture, for a camp to prepare for the Summer Games that kick off July 23. They arrived at their hotel around 9:30 a.m. on June 20.\nThe Ugandan team is the second from overseas to arrive in Japan after the Australian softball squad, which is camping in Ota, Gunma Prefecture. \n\nTokyo Olympics committee top official commits suicide\nhttps://www.today.ng/sport/tokyo-olympics-committee-top-official-commits-suicide-369757\nBy Agencies -June 8, 2021\nJapan has been backed into a corner over the Tokyo Games, a member of the country’s Olympic committee said Friday, arguing the virus-postponed event has “lost meaning” – but adding that it’s too late to cancel.\nZBetaLife_720x90_2.gif\nA top official from the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) Yasushi Moriya has died after jumping in front of a subway train on Monday morning.\n\nPrivate broadcaster Nippon Television reported Moriya’s death, citing Tokyo metropolitan police sources.\n\nThe 52-year-old was seen jumping onto the tracks at Nakanobu Station in the south of the capital at 09:30am local time and was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital.\n\nPolice are investigating the circumstances of the incident, which they are viewing as an apparent suicide, the television network said.\n\nNikkei reported that Moriya was an accounting manager and that no suicide note was found on his body.\n\nA representative of the JOC told Reuters news agency it was gathering information on the incident.\n\n\nMoriya’s death comes as pressure mounts for Tokyo to cancel next month’s Games amid concerns it will turn into a super-spreader event.\n\nWorries about variants of Covid and a slow vaccination drive have prompted calls from doctors, some high-profile business executives and hundreds of thousands of citizens to cancel the Olympic Games, due to run from July 23 until August 8.\n\nPublic sentiment is firmly against the Games, with a poll from mid-May showing that more than 80 per cent of Japanese people are opposed to holding the event this year.\n\nHowever, officials, including Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, seem determined that the Games – already postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic – will go ahead as planned.\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/07/04/18843581.php SUMMARY:Protest Tokyo Olympic Madness Threatening To Expand The Global Covid Pandemic LOCATION:San Francisco Japanese Consulate\n275 Battery St/California St.\nSan Francisco URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/07/04/18843581.php DTSTART:20210711T220000Z DTEND:20210711T230000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR