title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 30 January 2020, Shinzo Abe, Abe announced the establishment of the "Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters" (新型コロナウイルス感染症対策本部), which meets at the Prime Minister's Official Residence and is run by a task force led by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary for Crisis Management The initial roster of the task force includes 36 high-ranking bureaucrats from several of the Ministries of Japan. The headquarters acts as the site of Abe's decision-making process on the country's virus countermeasures.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 31 January 2020, Abe announced that the government was prioritizing the repatriation of Japanese citizens from Hubei Province. Officials negotiated with Chinese authorities to dispatch five chartered flights to Wuhan from 29 January 2020 to 17 February 2020.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 1 February 2020, the Japanese government enacted restrictions to deny entry to foreign citizens who had visited Hubei Province within 14 days and to those with a Chinese passport issued from there. On 12 February 2020, it expanded those restrictions to anyone who had a recent travel history to and from Zhejiang Province or had a Chinese passport issued from there.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 5 February 2020, Abe invoked the Quarantine Act to place the cruise ship "Diamond Princess" under quarantine in Yokohama. Quarantine officers were dispatched to the ship to prevent the disembarkation of crew and passengers, and to escort infected patients to medical facilities.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 6 February 2020, Abe invoked the Immigration Control and Refugee Act to deny entry to the cruise ship "MS Westerdam" from Hong Kong after one of its passengers tested positive for COVID-19.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: After the COVID-19 outbreak on the cruise ship "Diamond Princess", the Japanese government shifted its focus from a policy of containment to one of prevention and treatment because it anticipated increasing community spread within Japan. This policy prioritized the creation of a COVID-19 testing and consultation system based on the NIID and the government's 83 existing municipal and prefectural public health institutions that are separate from the civilian hospital system. The new system handles the transfer of COVID-19 patients to mainstream medical facilities to facilitate patient flow, triage, and the management of limited testing kits on their behalf to prevent a rush of infected and uninfected patients from overwhelming healthcare providers and transmitting diseases to them. By regulating COVID-19 testing at the national level, the Abe Administration integrated the activities of the national government, local governments, medical professionals, business operators, and the public in treating the disease.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 1 February 2020, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare instructed municipal and prefectural governments to establish specialized COVID-19 consultation centers and outpatient wards at their local public health facilities within the first half of the month.<ref name="k00/00m"></ref> Such wards would provide medical examinations and testing for suspected carriers of the disease to protect general hospitals from infection.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 5 February 2020, Abe announced that the government would begin preparations to strengthen COVID-19 testing capabilities at the NIID and 83 municipal and prefectural public health institutions that are designated by the government as official testing sites. Without a uniform diagnosis kit for the disease, the government has relied on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to check for infections. As few mainstream medical facilities in Japan can conduct PCR tests, Abe also promised to increase the number of institutions with such kits, including universities and private companies.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 12 February 2020, Abe announced that the government would expand the scope of COVID-19 testing to include patients with symptoms based on the discretion of local governments. Previously, testing was restricted to those with a history of traveling to Hubei Province. On the same day, the Ministry of Health and NIID contracted SRL Inc to handle PCR clinical laboratory testing. Since then, the government has partnered with additional private companies to expand laboratory testing capabilities and to work towards the development of a rapid testing kit.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 14 February 2020, Abe introduced the government's coronavirus consultation system to coordinate medical testing and responses with the public. The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare worked with local governments to establish 536 consultation centers that covered every prefecture within the country to provide citizens with instructions on how to receive COVID-19 testing and treatment. The general public needs to contact a consultation center by phone to get tested at one of the government's .


