Japan Moves to Roll Back COVID Hysteria

Sunnyday7 / shutterstock.com
Sunnyday7 / shutterstock.com

By now, we all know the truth. Whether we are ready to admit it or not, COVID is just not much of a threat anymore, if it ever truly was.

Of course, when it first came on the scene in 2020, we kind of freaked out about it. After all, we knew nothing about it, just how deadly it was or even how it was contracted. And according to early reports, people were dropping dead from it all over the place.

Naturally, all of these unknowns seemed to justify the rather extreme and unprecedented measures our governments put in place. So we shuttered ourselves in our homes for days on end, we wore facemasks around everyone and everywhere we went, and we started to take on health precautions never before considered.

However, as we all know and as time passed, we learned more about COVID. We found out what it was, who it attacks the most, and why. And we also learned how to treat it.

Additionally, we created and produced a few “safe and effective” vaccines.

That alone should have been the end of the craziness.

But, of course, it wasn’t. Not here in the US or in hundreds of other countries around the globe.

However, as time has continued, with nearly three full years passing since we first saw COVID arrive on our shores and in our communities, many nations are deciding that it’s time to officially move on.

Among those is Japan.

Like most of the world, in the early days of COVID, and even well beyond, it shuttered its borders and enacted some rather restrictive and invasive policies. Being so close to China, the place of COVID’s birth didn’t help matters. In fact, the island nation didn’t officially reopen its borders for foreign travel until just last fall.

Naturally, with nearly two full years of being shut down, the nation’s economy and such took quite a beating. Additionally, the Summer Olympics, which were hosted in Tokyo in 2021, had to be delayed due to some rather stringent COVID protocols.

But now, it seems that even this nation has decided that enough is enough.

According to CTV News, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced on Friday that the legal status of COVID-19 was to be downgraded to a Class 5 disease. Basically, what this means is that COVID cannot be the reason for local authorities to impose emergency measures or restrictions such as quarantining or masking up.

It is officially nothing more than another illness similar to the seasonal flu.

As Kishida said, “In order to return to our ordinary daily life in Japan while pursuing measures to adapt to living with the coronavirus, we will study concrete measures to gradually move on to a next step.”

Japan is not the first nation to do this, and it certainly won’t be the last, with COVID becoming less and less of a worry by the month.

However, as we know here in America, there is much to do before those lousy restrictions and so-called guidelines will be gone for good.

Even now, President Joe Biden’s administration is fighting to re-enact a masking mandate for the travel industry, primarily on airplanes. And, as I’m sure you are aware, vaccines are still mandated by more than a few companies and industries.

Then again, with recent and very life-threatening health and heart conditions being attributed to COVID vaccines, that last one is becoming less and less of a worry, at so far as being forced to vaccinate.

Now, as Japan’s prime minister said, that doesn’t mean COVID is gone or that it’s not a threat at all. As we all know, certain people, usually the elderly or those with already weakened immune systems, have a difficult time recovering from COVID. And that means certain precautions are needed.

However, just like with the flu, getting a cold, or any other transmittable disease, there needs to be a balance. We can’t continue to act as though this is some special disease that deserves special and emergency restrictions. We just can’t.