00:00 John Daub: Hey everybody, this is Sunday, April 25th, 2021. This is three months away from the start of the Tokyo 2020-2021 Olympic Games. Just a little bit more than three months away. On Friday, Prime Minister Suga, who's the Prime Minister after Abe-san, was just in the United States. He gave a press conference announcing the third Japan state of emergency for certain areas of the country.

00:40 John Daub: I've been doing these Japan travel updates since January of 2020 when we first started hearing about COVID, the coronavirus. I hope these are helpful for you. Leave me a comment below with your thoughts. If we get a thousand likes on the video, I'll continue it for the next one. Thank you everybody. So the situation here in Japan, what this state of emergency means, how things are progressing with the Olympics—I'm going to try to address all this in this live stream. Thanks so much for watching. Right now, the situation in Japan is not that great.

01:20 John Daub: Let me just show you a graph here. This is the daily cases in Osaka. You can see in the third wave, it got up to about 550, 600 people and then it started to come down. Osaka has always been pretty good compared to Tokyo. The population is less than the city here in Tokyo where I am. It went down. Then Osaka stopped the state of emergency a little bit earlier, and then it just started to go up. You can see the numbers peaking at 1,000, double what it was during the last wave. This is very concerning, which is why you're seeing a little bit of extreme concern.

02:13 John Daub: The situation in Japan has never been as bad as a lot of other countries, just in India, for example. I'm half Indian from Mumbai. The country is having an awful time. Three hundred and thirty-two thousand seven hundred and thirty cases in the last 24 hours, which is the highest ever daily total anywhere in the world just yesterday. It was the second straight day breaking records. My heart just goes out to everybody in India. Sixteen million people have been infected. Fatalities are up. It's just really, really bad over there. So when I think about the situation here in Japan, I also think about my family and my friends all in India that are in a completely different kind of a situation. But in Japan, things are extremely concerning, too, especially with the Olympics. I've given my feelings on that many times.

03:18 John Daub: So on Friday, the state of emergency—you know, I think there's a lot of misconception in the Western media, not just the media, but in the West in general. A state of emergency in Japan is not a lockdown. It's almost like a strong suggestion to the public to do better. The Japanese constitution just does not have the power to make people do things and fine them and penalize them. The government just does not have that power. So they give these state of emergencies—something that Prime Minister Abe changed last year to allow for the first state of emergency, which are strict measures.

04:04 John Daub: From my own observation, I've noticed that a lot of people that are going out are young people in their late teens and twenties. They're more clustered together and they just cannot wait the pandemic through. So a lot of it is spreading within the younger people here in Japan. And then there's the people who go to work. When they lifted the state of emergency, the izakaya (pub/restaurants) and the bars opened up again. People get really loud in Japan. Louder than they normally do because everyone talks very, very calmly. But they get really loud when they get drunk. This has caused people to forget to wear the masks, get really close together and spread the virus. And this has caused a lot of problems because it brings back to the family. So it's either your son or daughter who's bringing it in from their friends who got it from their father or mother who was drinking late at night and just did not follow the rules.

05:11 John Daub: So the state of emergency has been limiting the hours of restaurants. Instead of going on into the night, they limit the hours until 8 p.m. The restaurant industry right now is teetering on collapse and it's really in a bad situation. I have friends that own restaurants. They're not in a good way. What the state of emergency did was reduce the hours from, let's say they would close at 1 a.m., they reduced it to closing at like 8 p.m. instead. It's better than closing completely. But by 8 p.m. people are going home. They're not drinking that much. Business has changed where they finished earlier and would go out and just continue their work out at restaurants and drink. In this state of emergency, they've almost banned alcohol. Restaurants can only open until 8 p.m. and they have to stop selling alcohol by 7 p.m. So after 7 p.m. there's no more alcohol sold. I think that's kind of going to really hurt the restaurant industry here.

06:58 John Daub: This state of emergency only encompasses Tokyo and Osaka, Chiba and Saitama, I believe. Maybe Hyogo. And I think it's going to be, some other prefectures are also going to start to be impacted by this as well. School closures in Japan: Prefectural high schools under the jurisdiction of the governor may be closed at their discretion. The state of emergency gives the governors the power to close schools, which is something that's being considered in a lot of places that have had clusters. Again, it's very regional where situations go really bad and then it gets better. Hokkaido in the last waves was really tough, maybe because of tourism in the beginning of 2020. And it's sort of simmered down a little bit up there. The biggest problem right now is in Osaka.