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 16 February 2020, Abe convened the government's first at the Prime Minister's Office to draft national guidelines for COVID-19 testing and treatment. The meeting was chaired by Dr. , Director of the NIID, who brought together ten public health experts and medical professionals from across Japan to coordinate a response to the virus with Abe and the government's coronavirus task force in a roundtable format. The main concern of the Japanese medical establishment was overcrowding of hospitals by uninfected patients with light cold symptoms who believed that they had COVID-19. Medical representatives claimed that such a panic would strain medical resources and risk exposing those uninfected patients to the disease.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 17 February 2020, the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare released national guidelines for COVID-19 testing to each of the municipal and prefectural governments and their public health centers. It instructed doctors and public health nurses who staff the consultation centers to limit consultations to people with the following conditions: (1) cold symptoms and a fever of at least 37.5 °C (or need to take antipyretic medication) for over four days; and (2) extreme fatigue and breathing difficulties. The elderly, people with pre-existing conditions, and pregnant women with cold symptoms can receive consultation if they have had them for two days.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 22 February 2020, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato announced that the Japanese government was looking into the use of favipiravir, an anti-influenza medication developed by Fujifilm, to treat patients with COVID-19.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 23 February 2020, Abe instructed the government's coronavirus task force to quickly draft a comprehensive basic policy. Health Minister Katsunobu Katō reconvened the medical experts from the first Novel Coronavirus Expert Meeting on 24 February 2020 to draft this policy. During the meeting, the medical establishment presented its policy recommendations in the form of a views report (), concluding that the most important objective must be the prevention of large-scale disease clusters and a decrease in outbreaks and deaths. They stated that it would not be possible for the government to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Japan on a person-to-person basis, but that it might be possible to regulate the overall speed of infection. They cited the next week or two as a "critical moment" determining whether the country would experience a large cluster that could result in the collapse of the medical system and socio-economic chaos. After reviewing and discussing the existing data on the disease, the committee stated that universal PCR testing was impossible due to a shortage of testing facilities and providers, and recommended that the government instead limit the application of available test kits to patients that are at a high risk of complications to stockpile for a large cluster. Participants also noted that Japan's medical facilities are vulnerable to "chaos," noting that many hospital beds and resources in the Tokyo area were already being used to care for the 700 infected patients from the "Diamond Princess". They reiterated their warning that a rush of alarmed, uninfected outpatients with light symptoms of the disease could overwhelm hospitals and turn waiting rooms into "breeding grounds" for COVID-19.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 25 February 2020, the Abe Administration introduced the "Basic Policies for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control" () based on advice from the expert meeting. After a spike of infections in Italy, Iran, and South Korea, Abe decided that the government's disease countermeasures would prioritize the prevention of large-scale clusters in Japan. This included controversial requests to suspend large-scale gatherings such as community events and school operations, as well as to limit patients with light cold symptoms from visiting medical facilities to prevent them from overwhelming hospital resources.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: First, the new policies advised local medical institutions that it is better for people with mild cold-like symptoms to rely on bed rest at home, rather than to seek medical help from clinics or hospitals. The policy also recommended that people at a higher risk of infection – including the elderly and patients with pre-existing conditions – avoid hospital visits for non-treatment purposes, such as by ordering prescriptions over the telephone instead of in person.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Second, the new policies allowed general medical facilities in areas of a rapid COVID-19 outbreak to accept patients suspected of infection. Before this, patients could only get tested at specialized clinics after making an appointment with consultation centers to prevent the transmission of the disease. Government officials revised the previous policy after acknowledging that such specialized institutions would be overwhelmed during a large cluster.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Third, the policy asked those with any cold symptoms to take time off from work and avoid leaving their homes. Government officials urged companies to let employees work from home and commute at off-peak hours. The Japanese government also made an official request to local governments and businesses to cancel large-scale events.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 27 February 2020, Abe requested the closure of all schools from 2 March 2020 to the end of spring vacations, which usually conclude in early April. The next day, the Japanese government announced plans to create a fund to help companies subsidize workers who need to take days off to look after their children while schools are closed.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 27 February 2020, the Japanese government also announced plans to expand the national health insurance system so that it covers COVID-19 tests.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 9 March 2020, the Ministry of Health reconvened the Expert Meeting after the two weeks "critical moment." The panel of medical experts concluded that Japan was currently not on track to experience a large-scale cluster, but stated that there was a two-week time lag in analyzing COVID-19 trends and that the country would continue to see more infections. Consequently, the participants asked the government to remain vigilant in quickly identifying and containing smaller clusters. With more COVID-19 outbreaks around the world, the panel also proposed that new infections from abroad could initiate a "second wave" of the disease in Japan.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 9 March 2020, the Health Ministry published a disease forecast for each prefecture and instructed local governments to prepare their hospitals to accommodate their patient estimates. It predicted that the virus peak in each prefecture would occur three months after the first reported case of local transmission. The Ministry estimated that at the peak Tokyo would see 45,400 outpatients and 20,500 inpatients per day, of whom 700 would be in severe condition. For Hokkaido, the figure was 18,300 outpatients and 10,200 inpatients daily, of whom about 340 would be severe.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 5 February 2020, the Abe Administration's coronavirus task force initiated a political debate on the introduction of emergency measures to combat the COVID-19 outbreak a day after the British cruise ship "Diamond Princess" was asked to quarantine. The initial debate focused on constitutional reform due to the task force's apprehension that the Japanese Constitution may restrict the government's ability to enact such compulsory measures as quarantines on the grounds that it violated human rights. After lawmakers representing almost all of the major political parties – including the Jimintō, Rikken-minshutō, and Kokumin-minshutō – voiced their strong opposition towards this proposal and asserted that the Constitution allowed for emergency measures, the Abe administration moved forward with legislative reform instead.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 5 March 2020, Abe introduced a draft amendment to the Special Measures Act to Counter New Types of Influenza of 2012 to extend the law's emergency measures for an influenza outbreak to include COVID-19. He met separately with the heads of five opposition parties on 4 March 2020 to promote a "united front" in passing the reforms. The National Diet passed the amendment on 13 March 2020, making it effective for the next two years. The amendment allows the Prime Minister to declare a "state of emergency" in specific areas where COVID-19 poses a grave threat to the lives and economic livelihood of residents. During such a period, governors of affected areas will receive the following powers: (1) to instruct residents to avoid unnecessary outings unless they are workers in such essential services like health care and public transportation; (2) to restrict the use or request the temporary closure of businesses and facilities, including schools, social welfare facilities, theatres, music venues, and sports stadiums; (3) to expropriate private land and buildings to erect new hospitals; and (4) to requisition medical supplies and food from companies that refuse to sell them, punish those that hoard or do not comply, and force firms to help transport emergency goods.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Under the law, the Japanese government does not have the authority to enforce citywide lockdowns. Apart from individual quarantine measures, officials cannot restrict the movement of people to contain the virus. Consequently, compliance with government requests to restrict movements is based on "asking for public cooperation to 'protect people's lives' and minimize further damage to [the economy]".


