Life in Tokyo as of October 2020
Tokyo has been trying to move towards opening up more and more
Cases have been steady recently, and business is going on relatively normally
The Japan government is encouraging domestic travel
It’s October 2020 and over the past several months, life in Tokyo, as with many places around the world, has been one dealing with trying to function amidst a pandemic.
Tokyo has had about 2 waves - One in spring where it implemented a semi-lockdown, and a bigger one in summer that saw no hard prevention measures taken.
Things have been edging towards returning to something more normal.
This is what I’ve been seeing living in Tokyo. I’ll briefly talk about cases, mask wearing, travel, business, and overall people sentiment.
CASES IN TOKYO
Recently, there have been between 100-300 new cases each day, on average. There's no mass testing that was ever implemented, but there haven’t been any reports of dire situations either.
In fact, in a report by the government’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 18,000 fewer people died this year until July when compared to 2019. This is different from the trend over the last decade where the number of deaths have steadily increased.
When looking at cause of death, the cause that dropped the most was due to respiratory illnesses.
This seems to be quite different from back in the US and a lot of other countries for some reason.
MASK-WEARING
Mask-wearing has been a debate for quite some time now, primarily in the West, but it never really was in Japan.
That is, aside from a crazy guy who ran for governor, tried to hold a “cluster festival”, and got a group to ride the train mask-less to make trouble while claiming COVID-19 is just a cold.
Wearing masks was already a cultural norm in Japan for reasons ranging from protecting others or against colds to protecting against hay fever to covering a zit.
People don’t want to wear them all the time, however, but there is a pandemic going on so the majority will. Most wear a typical, surgical mask as they did before, rather than KN-95s or ones with vents.
According to a survey, 83.6% of people say they wear masks during close-range conversations with others. The same survey also found out that 87% of people wash their hands after returning home.
It’s not perfect, but it shows that people are generally mindful about the virus.
TRAVEL
International travel has more or less come to a halt, aside from certain exceptions. Because of that, Tokyo’s streets are basically tourist-free… which is really nice!
Over the past several years, Japan started to boom as a major tourist destination, so businesses catering to travelers have really taken a hit.
To help with this, the Japanese government is incentivizing domestic travel.
GO TO TRAVEL CAMPAIGN
The Go To Travel campaign is a Japanese government campaign that encourages residents to travel domestically.
They’ve allocated over USD $12B+ to give people up to 50% off airfare, train tickets, hotel reservations, etc.
To get the maximum discount, you have to book through pre-decided agencies, but we can still get a decent discount by designing our own trips and booking directly.
Tokyo - as a destination and its residents - was initially left out due to having the high number of cases. As of October, it’s been included.
Personally, I take it as a sign to explore the country that I’m in a little bit more.
Following the Go To Travel campaign, there will be similar campaigns for eating out, events and shopping. We’ll see what happens.
BUSINESS
Many businesses have undoubtably taken a hit. While eCommerce and delivery usage has increased, it won’t offset the losses at brick-and-mortars, which is huge in a city like Tokyo with so much people traffic.
Despite this, I personally haven’t seen many visible changes… yet.
I’ve seen videos in the US and even Seoul where a lot of shops have closed down and are now empty. Recently, I’ve gone out in Tokyo to places like Shinjuku, Shibuya, Aoyama, Omotesando, Harajuku and Ginza, and haven’t seen mass closures.
Although I’ve heard that companies here are facing the hardest time they’ve ever had, there haven’t been mass layoffs yet either.
Furthermore, retail clients of ours at work have maintained their online ad budgets or even increased them. Some are understandable due to what they sell, but others such as a mid-range watch brand, are a little unexpected.
Could we be in a bubble? Maybe this year’s impact will be seen in next year’s and the following years’ budgets and news. I’m thinking probably.
PEOPLE SENTIMENT
Tokyo’s streets have been filling up slowly over the past several weeks.
This could be due to a variety of reasons; people growing accustomed to living in a world with the virus, offices asking for more face-to-face time, shopping due to the season changing, a lack of a major spike similar to the US and other countries, most people acting responsibly, simply being tired of being at home, etc.
It’s not fully back to normal, and people are still refraining at some level, but there has been an uptick since the summer.
If you’d like to see more, please watch the video I made.