{"id":16470,"date":"2021-03-05T12:39:53","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T20:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16470"},"modified":"2021-03-07T10:16:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T18:16:31","slug":"lloyd-parry-in-times-london-cancel-tokyo-2020-olympics-yet-even-this-respected-reporter-sloppily-implies-japans-covid-numbers-are-contingent-on-foreigners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=16470","title":{"rendered":"Lloyd Parry in Times London: “Cancel Tokyo 2020 Olympics”. Yet even this respected reporter sloppily implies Japan’s Covid numbers are contingent on foreigners"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0Richard Lloyd Parry, a very respected journalist and author<\/a>, has come out with a sensibly-argued Op-Ed in The Times London in favor of cancelling the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (which, for the record, Debito.org was never in favor of Japan getting in the first place<\/a>). \u00a0Full text below.<\/p>\n

But even then he words things carelessly when he writes:<\/p>\n

“[…] Japan […] compared to the pandemic mess in the rest of the rich world [has] been doing well. With twice the population of Britain, Japan has registered about a tenth the number of coronavirus cases and one twentieth the deaths. This has nothing to do with vaccination, which has hardly begun in Japan \u2014 only a few tens of thousands of health workers have been jabbed \u2014 but rather good hygiene and an almost complete ban on foreign visitors. Now the government threatens to sacrifice these gains for the sake of money and prestige.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

COMMENT<\/strong>: \u00a0Portraying Japan\u2019s apparent success at lower case numbers as due to an almost complete ban on \u201cforeign visitors\u201d is neither helpful nor accurate.<\/p>\n

As Mr. Lloyd Parry surely must have known (since the ban affected him too as a Japan resident), this ban included foreign residents, not just visitors<\/a>. \u00a0Not to mention that the British Covid variant was verifiably brought into Japan by Japanese<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Implicitly framing Covid as a \u201cforeign virus\u201d brought in by “foreign visitors” makes Japan seem to be a hermetically-sealed environment until the foreigners came in; and now “the government threatens to sacrifice these gains” from its apparent isolationism. \u00a0This rhetoric isn\u2019t that far removed from calling Covid the “Chinese Virus<\/a>” or the “Kung Flu<\/a>“. \u00a0And we’ve seen the dreadful results of that kind of carelessness<\/a>. (Including Japan<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

A moment’s reflection (which probably would have happened if Lloyd Parry were talking about minorities in Britain, especially at the editorial stage) would have brought about the realization that these are people we’re talking about, and how issues are couched in the media affects them, particularly if they’re Japan’s disenfranchised minorities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If it were my article, I would have said “Japan strongly limited international travel<\/strong>“, which doesn’t zero in on foreigners in specific.<\/p>\n

I’ll let others comment on the possible comparative issues of “good hygiene” (implying the rest of the rich world has bad hygiene?), and other factors that might lead to Japan undercounting actual virus cases (such as a lack of<\/a> reliable\u00a0contact tracing<\/a>, and not testing the asymptomatic for Covid<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But in my view, keeping the Covid case numbers low was a matter of politics, not science: \u00a0to keep the Olympics on track. \u00a0Now even despite all that, Lloyd Parry makes a convincing argument for canceling the Games. \u00a0Fine. \u00a0But let’s be more careful how we point fingers, shall we? \u00a0We’ve seen enough of how foreign correspondents succumb to Japan-style racialized narratives just as soon as they talk about “foreigners” and Japan<\/a>. \u00a0(Japan Times column on this implicit racism also here <\/a>and here<\/a>.) \u00a0Debito Arudou, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to cancel this year\u2019s Olympic Games<\/strong>
\nThe risk to the world, not just Japan, of a super-spreading event in Tokyo this summer is too great<\/strong>
\nRichard Lloyd Parry<\/strong>
\nWednesday March 03 2021, 12.01am GMT, The Times London, courtesy of RW<\/strong>
\nhttps:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/its-time-to-cancel-the-2021-olympic-games-3pb6sq9w9<\/a><\/p>\n