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 25 March 2020, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced that the daily number of confirmed cases in Tokyo increased from 17 to 41 cases compared to the day before. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike held an emergency press conference in the late afternoon, stating that "the current situation is a serious situation where the number of infected people may explode." She requested residents to refrain from nonessential outings during the upcoming weekend.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 26 March 2020, the Ministry of Health reconvened the Novel Coronavirus Expert Meeting to review the new data. The panel of medical experts concluded that there was a "high probability of an expansion of infections" within the country due to an increase in the number of infected patients returning from Europe and the United States between 11 March 2020 and 23 March 2020. In response to the statement, Abe instructed Economic Policy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura to establish a special government task force to combat the spread of the virus.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 30 March 2020, Koike requested residents to refrain from nonessential outings for the next two weeks due to a continued increase in infections in Tokyo. During a press conference held by the Japan Medical Association that same day, of the government's panel of medical experts stated that his fellow panelists were divided over whether Abe should declare a state of emergency.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 1 April 2020, the Ministry of Health reconvened the Novel Coronavirus Expert Meeting to assess the current COVID-19 situation in Japan.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 2 April 2020, the Ministry of Health issued a notice that urged non-critical COVID-19 patients to move out of hospitals and stay at home or facilities designated by local governments. Prefectural governors across the country began arranging accommodation for such patients through hotel operators and dormitories and issued official requests to the Japan Self-Defense Force for transportation services.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 3 April 2020, Professor Nishiura Hiroshi of the Ministry of Health's Cluster Response Team presented the initial findings of his COVID-19 epidemiological models to the public. He concluded that the government could prevent an explosive spread of the virus in Japan if it adopted strict restrictions on outings that reduced social interactions by 80 percent, while such a spread would occur if the government adopted no measures or reduced social interactions by only 20 percent. Nishiura added that Tokyo was about 10 days to two weeks away from a large-scale outbreak.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 3 April 2020, at 12:00 am the travel ban would come into effect. The travel ban added 49 New countries that Japanese citizens couldn't travel too. Some of the main countries that were added were. China, The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and more. This puts Japan's country ban list to 73 total countries.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 7 April 2020, Abe proclaimed a one-month state of emergency from 8 April to 6 May for Tokyo and the prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka. This decision to go into a state of emergency was made by Abe and the Novel Coronavirus Response and Infection Protection task force. Due to the law that was first established in 2012 called the Influenza and New Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response Act. He stated that the number of patients would peak in two weeks if the number of person-to-person contacts was reduced by 70 to 80 percent, and urged the public to stay at home to achieve this goal.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 10 April 2020, Koike announced closure requests for six categories of businesses in Tokyo. They include amusement facilities, universities and cram schools, sports and recreation facilities, theatres, event and exhibition venues. and commercial facilities. She also asked restaurants to limit opening hours to between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m. and to stop serving alcohol at 7 p.m. The request was to take effect on 12 April 2020 and promised government subsidies for businesses that cooperated with it.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 11 April 2020, Professor Nishiura presented the remaining findings of his COVID-19 epidemiological models. He determined that reducing social interactions by 80 percent would decrease the COVID-19 infection rate to a manageable level in 15 days; by 70 percent in 34 days; by 65 percent in 70 days; and by 50 percent in three months. Any rate below 60 percent would increase the number of cases.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 16 April 2020, Abe expanded the state of emergency declaration to include every prefecture within the country. On 4 May, Abe said that the state of emergency would be extended until the end of the month. On 14 May, the government lifted the state of emergency in all but eight high-risk prefectures including Tokyo and Kyoto.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 21 May 2020, the state of emergency is suspended in three prefectures in Kinki after they had cleared the threshold of having new infections below 0.5 per 100,000 people in the past week, resulting a total of 42 out of the 47 prefectures to be out of the state of emergency while five prefectures, such as Saitama, Kanagawa, Hokkaido, are waiting for lifting decision on 25 May 2020.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 16 February 2020, Abe convened the Novel Coronavirus Expert Meeting to incorporate members of the Japanese medical community into his decision-making process. The panel acts as the main medical advisory body of the Japanese government during the COVID-19 crisis.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 12 February 2020, Abe announced that the government would secure 500 billion yen for emergency lending and loan guarantees to small and medium enterprises affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. He also declared that his Cabinet would set aside 15.3 billion yen from contingency funds to facilitate the donation of isolated virus samples to relevant research institutions across the globe.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 1 March 2020, Abe evoked the Act on Emergency Measures for Stabilizing Living Conditions of the Public to regulate the sale and distribution of facial masks in Hokkaido. Under this policy, the Japanese government instructed manufacturers to sell facial masks directly to the government, which would then deliver them to residents.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 5 March 2020, the Japanese government announced that it is organizing an emergency package by using a 270 billion yen ($2.5 billion) reserve fund for the current fiscal year through March to contain the virus and minimize its impact on the economy.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: , also written Three C's or ("San Mitsu"), is a slogan originated by the Japanese government in 2020 in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. The Three Cs were announced by the office of the Prime Minister of Japan on Twitter on 17 March 2020. This followed work by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on how to prevent superspreader events and other , including the 25 February 2020 establishment of a Cluster Countermeasures Group within the ministry. The slogan warns people to avoid three factors that contribute to clusters of infection: with poor ventilation; with many people nearby; and such as close-range conversations. On 16 July 2020, the WHO posted a recommendation to "Avoid the Three Cs", in terms very similar to those used in English by the Japanese government.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 17 February 2020, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare asked that those who have experienced fever over 37.5 °C for more than four days, in addition to those who experience severe symptoms such as lethargy and difficulty breathing, consult with the Return and Contact Consultation Centres immediately to determine whether testing is required. However, some media outlets asserted that restrictive standards for testing would delay public health response to the pandemic, resulting in further spread of the disease.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: In early February, , a hematologist, chairman of the Institute for Healthcare Governance, and outside director of SBI Pharma Co., Ltd. and SBI Biotech Co., Ltd., criticized Japan's response to outbreaks of the disease onboard isolated cruise ships compared to that of Italy.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: In late February, several Japanese media outlets reported that there were people with fever or other symptoms who could not be tested through the consultation centre system and had become "test refugees" ().


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Hematologist Masahiro Kami claimed that many patients were denied testing due to their mild symptoms and criticized the Japanese government for setting testing standards that were too high and for lacking a response to patient anxiety.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 26 February 2020, Minister of Health Katsunobu Kato stated in the National Diet that 6,300 samples were tested between 18 and 24 February, averaging 900 samples per day.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Some representatives questioned the discrepancy between the actual number of people tested and the claim in the prior week that 3,800 samples could be tested per day.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The Japan Medical Association announced that it would start a nationwide investigation and plan to cooperate with the government to improve the situation.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The strict constraints on testing for the virus by Japanese health authorities drew accusations from critics such as Masahiro Kami that Abe wanted to "downplay the number of infections or patients because of the upcoming Olympics."


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: It was reported that only a few public health facilities were authorized to test for the virus, after which the results could only be processed by five government-approved companies, which created a bottleneck forcing clinics to turn away even patients with high fevers.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: For example, Tobias Harris, of Teneo Intelligence in Washington, D.C., said: "You wonder, if they were testing nearly as much as South Korea is testing, what would the actual number be? How many cases are lurking and justare not being caught?"


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Fact-checking in several media later proved that the news that the government had reduced the number of tests to curb the increase in the number of infected people for the Olympics was not accurate at all.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Testing was still restricted to large hospitals in March 2020, with 52,000 tests, or 16% of the South Korean amount, performed that month. A decision to expand testing was made on 13 April 2020.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: There were many articles in March that criticized the number of PCR tests in Japan as very small compared to South Korea.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: According to data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japanese authorities conducted a total of 15,655 PCR tests as of 17 March 2020, excluding tests conducted on those returning from China by charter flights and passengers on cruise ships.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 5 March 2020, Japan announced that it will strengthen quarantine for new entrants from China and South Korea, along with added areas of Iran to the target area. The Chinese government showed understanding for the decision, while the Korean government called the measures implemented by Japan "unreasonable and excessive."