08:03 John Daub: What facilities will stay open as a result of the third state of emergency? Well, medical facilities, of course, are going to stay open. Pharmacies have been doing an amazing job keeping open and selling masks, getting back supplies around the summer of 2020. We had shortages of masks and other sorts of alcohol wipes, things of that nature that we needed in order to feel that we were protected. They did a really good job of getting those materials. And now you don't have a problem at all getting these things. Actually, when tourism was still open, there was hoarding by tourists that were going back to their home countries. They caused a little bit of a disturbance with the local population. Toilet paper is fine. I have not seen in my experience of traveling around any shortages of toilet paper. If anything, the quality of the toilet paper has gotten actually better.

09:04 John Daub: Exercise facilities, gyms, swimming pools, sports centers may have closures or shorter hours or limited capacity. Facilities for gatherings and exhibitions such as public halls, cinemas, venues, movie theaters, museums and libraries at the discretion of the governor, they can close. And I believe Osaka's governor is being very proactive. Although in my own opinion he might have ended the state of emergency a little bit hastily. But he had every right to think that because the data showed that Osaka was in a pretty good situation. Other facilities, recreational facilities such as nightclubs, bars, internet cafes, karaoke (karaoke bars), pachinko parlors and arcades at the discretion of the governor can close. Karaoke bars have been under a lot of scrutiny because this is where young people go and get really close, share a microphone, and take off their masks. And this has caused a proliferation amongst the younger generation. So it's been in the news quite a bit.

10:43 John Daub: Movie theaters have not been doing well. I've been a little bit perturbed that the James Bond movie has been moved and moved again. It was going to come out in the winter of last year. Then they moved it to April. And now it's moved to, I believe, November. This can't be helped. I understand the cinema industry is decimated right now. Nobody is going to the cinema unless you're watching the Demon Slayer movie, which seemed to do pretty well. Daycare centers, nursing schools, centers for the elderly may also be impacted, depending on the governor. Large facilities such as department stores are asked to close every floor except for floors that have essential items like food and medicine, which might be the chika (basement), the food floors, the bottom floors.

11:43 John Daub: I don't know if Tokyo is going to be closing the department stores. But in a minute, we're going to take a look at Shibuya, Shibuya's live camera, to just gauge what exactly, how people are reacting to the state of emergency. So this pretty much will impact daily life here in Japan. And this state of emergency is expected to go until the middle of May, just until a little bit past Golden Week, the Japanese holiday. Golden Week is the most traveled. It's like, in some ways, like Chinese New Year, where the entire country of China just, it's crazy, the migration of people. In Japan, Golden Week is sort of the same thing, where people go back to visit their families. The weather is perfect, like what we have now, sunny blue skies, temperatures, it's not humid. It's the perfect time to be outdoors. It's the perfect time to travel and go somewhere and spend money. But this Golden Week, the government is asking, please don't go back to your hometown. Please don't travel. Only essential travel. If it's work-related, it's okay.

13:02 John Daub: And I'm going to give at the end of this my feelings on how I'm going to be treating the state of emergency. Because, again, it's a suggestion. And it's not even to people in Japan, it's not entirely clear what we're supposed to do. This is why this update's a little bit... We are in a fourth wave. Even in Tokyo, it's not as bad right now. It seems to be peaking in Osaka. The governor over there has been very strong on television, coming out, telling people to stay home. And I think they're starting to do it. Osaka has been hit hard by the UK variant of the COVID-19 virus. And this obviously has really proliferated in just Osaka and a little bit in Hyogo Prefecture, Kobe, a little bit in Kyoto. But not as much in Tokyo. But it could very well if migration of people continues. Every single governor is extremely worried about it because we all know it's much more contagious. And it wasn't so much of a problem in Japan until recently.

14:36 John Daub: Prime Minister Suga is a different person than Prime Minister Abe. And we're seeing his leadership now. He's a lot softer spoken. He's a very caring person. I think that makes it hard at a challenging time to have somebody like that as a leader. But he has a huge heart. And he's doing the right thing. The statement that he made here: "The end should be in sight." This is from the Friday press conference. The state of emergency is now declared. From the bottom of my heart, I ask for your cooperation. And he apologized for having to do a third state of emergency. None of the politicians want to do this. It's just a measure that they feel like they have to do.