All but the most fanatical music lovers would accept that, this summer at least, Glastonbury had to go. For the second year in a row the 50-year-old festival has been cancelled because of the pandemic. The disappointment is hard to overestimate: for plenty of people, Glastonbury should have been a moment of release after months of demoralising lockdown. But, as Sir Paul McCartney observed, \u201ca hundred thousand people closely packed together with flags and no masks. Talk about super-spreader.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Similar feelings of frustration, sadness and resignation are being experienced over cultural and sporting experiences around the world, from closed theatres and cinemas to empty football stadiums to the Chelsea Flower Show. It\u2019s not that anyone personally objects to gardening enthusiasts but as a matter of common sense, and for the good of all of us, this is not the time for 157,000 of them to converge.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider then another international event, the grandaddy of them all. It will bring together more than 15,000 young participants from more than 200 countries plus several times that number of judges, sponsors, journalists and hangers-on. More than 11 million tickets are to be sold; tourists are supposed to pour in from across the globe.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If far smaller and shorter festivals are to be sacrificed in the interests of global public health, it seems obvious that such a massive event, spread over four weeks in the biggest city in the world, should also be cancelled. And yet officially, at least, the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, postponed since last summer, are going ahead.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As Japan\u2019s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, said the other week, \u201cI am determined to achieve the games as a proof of human victory against the pandemic, a symbol of global solidarity and to give hope and courage around the world.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Olympic custodians like to talk about courage, humanity and other abstract virtues; in reality, they have more hard-headed reasons for pressing ahead regardless. The vast sums of money already spent on the games are only the most obvious, inextricably tangled up with other investments of prestige and power that make the prospect of cancelling them heart-sickening to a lot of very powerful and determined people.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tokyo\u2019s will be the most expensive Olympic Games ever mounted \u2014 even Japan\u2019s government auditors put the cost at \u00a318 billion or more, and the cost of postponement from last year has added \u00a32 billion to that. No one seems to know, or is willing to say, how much has already been spent. But to call it off now would directly hurt some of the world\u2019s biggest companies, including Coca-Cola, Visa and General Electric, and lead to years of legal arguments about who owes what to whom.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It would represent a withering humiliation for the Japanese government. It would be crushing to the young athletes who have spent years training for the world\u2019s most prestigious sporting event. Money, power and glamour say that the Olympics have to go ahead whatever happens; they are the runaway train that cannot be stopped. The question of public health has been officially ruled out as a consideration. As Yoshiro Mori, the former Tokyo Olympic boss, said, \u201cno matter what situation with the coronavirus, we will hold the games.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This matters to people in Japan because, compared to the pandemic mess in the rest of the rich world, they have been doing well. With twice the population of Britain, Japan has registered about a tenth the number of coronavirus cases and one twentieth the deaths. This has nothing to do with vaccination, which has hardly begun in Japan \u2014 only a few tens of thousands of health workers have been jabbed \u2014 but rather good hygiene and an almost complete ban on foreign visitors. Now the government threatens to sacrifice these gains for the sake of money and prestige.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Japanese authorities and the International Olympic Committee insist that they will do everything possible to Covid-proof the games. Details are far from clear. (More may emerge from a high-level meeting this week, but they are likely to include repeated testing of athletes who will essentially be locked down in their Olympic \u201cvillage\u201d.) Spectators, it seems, will be allowed, although it is not clear whether these will include foreign visitors.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The effect of all this will be to take the fun out of the Olympics without eliminating the risk that they will serve as a super-spreader event. It might work out, and if any country can pull off such a feat of regulation and enforcement it is Japan. But nobody can be sure. Pandemic trends may improve dramatically between now and July or there may be new surges in emerging variants of the virus that will make the Olympics a crucible of infection that will set the world back weeks or months.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is one factor that should be decisive in all this: the views of ordinary Japanese people. About this there is no room for argument. Poll after poll has consistently shown that a majority of not only individual Japanese but even businesses oppose the holding of the games this summer.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not an expression of sour anti-Olympic sentiment but the reluctant acknowledgment of a grim truth. Whatever precautions the authorities take, people will sicken if the Tokyo Olympics go ahead. Some of them will die. That is not a price that anyone should be asked to pay.<\/em><\/strong>
\nENDS<\/p>\n

======================
\nDo you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0Please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>. Or if you prefer something less complicated, just click on an advertisement below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Lloyd Parry, a very respected journalist and author, has come out with a sensibly-argued Op-Ed in The Times London in favor of cancelling the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. But even then he words things carelessly when he writes:<\/p>\n

“[…] Japan […] compared to the pandemic mess in the rest of the rich world [has] been doing well. With twice the population of Britain, Japan has registered about a tenth the number of coronavirus cases and one twentieth the deaths. This has nothing to do with vaccination, which has hardly begun in Japan \u2014 only a few tens of thousands of health workers have been jabbed \u2014 but rather good hygiene and an almost complete ban on foreign visitors. Now the government threatens to sacrifice these gains for the sake of money and prestige.”<\/p>\n

COMMENT: \u00a0Portraying Japan\u2019s apparent success at lower case numbers as due to an almost complete ban on \u201cforeign visitors\u201d is neither helpful nor accurate. As Mr. Lloyd Parry surely must have known (since the ban affected him too as a Japan resident), this ban included foreign residents, not just visitors. \u00a0Not to mention that the British Covid variant was verifiably brought into Japan by Japanese. \u00a0Implicitly framing Covid as a \u201cforeign virus\u201d brought in by “foreign visitors” makes Japan seem to be a hermetically-sealed environment until the foreigners came in; and now “the government threatens to sacrifice these gains” from its apparent isolationism. This rhetoric isn\u2019t that far removed from calling it the “Chinese Virus” or the “Kung Flu”. \u00a0And we’ve seen the dreadful results of that kind of carelessness.<\/p>\n

A moment’s reflection (which probably would have happened if Lloyd Parry were talking about minorities in Britain, especially at the editorial stage) would have brought about the realization that these are people we’re talking about, and how issues are couched in the media affects them, particularly if they’re Japan’s disenfranchised minorities. \u00a0If it were my article, I would have said “Japan strongly limited international travel”, which doesn’t zero in on foreigners in specific.<\/p>\n

I’ll let others comment on the possible comparative issues of “good hygiene” (implying the rest of the rich world has bad hygiene?), and other factors that might lead to Japan undercounting actual virus cases (such as a lack of reliable\u00a0contact tracing, and not testing the asymptomatic for Covid). \u00a0But in my view, keeping the Covid case numbers low was a matter of politics, not science: \u00a0to keep the Olympics on track. \u00a0Now even despite all that, Lloyd Parry makes a convincing argument for canceling the Games. \u00a0Fine. \u00a0But let’s be more careful how we point fingers, shall we? \u00a0We’ve seen enough of how foreign correspondents succumb to Japan-style racialized narratives just as soon as they talk about “foreigners” and Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,36,12,73,4,14,13,60,11,17,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-bad-social-science","category-immigration-assimilation","category-japans-blame-game","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-politics","category-media","category-nj-voices-ignored","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-sport","category-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16470"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16479,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16470\/revisions\/16479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}