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The government's distribution of cloth masks was criticized for poor budgeting and lack of quality in the masks. One of the companies involved in mask production was accused of being a ghost company. Some companies whose mask production was critiqued in the media, as well as personnel associated with those companies, experienced harassment on social media and in person.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Several news reports showed signs of missing numbers of infection statistics in Japan could be explained by other sources of statistics. Furthermore, there would be differences among several


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: statistics of departments since there were several standards for statistics among regional directors and departments of Japanese Authorities using those statistics with other standards.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The new method introduced by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will count fewer COVID patients, and has resulted in bringing the numbers down the in numerous prefectures.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The medical task-force advising the government, known as the Novel Coronavirus Expert Meeting, has adopted a three-pronged strategy to contain and mitigate COVID-19 that includes: (1) early detection of and early response to clusters through contact tracing; (2) early patient diagnosis and enhancement of intensive care and the securing of a medical service system for the severely ill; and (3) behavior modification of citizens. Medical experts have prioritized COVID-19 testing for the first two purposes while relying on the behavior modification of citizens rather than mass testing to prevent the spread of the virus at a large-scale level.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 25 February 2020, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare established the Cluster Response Team () in accordance with the Basic Policies for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control. The purpose of the section is to identify and contain small-scale clusters of COVID-19 infections before they grow into mega-clusters. It is led by university professors Hitoshi Oshitani and Nishiura Hiroshi and consists of a contact tracing team and a surveillance team from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID), a data analysis team from Hokkaido University, a risk management team from Tohoku University, and an administration team. Whenever a local government determines the existence of a cluster from hospital reports, the Ministry of Health dispatches the section to the area to conduct an epidemiological survey and contact tracing in coordination with members of the local public health center. After the teams determine the source of infection, the ministry and local government officials enact countermeasures to locate, test, and place under medical surveillance anybody who may have come into contact with an infected person. They can also file requests to suspend infected businesses or restrict events from taking place there.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: From its contract tracing findings, the Ministry of Health discovered that 80% of infected people did not transmit COVID-19 to another person. The Ministry also determined that patients that did infect another person tended to spread it to multiple people and form infection clusters when they were in certain environments. According to one of the experts, Kawaoka Yoshihiro, "[This meant that] you don't need to trace every single person who's been infected if you can trace the cluster. If you do nothing, the cluster will grow out of control. But as long as you identify a cluster small enough to contain, then the virus will die out."


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 9 March 2020, the medical experts reviewed the data from the Cluster Response Team's work and further refined its definition of a high-risk environment as a place with the overlapping "three Cs" (): (1) closed spaces with poor ventilation; (2) crowded places with many people nearby; and (3) close-contact settings such as close-range conversations. They identified gyms, live music clubs, exhibition conferences, social gatherings, and yakatabune as examples of such places. The experts also theorized that crowded trains did not form clusters because people riding public transportation in Japan usually do not engage in conversations.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: During times when the number of infected patients rises to such an extent that individual contract tracing alone cannot contain a COVID-19 outbreak, the government will request the broad closure of such high-risk businesses.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: During the initial stages of the outbreak, medical experts recommended the government to focus on COVID-19 testing for contact tracing purposes and patients with the following symptoms: (1) cold symptoms and a fever of at least 37.5 °C (or need to take antipyretic medication) for over four days; and (2) extreme fatigue and breathing difficulties. The elderly, people with pre-existing conditions, and pregnant women with cold symptoms could be tested if they had them for two days. The country's high number of computed tomography (CT) scanners (111.49 per million people) allows them to confirm suspicious pneumonia cases and begin treatment before testing them for COVID-19.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 1 April 2020, medical experts requested the government to secure more hospital beds for patients and transfer those with mild or no symptoms to outside housing facilities to focus treatment on the severely-ill.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The Japanese government's medical task-force anticipates multiple waves of COVID-19 to arrive in the country for at least the next three years, with each one prompting the public to engage in a cycle of restricting and easing movement. Under the current law, the Prime Minister can restrict movement by declaring a "state of emergency" in specific areas where COVID-19 poses a grave threat to residents. During such periods, the governors of affected areas can request citizens to avoid unnecessary outings and temporarily close certain businesses and facilities. Since the government cannot enact compulsory measures to enforce these requests, it has instead embarked on a social engineering program to train its citizens to comply with them on a voluntary basis during current and future state of emergencies.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: To reduce person-to-person contact, the government has instructed the public to refrain from going to high-risk environments (the Three Cs: closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings) and events involving movement between different areas of the country. It emphasized extreme caution when coming in contact with the elderly. The government also promoted such work-style reforms as remote work and staggering commuting hours, while improving the country's distance learning infrastructure for children.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 4 May 2020, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare unveiled its program to create a "new lifestyle" () for the country's citizenry that is to be practiced every day on a long-term basis. Several elements of the lifestyle include behavior changes demanded under the state of emergency, such as avoiding high-risk environments and long-distance travelling. However, the program expands these precautions to cover more mundane activities by requesting people to engage in such activities as wearing masks during all conversations, refraining from talking when using public transportation, and eating next to one another rather than facing one another.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The first case was identified in Hokkaido on 28 January 2020, and the first case of an infected person in Hokkaido was on 14 February 2020. To limit the spread of infection, the governor of Hokkaido, Naomichi Suzuki, announced the Declaration of a New Coronavirus Emergency on 28 February 2020, calling on locals to refrain from going out.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The Tōhoku region had been relatively unaffected during the earlier waves of infections. As late as 10 July 2020, Iwate Prefecture had not reported any cases. By 3 April 2021, the total number of reported COVID-19 cases in the region had reached 12,076, with 6,423 of those cases having been reported in Miyagi Prefecture, 4,196 of which were from the city of Sendai.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 13 February 2020, three confirmed cases were announced in the Kanto region, and one case was confirmed in each of Kanagawa, Tokyo, and Chiba. On 6 March 2020, it was confirmed that 121 infected people were reported in 5 prefectures, including Tochigi and Saitama. On 21 March 2020, a total of 136 people were identified as infected in Tokyo, and a total of 311 people were confirmed in the Kanto region.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The first case was identified in Aichi Prefecture on 26 January 2020, and the first case of an infected person in Aichi was on 14 February 2020. As the virus spread, Governor Omura of recognized that there were two clusters in the prefecture, mainly in Nagoya. He emphasized the need to work with the Nagoya City Government to prevent the spread of infection.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The of was widely praised in Japan. The proactive measures enacted by Governor Yoshimura in Osaka Prefecture have been effective in mitigating the effects of the pandemic compared to other regions of Japan with minimal disruptions to education or the economy. Governors of other prefectures have followed this example. As the second-largest population center in Japan with the highest population density in the Kansai region, this has been effective to reduce the spread of the virus in this region. Reduced international tourism to Kyoto due to travel restrictions and cancellations of tour groups has also reduced the spread of the virus but the tourism sector is struggling as a result.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 24 May 2020, Fukuoka Prefecture announced a total of four confirmed cases, including one re-positive case confirmed in Fukuoka City, and three infected cases related to Kitakyushu City. Unfortunately for Kyushu, Kagoshima announced on 2 July 2020 that it has newly confirmed the infection with coronavirus in 9 men and women. On the other hand, Fukuoka Prefecture announced on the 2nd that four new coronavirus infections were confirmed. In August 2020, Fukuoka remained most seriously affected with nearly four thousand cases and over forty deaths. In January 2021, cases in Fukuoka rose to over 13,000 and 150 deaths.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Abe said that "the new coronavirus is having a major impact on tourism, the economy and our society as a whole", throwing Japan into a recession. In Q1 2020 GDP there was 0.9 contraction, whereas in Q4 2019 GDP there was 1.9 contraction. During the early stages of the pandemic, face masks sold out across the nation and new stocks were quickly depleted. Pressure was placed on the healthcare system as demands for medical checkups increased. Chinese people were reported to have suffered increased discrimination.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, logistics and supply chains from Chinese factories were disrupted, leading to complaints from certain Japanese manufacturers. Abe considered using emergency funds to mitigate the outbreak's impact on tourism, 40% of which is by Chinese nationals. S&P Global noted that the worst-hit stocks were for travel, cosmetics and retail companies, which are most exposed to Chinese tourism. Video game developer Nintendo issued a statement apologizing for delays in shipments of Nintendo Switch hardware, attributing it to the coronavirus outbreak in China, where much of the company's manufacturing is located.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On the same day the Nagoya Expressway Public Corporation announced plans to temporarily close some toll gates and let employees work from their homes after an employee staffing the toll gates was diagnosed positive for SARS-CoV-2. Due to personnel shortages, six toll gates on the Tōkai and Manba routes of the expressway network were closed over the following weekend.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: In September 2020, the central government declared its intent to encourage remote work from the country's rural areas to combat the spread of the virus by subsidizing municipalities outside of the Greater Tokyo Area a total of ¥15 billion. The remote work subsidy was made available to eligible municipalities at the onset of FY 2021 on 1 April 2021.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The outbreak affected professional sports in Japan. Nippon Professional Baseball's preseason games and the Haru Basho sumo tournament in Osaka were to be held behind closed doors, while the J.League football and Top League rugby suspended or postponed play entirely. On the weekend of 29 February 2020, the Japan Racing Association closed its horse racing meets to spectators and off-track betting until further notice, but continued to offer wagering by phone and online.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The outbreak affected school sports in Japan. Health concerns led to sporting events such as baseball, basketball, and soccer in school being suspended or postponed, due to unexpected postponement of education generally.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The expansion of COVID-19 into a global pandemic led to concerns over the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo, which continue to this day. In March 2020, it was announced that the Games would be postponed by a year, for the first time in the history of the modern Olympics. The Tokyo Olympics took place from 23 July to 8 August 2021.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: There were 71 cases linked to the 2020 Summer Olympics since 17 July 2021. The Tokyo Olympics triggered a massive surge in new cases in Japan.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 26 February 2020, Abe suggested that major sporting, cultural and other events should be cancelled, delayed or scaled down for about two weeks amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, J-pop groups Perfume and Exile cancelled their series of concerts scheduled for that days at the Tokyo Dome and Kyocera Dome Osaka, respectively, both of which have a capacity of 55,000. On 27 February 2020, AnimeJapan 2020, originally scheduled to be held in Tokyo Big Sight in late March, was cancelled.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: A number of major amusement parks had temporary closures beginning in February 2022. Some attractions partially reopened in March 2020, including Huis Ten Bosch and Legoland Japan Resort. Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea and Tokyo Disney Resort were closed from 29 February 2020 to July 2020. Universal Studios Japan closed from 29 February to June 8.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Beginning in March 2020, many Japanese animated films and TV shows announced changes or postponed broadcasts due to production problems resulting from a shortage of outsourced staff. Beginning in May 2020, production of live-action and animated series were scaled back significantly to prevent the spread of infection. Multiple series across numerous channels were delayed or postponed, and most television channels resorted to broadcasting reruns.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The following major festivals were cancelled: The triangle mark (△) would be cancelled in 2020 and 2021. The small circle mark (◌) cancelled on 2020, held on reduced scale on 2021.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The following major fireworks events were also canceled or considered to be postponed:The triangle mark (△) will be cancelled on 2020 and 2021