15:45 John Daub: But let's take a look at the Shibuya crossing live camera. And this is the best way to get an idea. Are people here in Japan really following the suggestion by the politicians? Every 90 seconds, the cross goes. And you have 45 seconds to cross. That is a lot of people for a state of emergency. Probably people should be staying home. But this is way, way less than before. Whenever the politicians call a state of emergency, I go on the next Sunday and take a look at this camera just to get an idea. Are people abiding by it? For the most part, they are. But Shibuya crossing, this is usually, you can't even see the pavement on a Sunday. So this is a lot less people. But there's still a lot of people out there. You can't see anybody who's not wearing a mask and stuff like that.

17:04 John Daub: There's another live cam we can take a look at here. There's so many live cameras in Japan. You could almost just flicker through the live cameras and it feels like you're there. From this angle, you get a better idea if people are wearing masks or not. For the most part, everybody in Japan is. Even in the parks, I've noticed signs that say, mask required. And there are some anti-maskers, which, you know, they're everywhere. But they're not that much in Japan. And usually social pressure is enough to get people to wear them. And it's one reason why Japan doesn't get into a worse situation. Because people are very impacted by what other people think in terms of doing the right thing for society.

18:04 John Daub: So what does this mean for you? For me, this basically means that I'm probably not going to travel unless it is work related. Which is always the reason why I travel. I don't travel for fun. It's always to film an episode or something that I'm going to be releasing in May. I don't have any plans to travel for the next couple of weeks. And anyways, it's Golden Week, you know? Everything is usually kind of closed. It's the attractions around the country that are open. And those have been closed. So there's not a lot of reason to go out anywhere for the next couple of weeks.

19:55 John Daub: So I'll probably be doing more indoor camping. I might go around and do some late night walks at 2 a.m. Which is weird because everything is closed and there's just zombies outside and it's really scary. And you should watch me live when I go at 2 a.m. The channel has evolved. It's not exactly what I want with Only in Japan Go because I want to be on location bringing you stories more. But it's a reality of the situation that we're in right now. I know a lot of other YouTubers are doing more stuff at home. More convenience store food reviews and home delivery food and stuff like this. So for the next couple of weeks, probably Only in Japan Go is going to have this kind of programming. And I've got some videos that I'm editing right now that are going to come out on the Only in Japan John Daub channel, which will take you on those trips that I filmed in the past.

21:02 John Daub: So what does this mean for you? If you're a resident of Japan and you need to renew your visa, immigration centers are open. But capacity is limited. The Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau is open. I recommend you get there at 8 a.m. I think they open at 9. And you'll get a sadēken (numbered ticket) slip of paper to tell you to come back. If you get there at exactly 9 when it opens, your slip of paper will read 1 day. And if you get there at 1 hour early, your slip of paper will read 1 hour later when it first opens. Seriously, I had to go there. It's called a sadēken, means ticket in Japanese. And you get these at the bank. This is the system to try to prevent overcrowding.

22:44 John Daub: The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare is updating the situation all the time. They provide a list of hospitals in Japan that are able to provide testing and treatment for the virus. The list is only in Japanese. But the JNTO, the Japan National Tourism Organization, has a hotline. If you just Google search JNTO COVID-19, you'll get a page listing the immigration and customs and the travel situation. You'll get a page of the attractions that are open and closed. And you'll get information on 24-hour hotline that you can call with information for English. I believe Chinese. And they might have Thai and a couple other languages. Vietnamese. So there's some resources here that you can call. You don't have to do your local prefecture, which might not have any English support at all. JNTO is doing an amazing job trying to help everybody out who is here and can't speak Japanese.

24:10 John Daub: The train situation is... I was riding the Shinkansen yesterday. And it was about at its peak 30% full. Meaning everybody has their own row. Pretty much. The Shinkansen is not full at all. But if you need to go somewhere, you need to travel for work or because it's essential for your livelihood, you can do that. The Shinkansen are going to be running as normal. But train operators will be asked to end operations earlier on weekdays. So the trains usually would go until 1 in the morning. I think the last train will be earlier. Check in advance. Don't get stranded out there or else you're going to have a very long taxi ride. Train operators are really good with following. JR East has been incredible.

26:07 John Daub: Bus operators... JR East moved up the last train time by 32 minutes last time. Bus operators such as Curbys Bus ceased all night buses. So night buses are not an option if you're trying to get around here. Central Japan Railway, which is in the Nagoya area, also cut Shinkansen services from Tokyo. Domestic flights... We know that a lot of routes have been cut back anyways just because not a lot of people are flying. I've flown a few times since the start of this pandemic and people have been incredible. The passengers are so incredible. They listen to the flight attendant. We're going to call you by rows and please exit slowly. Nobody gets up when we arrive. It was so orderly the way that they do things in Japan. Everybody had a mask on. Nobody talked. The flight attendants, very, very light voices. They're doing a really good job with the airlines.

