CHENNAI: Even as several countries contemplate a further lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, Japan are being forced to play a different game. It cannot legally enforce a lockdown. It can only request its citizens to be at home. Keeping this in mind, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other prefectures. But it’s not had the desired effect yet. After seemingly flattening the curve in March, there has been a spate of new infections over the last weeks: 2,703 new cases in the last four days according to worldometers.info.
The number of active cases — 6,463 — has meant there is only one conversation among the people of Japan these days. “It’s all corona, corona, corona....” Siegfried Aikman, Japan’s men’s hockey coach, tells this daily. “That’s the mood of the people right now.” Aikman, currently living in Kakamigahara in Gifu prefecture (it’s where the national camp is based), says there is a level of panic on the streets of Tokyo and elsewhere but it’s only to be expected because of what it has done elsewhere.
There is a degree of concern in his tone when he says that the government cannot legally enforce a lockdown. “The government here can only request people to stay on, unlike in many other countries where they can enforce one.” Even if many have voluntarily accepted the government’s request, more than a few workers are continuing to go work while eateries haven’t completely shut. Because places of work need not down their shutters, that’s causing Aikman, who has Indian roots,
sleepless nights. When they were in camp till last Thursday, the first team were all living under one roof and they weren’t meeting anybody else. That safety net is now gone. “The students have gone back home because the universities are closed. Some of the players, however, have day jobs and have gone back to their offices. I was very disappointed when we were asked to close down the camp.” In the era of social distancing, it’s clearly not safe to work from offices but the 60-year-old is left with no choice. However, the players, especially the ones who are working,
have been asked to fill and upload a form every day detailing how they feel, their body temperature and so on. “We have given our players a form which they have to fill daily; whether there is any change in their physical fitness, their body temperature, how they feel mentally and so on. If they feel they are slightly off, we can readily ask them to go to the doctor.” With Japan facing an anxious 14 days — “they say the peak could be this week or the next,” according to Aikman — the Dutchman can only wait and watch. “There are 10 cases where I stay but most of my players are from Tokyo, Kyoto and so on where there are more cases. At the moment, there is no chance of hockey. From this weekend, we are going to have online meetings. We will take it from there.” This is the new normal for most sports teams as the virus continues to wreak havoc across the globe.