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 27 February 2020, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe requested that all Japanese elementary, junior high, and high schools close until early April to help contain the virus. This decision came days after the education board of Hokkaido called for the temporary closure of its 1,600 public and private schools. Nursery schools were excluded from the nationwide closure request. As of 5 March, 98.8 per cent of all municipally run elementary schools have complied with Abe's request, resulting in 18,923 school closures.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 26 January 2020, Japanese people donated a batch of face masks to Wuhan. According to the "Liberty Times" of Taiwan, these were actually purchased by China, but Japanese media and the stated that it was a donation.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 3 February 2020, four organizations, the Japan Pharmaceutical NPO Corporation, the Japan Hubei Federation, Huobi Global, and Incuba Alpha, donated materials to Hubei.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 10 February 2020, the Liberal Democratic Party's Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai said that the party would deduct 5,000 yen from the March funds from members of the party to support mainland China.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Due to prejudice and ignorance, social harassment is expanding concerning infectious diseases. Because of their worries about having contracted the virus, the number of cases where medical personnel's family commuting is restricted. There are increasing cases where small business owners have been forced to take self-sufficiency by neighbors who feel anxious and deprived.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Between April and September 2020, restaurants accounted for 10% of all bankruptcies in Japan. Ramen restaurants were particularly affected, with 34 chains filing for bankruptcy by September. Ramen restaurants are typically narrow and seat customers closely, making social distancing difficult.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: The pandemic seems to be the reason for the abrupt end to the slowly declining trend in suicides in Japan for the preceding 10 years. Since July 2020 their number increased significantly to record highs. Women bear the major part of this increase.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Wild type Sars-Cov-2 was the virus that first arrived in Japan. From February through June 2020, B.1.1 was the main variant found in Japan. From the end of June until mid-February, B.1.1.214 took over. In February and March, R.1 became common, but other variants were surpassing it by late June. Then around mid-March, the Alpha variant became dominant, and has been since. Now, Delta numbers seem to be rapidly rising. Alpha is believed to be more transmissible than wild type Sars-Cov-2, and may be more deadly. Delta is believed to be even more transmissible than Alpha. Identifying a sample as Delta requires full genome sequencing which is expensive and time-consuming, so the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has been using the presence of the L452R mutation as a shorthand way of tracking probable Delta cases.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: On 3 April 2020, foreign travelers who had been in any of the following countries and regions within the past 14 days were barred from entering Japan. This travel ban covers all foreign nationals, including those holding Permanent Resident status. Foreign nationals with Special Permanent Resident status are not subject to immigration control under Article 5 of the Immigration Control Act 1951 and are therefore exempt.


