Shibuya 109 will closed for 9 days. Shibuya 109, a youth fashion building in Shibuya, Tokyo, will be temporarily closed for nine days starting April 4 to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus infection. More information. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/shutoken-news/20200401/1000046585.html
Copying-and-pasting from the Keyakizaka46 general thread: Also, have you been hearing about Tokyo's positive coronavirus numbers starting to skyrocket? Japan really needs to declare the state of emergency the Diet has brought provisions for - and prepare for a possible lockdown! Note: A state of emergency declaration does NOT necessarily mean a lockdown. Locking down a city - or the entire nation - is a separate matter.
This video from NHK World explains what happens in Japan when a state of emergency is declared: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/ataglance/866/ Essentially there are requests for people to stay at home but there are no mandatory lockdowns because penalties are not possible if people don't comply. There's also no direct law to force private companies to close down, authorities can only hope that pressure is put on employers to persuade staff to work from home. Judging by this tweet from earlier today, rush hour trains were still very packed this morning: https://twitter.com/fwpa0747/status/1246983826464624640
With the situation not going any better, the theaters may have to close completly for a certain amount of time https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200407-00000025-spnannex-ent
I moved this thread because I felt it was more appropriate here. But I left a long redirect (3 months) in the AKB General thread, so people don't get lost looking for it.
NHK's Japanese-language news website is reporting that a News host from TV Asahi, Tomikawa Yuta, has been hospitalised with Coronavirus: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200412/k10012382661000.html According to the article he first developed fever symptoms on April 3 & 4 but he continued to work at the TV station until April 9 before visiting a medical institution on the following day when he was admitted to hospital. No other staff working for TV Asahi have yet reported symptoms.
Now the emergency has been declared for all of Japan. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20200416_30/
And in case anyone doesn't know, no mail is coming out of Japan, so, no CDs or photobooks for us for a while.
You're telling me! I have about 30 photo sets, 15 gravure mags and other assorted stuff stuck in japan at the moment. Actually Seamail is still going, I've got a bunch of Izone CD's which I should get in oh.....3 to 6 months!
I've got Shiichan's and Marika's new DVDs stuck in Japan at the moment. I've decided to pay the extra cost of DHL for the HKT48 singles and Saepii's PB both due out next week and I'll see what happens. CDJapan has a page showing the current situation regarding international shipping: https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/info/20200401 It says that Japan Post is estimating more than two weeks to assign a plane to carry packages they've accepted.
If you have 1 hour to spare, this forum by the University of Melbourne about Life Beyond Coronavirus if the video does not show watch the video here Bringing together professors from Mathematics, Epidemiology, Infectious Diseases, Business/Economics and History explaining curves, modelling, virology, economy and history in plain understandable language Its light hearted, friendly and open. Best of all its free to the public In an age where junk information is spread so easily and everyone has an opinion, this forum was a great opportunity to discuss these issues with real working experts of their field (forgive the Australian context. I know many other countries are finding it tough, my thoughts and prayers are with you all)
For as much well deserved flak management have created for themselves, I must say that they also deserve a ton of credit when due as well. The fact that we are not seeing a mass exodus that something like this could cause should be applauded. I saw on the AKB channel that there is an OUC48 group having a live later today/tomorrow (5am EST). I am guessing these are the current kenkyuusei being used?
NHK's Japanese-language website has a news article about how an underground idol group called XOXO EXTREME is coping without being able to perform live events: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200417/k10012393601000.html Google Translation:
Yahoo News has an article, the title of which translates as “Idols who can't go to see you”, about the problems of idol groups who have had to suspend live shows and HS events: https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200419-00010000-ytokushu-ent Google translation:
You probably already know by now, but OUC48 is simply what AKB48 is right now. AKB48=OUC48. OUC is from Ouchi, which in this case probably means home. So basically they are doing their activities from home, thus OUC48. If you go to AKB48 website (www.akb48.co.jp), you can see in the header that it is now OUC48.
I have CDs stuck in some post office (I assume) very near home for over a month. The situation wasn't even that bad (zero cases in the region) at the time of the last tracking info update and it should have taken just 2-3 days to reach me. Other CDs I had ordered were returned and refunded a few weeks after shipping out due to lack of international flights. This sucks because I had been saving up for a year waiting for the CDs to be restocked.
Last I checked, which was admittedly a while ago, that only applied to 150 or so countries. The US and many European nations still had mail being shipped.
Japan Post isn't accepting any international mail via SAL. There's a current list of countries which Japan Post currently isn't shipping to via EMS on their website (in PDF): https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/information/2020/0401_02_01_en.pdf As far as Europe is concerned it lists 35 countries which they can't ship to, for example it includes Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium. However others such as the UK, France, Germany amd The Netherlands aren't listed so in theory it should be OK to have EMS mail sent to them from Japan but I'm still waiting here in the UK for a package dispatched from Osaka on 4/6 with no updates to the tracking since 4/9. My latest order from CDJapan was dispatched today but I've specified DHL so i'll see how long that takes. Meanwhile here at home I haven't had a mail delivery for about 10 days. I'm currently waiting for a package which was posted to me 3 weeks ago from a place just 75km away.