28:09 John Daub: So what this kind of means is when can you come back to Japan? This is the burning question and a lot of people have been asking me over and over. I don't know. All I can give you is what I'm hearing from other people, some hunches, opinions, and just feel the situation. October seems to be the target. And this is stuff that I'm still hearing from people in the travel industry. So if you have a flight coming to October, probably okay. But please put an asterisk next to it. Seriously. We don't know what's going to be the situation in Japan. One of the things that I heard the politicians talking about was they're going to be ramping up vaccinations here in Japan. If the domestic population in Japan is not vaccinated, we don't want you coming here yet. We love you. I want you to come here. It's too quiet. It's creepy quiet.

29:48 John Daub: October seems to be the time after the Paralympics. And people should be mostly vaccinated by then. I hear June 3rd. The vaccines are going to start to be seriously ramped up in May. And everybody should be able to get a shot in June, I heard. Japan is the slowest country right now with vaccinations. At the pace that they're on last week, according to data, it would take 10 years to vaccinate the entire country of Japan. I don't know why. Other than to say that there's just not a lot of medical workers in Japan. We've been trying to get a lot of nurses to come in from abroad, from the Philippines and other places. But the examinations and the tests using the kanji are extremely complicated. And it's very hard for internationals to come here and work in the Japanese medical field, despite the fact that they need the people here. So we're starting to see the cracks in the system because they just don't have enough people to give the injections.

31:15 John Daub: Japan has its own way to do things. I respect that. But we also know that this is a pandemic. And people, the economy will not return to the way that the politicians want unless they find a plan that can get people vaccinated. And whether or not you agree with the vaccine or not, without that, there's no continuing with the economy. And without that, we're not going to have tourism return. But if what I hear from the politicians is that we're going to have vaccines for everybody by June-ish, kind of maybe hopefully by the Olympic time, then there's a lot of hope that tourism will return in October. It's all up to the vaccine. I think normal tourism will not return until the end of the year. Until 2022 at the earliest spring. I believe winter is going to be really dicey.

32:11 John Daub: If you do like these travel updates, give me a thumbs up to know that this is useful for you. And I'll give you another one in a couple of weeks as the situation changes. Pharmacies are given the vaccine in the United States. It's something that I hope people start to continue here. Students be able to get in during the fall? I believe so. The status in the vaccine is that it's just medical workers and people over the age of 70 right now. Prime Minister Suga has ordered a lot of Pfizer and that they should be here soon. Again, he said in June there should be vaccines for everybody. If you have papers, a COE, a certificate of eligibility, I've gotten word from a friend in the United Kingdom and one in the United States that their COE went through and they're coming to Japan. So that process there is now a queue but it is being dealt with just slower.

34:03 John Daub: If you have a COE or you have a student visa and you need to get into Japan, it's starting to be processed now because teachers and certain other professions are seen as very important to the operation of businesses. Without them they cannot continue to operate therefore they start losing money and the government is doing everything that it can to responsibly do that. It's very frustrating and I know that there are tens of thousands of people waiting to come into Japan. A lot of countries have put up fences and walls because of the pandemic. I've heard of it starting to move maybe not to the level that's gonna make people happy but it's a step towards the right direction. If you are a Japanese citizen or a resident and you're trying to come back in on a re-entry permit you can do that but there might be delays and there is a list of things that you have to go through including PCR testing, quarantining when you come here, installing an app so that they can communicate with you.

35:20 John Daub: A lot of the spread and the UK variant in particular came into Japan because the government just allowed business travelers to come in and said please self quarantine and nope, and a lot of people didn't do it. That one percent that's all it takes in order to proliferate and get strains into the country. And that's what happened with Brazilian strain and the UK strain and all the others came in because of business travelers coming in from those countries who brought it back and didn't follow the quarantining rules properly. And the government should shame them which is the way that they deal with it. This is the Shibuya crossing right now. Seems like a lot of people.

36:06 John Daub: My mother got her first dose of the vaccine in the United States, my father got both of his. In the United States it's moving pretty quickly. I know that in California they've been extremely good at getting the vaccine there. Is Japan going lockdown? I'm going to reiterate this to everybody who's watching: there is no lockdown. Japan does not have lockdowns. We don't do what the UK does. You cannot go outside. There's nothing like this. It is a suggestion by the government to do it. Even the prime minister said from the bottom of my heart I ask for your cooperation. Cooperation means that it is very much up to the society to follow the rules. Okay, there's no laws or penalties in place now. Some of the businesses that completely blatantly do it, the penalties are more on the businesses more on the institutions but the individuals according to the constitution of Japan cannot break those so you have freedom.