title: COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

text: Japanese citizens and holders of Special Permanent Resident status may return to Japan from these countries but must undergo quarantine upon arrival until testing negative for COVID-19. On 11 October 2022, Japan reopened itself to non-citizens.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Amy Gutmann (born November 19, 1949) is an American academic and diplomat who is the United States Ambassador to Germany. She was the eighth president of the University of Pennsylvania. In November 2016, the school announced that her contract had been extended to 2022, which made her the longest-serving president in the history of the University of Pennsylvania. Gutmann resigned from her role as president on February 8, 2022, following her confirmation by the Senate as ambassador, after 18 years at the University.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In 2018, "Fortune" magazine named Gutmann one of the "World's 50 Greatest Leaders". She previously worked at Princeton as provost and Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics. While there, she founded Princeton's ethics center, the University Center for Human Values. Her published works are in the fields of politics, ethics, education, and philosophy.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Amy Gutmann was born on November 19, 1949, in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Kurt and Beatrice Gutmann. She was raised in Monroe, New York, a small town in the lower Hudson Valley.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Her father was the youngest of five children in an Orthodox Jewish family in Feuchtwangen, Germany. He was living near Nuremberg, Germany, when Adolf Hitler ascended to power. He fled Nazi Germany in 1934 as a college student. He brought his entire family, including four siblings, to join him in Bombay, India, where he founded a metal fabricating factory. Kurt Gutmann was still living in India in 1948 when he came to New York City for vacation. While there he attended a benefit at a Manhattan hotel, Essex House, where he met Beatrice, Amy's future mother, and the two were married weeks later.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann graduated from Monroe-Woodbury High School in Monroe, New York. She then entered Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1967 on a scholarship as a math major with sophomore standing. She received membership in Phi Beta Kappa and her Bachelor of Arts degree "magna cum laude" from Radcliffe College in 1971, followed by a Master of Science degree in political science from the London School of Economics in 1972, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in political science from Harvard University in 1976. She was the first in her family to graduate from college.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann taught at Princeton University from 1976 to 2004. In 1990, she became the first Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor at Princeton and the founding director of its University Center for Human Values, among the first and best-endowed university-wide multi-disciplinary ethics centers in the world. As provost at Princeton University from 2001 to 2004, she oversaw Princeton's plan to expand the undergraduate student body by 10 percent and spearheaded the recruitment from Harvard of star professor K. Anthony Appiah (co-author with Gutmann of "Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race").


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In her 2004 inaugural address Gutmann launched the Penn Compact, her vision for making Penn both a global leader in teaching, research, and professional practice; and a dynamic agent of social, economic, and civic progress.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In 2017 she renewed and updated her vision with the Penn Compact 2022, recommitting the university to these ideals and outlining the next steps: First, to increase inclusion at the university with increases in faculty and student diversity. Second, to integrate knowledge across academic disciplines with a strong emphasis on innovation: Penn was named No. 4 in Reuters' Top 100 World Innovative Universities in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and the university is consistently helping to facilitate commercialization agreements, ringing in over 650 in 2017 (up from fewer than 50 just a decade prior). Another highlight in innovation is Penn's biomedical research and clinical breakthroughs, approved by the FDA to treat cancer using a patient's own immune system. "The Wall Street Journal" noted that "Today the university [Penn] lays claim to having incubated the world's biggest cancer breakthrough." In addition, it is Penn Medicine researchers who developed the mRNA vaccine technology that is a critical component of Pfizer/BioNTech's and Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines, which are being deployed globally in the fight against COVID-19. A third priority through the Compact is to have an impact locally, nationally, and globally to bring the benefits of Penn's research, teaching, and service to individuals and communities at home and around the world. This is recently illustrated by the University's $100 million commitment to the Philadelphia School District to remediate environmental hazards—the largest private contribution to the School District in its history.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: As president, Gutmann has overseen Penn's largest fundraising campaign ever, Power of Penn, which concluded in 2021 with a total of $5.4 billion and included priorities such as a "Penn First Plus" initiative, targeted to support first-generation, low-income students. She previously led the Making History campaign, launched in 2007, which raised a record $4.3 billion, exceeding its goal by more than $800 million. It achieved its $3.5-billion target 16 months ahead of its December 31, 2012, conclusion. It was an unusually broad-based campaign, attracting gifts from nearly 327,000 donors. Gutmann is the only Penn president to lead two fundraising campaigns, and since 2004 she has helped raise over $10 billion for Penn.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann has been a leading national advocate for financial aid based on need to promote socioeconomic diversity in higher education. Gutmann made Penn one of the handful of universities in the country that substitute grants for loans for any undergraduate student with financial need. In September 2009, for the first time in Penn's history, all undergraduates eligible for financial aid received grants rather than loans in their aid packages. Students from typical families with income less than $40,000 paid no tuition, fees, room or board. Students from typical families with incomes less than $90,000 paid no tuition and fees. In 2017, one out of eight incoming Penn students were the first in their families to attend college, up from one out of 20 in 2004. She and her husband Michael Doyle have also funded an endowed undergraduate scholarship and an undergraduate research fund at Penn. In 2017, they committed an additional more than $1 million for scholarships, supporting multiple students and matching funds for other donors. In 2020, Gutmann and Doyle donated $2 million to Penn's nursing school to establish leadership scholarships for undergraduates and graduates who are passionate about making lasting impact in underserved urban and rural communities.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In 2014, Gutmann announced Penn Compact 2020 initiatives to create up to 50 new endowed professorships utilizing matching donor funds, and to raise an additional $240 million for undergraduate financial aid on top of the $360 million raised for undergraduate aid during the Making History campaign. Additionally, Gutmann announced unique and unprecedented awards for undergraduate students "with the most promising plans to improve local, national, or global conditions in the year after their graduation".


