Kirk here with some COVID-19 statistics. The bar chart in light blue shows the number of positive COVID-19 tests in Kumamoto Prefecture since the beginning of 2020. You can see that the last two days have had record high numbers. The graph is from the following page of Kumamoto Prefecture’s website:
https://www.pref.kumamoto.jp/soshiki/30/92000.html
The second graph is one I saw on NHK’s 7 PM news program last night. It’s not specific to Kumamoto but helps put what we are experiencing here in context. The main point is that it took a year and 3 months to accumulate a total of 500,000 positives in the country as a whole but that the next 500,000 only took 4 months. Here’s the URL of the Japanese article:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210806/k10013185121000.html
The 1M milestone has been covered by various outlets in English. Here’s an article from the Japan Times:
COVID-19 tracker: Japan’s cumulative case count tops 1 million as delta variant surges https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/08/06/national/coronavirus-cases-august-6/
To paraphrase baseball sage Yogi Berra, COVID-19 ain’t over ’till it’s over – especially now that the Delta variant is wreaking havoc. If you haven’t gotten vaccinated do what you can to get poked. Even after you’ve been vaccinated, it’s possible that you can contract the disease and spread it to others. So, wear a mask and follow other precautions.