38:05 John Daub: Kanai and her family went for a walk, I gotta let them in when they come home. Thank you for keeping us entertained and informed during the pandemic. We miss Japan. Big shout out to all the YouTubers that are responsibly getting content out there and keeping us all safe and well. This platform is awesome. I do love YouTube because unlike Netflix, content is always new which is awesome. And that's what makes YouTube so special. You can open up that YouTube app and you always find a new episode or something that's interesting. Thank you to everybody for following the new channel. This is my only channel. I hope you subscribe. Everything is on the new channel.

39:23 John Daub: Baby is growing and baby is out. Are you gonna go to Super Mario World in the future? Yeah, Max, maybe, but come on, man. I showed you the numbers for Osaka and it's down in Osaka, so I'm not going down there. My friend Kevin's down there. He's doing okay. I'll be down there maybe in a couple of months. But there are some creators down in Osaka that are able to cover that and really, I don't think it's good to go to an amusement park in a state of emergency. My friend Paolo went there. Paolo has an awesome video. Go check that out. The bonsai is going well. He's grown leaves. He probably needs a little bit of water. Keep him hydrated a little bit, a couple of sprays once a day.

42:16 John Daub: TokyoTom23, happy birthday. Hey, looking forward to your birthday. Hopefully seeing you in Okayama. Currently awaiting a visa. Actually, I do have an episode coming from Okayama. I've been invited to go down there sooner than later to film, and I'm gonna go and do that. So there's an Okayama video coming. That's good news. I do have the Lego City, Tokyo Lego to build. What's different is that the first state of emergency, we didn't have a procedure in place. When you went to the supermarket, they didn't have any protection. People didn't have masks. The first state of emergency was really tough on everybody because we didn't have any safety precautions. The second state of emergency really helped. This one is more preventative. I think it needs to be done.

43:54 John Daub: Thank you for all the travel updates. We all miss Japan. I hope I can give you just a little bit of that feeling through these live streams. The third state of emergency seems very much preventative. This is just because while they get the vaccine out and get that rolling, they need everything to simmer down, especially with the UK variant. That's the reason for this third state of emergency. The fourth wave is the reason. Because we just ended the state of emergency less than a month ago. And we started it up again just because it looks bad. You can see the trend. It looks not good. And with Golden Week coming, they had to do this. They really didn't have much of a choice. So it's very preventative. But for everyday life, we can go to the supermarket. Nothing has really changed. This is a call of attention by the government for restaurant owners, for young people, for people that are not following the rules so much. To stay home a little bit more, unless you can't.

45:00 John Daub: Thank you to the Postcard Club members. I have two here, Peter and Robert. This is coming out to you, Peter in Australia. It might take a little bit longer to get to you in Melbourne. Mail's going a little bit slow there, but it will make it. If you do order the postcard off of Patreon, do it today, because I'm taking this on Monday morning to Tokyo Station. So it gets a Tokyo Station cancellation on it, which says Tokyo on it, which is cool. But if you order in 24 hours, I'll take it. I have to ride my bike to Tokyo Station to do that. Patreon's doing great. That's how we've been surviving through this.

46:19 John Daub: Steve, I started to cough when I was hiking up the mountain yesterday to Fukushima. I was running one kilometer to try to get to the observation point, and I started to cough. I hadn't exercised so much. It has nothing to do with the pandemic. I would be in much better shape. I think we'd all be in better shape. Leo is awake. Diaper change. I should go and help. Have a great Sunday, everybody. This is our Sunday afternoon. It's Saturday night for all of you in the United States. Please take care. I know that we're really close in the United States to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We can here in Japan. This is, I believe, the last wave, unless there's some massive mutation. But vaccines are coming. State of emergency has been called. As a creator, I'll be doing everything I can to be responsible about that and make sure that I do not harm the efforts or make things harder.

47:40 John Daub: You know, I've been staying home so much and sitting, I think that my knees are just weak from lack of going to the gym and running as much. So hopefully it gets better, more stretching. I'm trying to do yoga. It's not pretty. Do you wear a hat in the house too? No, I'm outside. I wear it because it's in my animated opening. Just leave me alone. If you want to complain, join the travelers, pay a dollar, and then you can use the John's hat emoji. Complain that way. I'm going to go help out. Babies cry all the time. I'll see you maybe tonight or tomorrow, everybody. Bye-bye.