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In March 2015, Gutmann announced the selection of five students (four projects) as winners of Penn's inaugural President's Engagement Prize. The largest of their kind in higher education, the President's Engagement Prizes provide up to $150,000 annually for graduating seniors to design and implement impactful local, national, and global engagement projects. In its coverage of the first awards, "The Philadelphia Inquirer" stated, "Penn grads win chance to change the world." In October 2015, she announced Penn's President's Innovation Prize, a corollary to the Engagement Prize that is focused on commercial ventures; the first winners were announced in April 2016. Shadrack Frimpong, a 2015 alumnus, used his President's Engagement Prize to start a school for girls, many of whom did not have access to education. Frimpong returned to Penn in 2018 to complete a degree in non-profit leadership and management at Penn to continue his work.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Since arriving at Penn, Gutmann has also spearheaded a major campus development plan, Penn Connects, that includes that Penn purchased from the US Postal Service along the Schuylkill River, which opened as Penn Park in September 2011. Penn Connects is designed to boost the economic, educational and social capacity of Philadelphia and to create seamless gateways between West Philadelphia and Center City across the Schuylkill River.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Penn began an expansion east of the Schuylkill River with the purchase of the DuPont Marshall Laboratory in September 2010. Gutmann said that the Marshall Lab property has "infinite possibilities" as a place to nurture startups and "technology transfer", where faculty with "great discoveries can attract venture capital" and bring ideas to market.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In Fall 2016, Penn opened its Pennovation Center, the anchor of a 23-acre site that the university has dubbed Pennovation Works, on a Grays Ferry site along the south bank of the Schuylkill which was once home to the DuPont Co.'s Marshall Labs (where workers discovered the substance that led to the development of Teflon). The $35-million project is about 1 1/2 miles from the center of Penn's West Philadelphia campus. A large, red-letter sign reads "Pennovation" over the three-story, 58,000-square foot facility. Pennovation includes an addition that resembles a crystal formation, representing the "crystallization of ideas", and architecture critic Inga Saffron says that its unique design "announces the future", rather than harkening back to the past. Johnson & Johnson announced in July 2018 that Pennovation Works would house J&J's first US-based JPOD, a networking hub that seeks to connect J&J researchers and the local life sciences community. With the announcement, J&J joined the ranks of global telecom giant Qualcomm and chocolate maker Hershey's, which also selected Pennovation Works to open Philadelphia operations.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: On December 8, 2014, "The Daily Pennsylvanian" reported that student protesters concerned about the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, disrupted a holiday party for students at Gutmann's home. As a gesture of support for the students' cause, Gutmann joined them in lying on the ground to symbolize the four-and-a-half hours that Brown's body was left lying on the street in Ferguson after his death. Members of the Penn police force publicly responded to the show of support, with the head of the police union writing a public letter criticizing the move and the chief of the police department responding with a letter defending Gutmann's actions.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: On May 8, 2012, Penn announced that Gutmann's contract had been renewed through 2019. In announcing the extension, David L. Cohen, chair of Penn's Board of Trustees, stated that Penn's "Trustees feel very strongly that Amy Gutmann is simply the best university president in the country. Under her superb leadership, Penn is a stronger and more vibrant institution than at any time in its storied history." In November 2016 Cohen, still Board Chairman, announced that Gutmann's contract would be extended until 2022, making her the longest-serving president ever at Penn.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In 2017, Gutmann's total compensation was $2.9 million, making her the highest paid private college president in Pennsylvania and fourth highest in the United States.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: On July 2, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated her to serve as the United States Ambassador to Germany. Hearings on her nomination were held before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 14, 2021. Her nomination expired at the end of the year and was returned to President Biden on January 3, 2022.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: President Biden renominated Gutmann the next day. The committee favorably reported her nomination to the Senate floor on January 12, 2022. On February 8, 2022, the United States Senate confirmed her nomination by a 54-42 vote. She presented her credentials on February 17, 2022.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Through her writings, Gutmann has consistently sought to bridge theory and policy to advance the core values of a civil democratic society: liberty, opportunity and mutual respect. In a recent ranking of US political scientists in PhD-granting departments, she is ranked second-highest in citations among all political theorists, eighth-highest among all women political scientists, and has been cited more than any other political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Her first major contribution to political philosophy was her book "Democratic Education" (1987; revised 1999). The book addresses the central questions in the political theory of education: How should a democratic society make decisions about education? What should children be taught? How should citizens be educated? It was reviewed in "Ethics" as "the finest contribution to the literature on democratic education of the last seventy years" and fostered a revival of interest in the relationship between democracy and education. The book also takes on some contemporary scholarly debates: What is the appropriate response of democratic education to the challenge of multiculturalism? Should schools try to cultivate patriotic or cosmopolitan sentiments among students?


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann's second major contribution to political philosophy is a theory of deliberative democracy that she developed in collaboration with Harvard political scientist Dennis Thompson. "Democracy and Disagreement" (1996) calls for more reasoned and respectful argument in everyday politics. Deliberation can inform decision making through reasoned argument and develop society's collective capacity to pursue justice while finding mutually acceptable terms of social cooperation—even when disagreements persist.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: "Democracy and Disagreement" has been praised as an effective remedy for polarized politics and criticized as impractical, as evidenced in a collection of pro and con essays published in "Deliberative Politics", edited by Stephen Macedo. Defenders argue that more and better political deliberation can help all citizens. In her work Gutmann has applied the ideas of deliberative democracy to the US electoral process, President Barack Obama's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and healthcare organization in the United Kingdom.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann's third major contribution to political philosophy is her analysis of group identity and its intersection with justice. In "Identity in Democracy" (2003), Gutmann argues that identity groups as such are neither friends nor enemies of democratic justice. She analyzes the legitimate but also problematic parts played by group identity in democratic politics and draws distinctions among the various types of identity group politics. She further developed this perspective in her nationally recognized 2018 Penn Commencement speech, "Think Uniquely, Stand United," in which she said that ". . . what makes us unique and what unites us are not starkly opposed. Uniqueness and unity are the twin pillars of a strong pluralism. We thrive when we combine unity of shared values with our unique perspectives on life. It has never been more important that we think uniquely while we stand united."


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In May 2012, Gutmann published her 16th book, "The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It" (Princeton University Press), with co-author Dennis Thompson of Harvard. The authors posit that the difficulty of compromise is built into the democratic process itself, but so is the need for it. A better understanding and appreciation of compromise might be especially useful in this time of political polarization. Paul Starr of "The New Republic" said "The Spirit":


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Provide[s] grist for thinking through the difficulties of compromise in [domestic policy], from tragic choices at desperate moments of history to the routine nastiness in American public life today... Until recently, who would have thought it necessary to offer Americans advice in the ways of compromise? We used to enjoy a reputation for being a practical-minded people, our politicians being regarded as an all-too-flexible species. But something has changed, and according to Gutmann and Thompson, the change has to do with the relation of campaigning and governing... Gutmann and Thompson end their book with recommendations to strengthen the spirit and practice of compromise."


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Judy Woodruff of the PBS Newshour called the book "a clear-eyed examination of the forces that bring warring political leaders together or keep them apart. I wish every policymaker would read it".


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann's 17th book, co-authored with Jonathan Moreno, "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die", was published in 2019 by W. W. Norton & Company.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: In 2009, Barack Obama appointed Gutmann chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and reappointed her in early 2012, a position she held through 2016. The Bioethics Commission issued 10 reports on a variety of issues including protections for adult and pediatric participants in medical research, and the ethics of genomics and neuroscience. The Commission's meetings were open to the public and streamed live—and all its recommendations to the President were unanimous. Its capstone report, "Bioethics for Every Generation", focused on the mission of bioethics commissions in advancing democratic deliberation and bioethics education.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: From 2005 to 2009, Gutmann served on the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, a committee that advises the FBI on national security issues relating to academia. From 2011 to 2013 she was a member of the National Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, which was convened by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014, the Association of American Universities elected Gutmann as chair of its board of directors for a one-year term. From 2007 to 2019 Gutmann served on the board of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. She was a member of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy from 2017 to 2019. From 2006 to 2022, Gutmann served on the board of The Vanguard Group, and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Berggruen Institute from 2014 to 2022.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann is a member of the Global University Leaders Forum (GULF), which convenes at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.


title: Amy Gutmann

text: Gutmann is married to Michael Doyle, professor of law and international affairs at Columbia University. They have one daughter, Abigail Doyle, a Professor of Chemistry at UCLA where she holds the Saul Winstein Chair in Organic Chemistry.


title: Banana bread

text: Banana bread is a type of cake made from mashed bananas. It is often a moist and sweet quick bread but some recipes are yeast raised.


title: Banana bread

text: Banana bread recipes began to feature in well-known cookbooks across North America as baking soda and baking powder were being mass produced and becoming available in grocery stores in the 1930s. It appeared in Pillsbury's 1933 "Balanced Recipes" cookbook, and later gained more acceptance with the release of the original "Chiquita Banana's Recipe Book" in 1950.


title: Banana bread

text: National Banana Bread Day is February 23. Bananas appeared in the US in the 1870s and it took a while for them to appear as ingredient items for desserts. The modern banana bread recipe began being published in cookbooks around the 1930s and its popularity was greatly helped by the introduction of baking powder on the market. Some food historians believe banana bread was a byproduct of the Great Depression as resourceful housewives did not wish to throw away overripe bananas (as they were still a costly item to purchase), others believe the modern banana bread was developed in corporate kitchens to promote flour and baking soda products. It could also be a combination of both theories, insofar as being developed in a corporate kitchen to promote flour and baking soda products, as well as marketed as a method to make use of overripe bananas. Banana bread experienced a resurgence in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, thought to be because the ingredients were cheap, a trend against food waste, and as a nostalgic treat.


title: Banana bread

text: In the Philippines, banana bread is usually called "banana cake." It was introduced during the American colonial period of the Philippines.


title: Men's FIH Pro League

text: The Men's FIH Pro League is an international men's field hockey competition organised by the International Hockey Federation (FIH), which replaces the Men's FIH Hockey World League. The competition also serves as a qualifier for the Hockey World Cup and the Olympic Games.


title: Men's FIH Pro League

text: Nine men's and women's teams compete in a round-robin tournament with home and away matches, played from October to June, with the top team at the end of the season winning the league.


title: Men's FIH Pro League

text: From 2021-22 onwards, the bottom team at the end of the season will be relegated and will be replaced by the winner of a new competition called the Men's FIH Nations Cup.


title: Men's FIH Pro League

text: In July 2017, Hockey India decided to withdraw both the men's and women's national teams from the competition as they estimated the chances of qualifying for the Summer Olympics to be higher when participating in the Men's FIH Hockey World League. Hockey India also cited lack of clarity in the ranking system. The International Hockey Federation subsequently invited Spain instead. Pakistan were suspended on 23 January 2019 after they could not play their first three games. India joined the Pro League from 2020 onwards. On 17 September 2021, both, New Zealand and Australia, withdrew from the 2021–22 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions coming with it.


title: Coyoacán

text: Coyoacán ( , ) is a borough ("demarcación territorial") in Mexico City. The former village is now the borough's "historic center". The name comes from Nahuatl and most likely means "place of coyotes", when the Aztecs named a pre-Hispanic village on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco dominated by the Tepanec people. Against Aztec domination, these people welcomed Hernán Cortés and the Spanish, who used the area as a headquarters during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and made it the first capital of New Spain between 1521 and 1523.


title: Coyoacán

text: The village and later municipality of Coyoacán remained completely independent of Mexico City through the colonial period into the 19th century. In 1857, the area was incorporated into the then Federal District when this district was expanded. In 1928, the borough was created when the Federal District was divided into sixteen boroughs. The urban sprawl of Mexico City reached the borough in the mid-20th century, turning farms, former lakes, and forests into developed areas, but many of the former villages have kept their original layouts, plazas, and narrow streets and have conserved structures built from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. This has made the borough of Coyoacán, especially its historic center, a popular place to visit on weekends.


title: Coyoacán

text: To distinguish it from the rest of Coyoacán borough, the former independent community is referred to as Villa Coyoacán or the historic center of the borough. Consisting now of 29 blocks, it is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Mexico City, located 10 km south of the Zocalo (main square) of Mexico City. This area is filled with narrow cobblestone streets and small plazas, which were laid out during the colonial period, and today give the area a distinct and bohemian identity. The area is filled with mostly single family homes, which were former mansions and country homes built between the colonial period to the mid 20th century. The Project for Public Spaces ranked the neighborhood as one of the best urban spaces to live in North America in 2005 and is the only Mexican neighborhood on the list. This area was designated as a "Barrio Mágico" by the city in 2011.


title: Coyoacán

text: The center of Coyoacán is relatively peaceful during the week, but it becomes crowded and festive on weekends and holidays. After the Zocalo, the most-visited place in Mexico City is this historic center, especially the twin plazas in its center. According to the borough, the area receives about 70,000 people each weekend. The area is a stop for both the Turibus and Tranvia Turistico tour bus routes, on their routes through San Ángel, Ciudad Universitaria and other locations in the south of Mexico City. People come to enjoy the still somewhat rural atmosphere of the area as well as the large number of restaurants, cafes, cantinas, museums, bookstores and other cultural attractions. Some of these businesses have been around for almost a century. In the two main plazas and even in smaller ones such as the one in the neighboring Santa Catarina neighborhood. Mimes, clowns, musicians, folk and indigenous dancers, storytellers and other street performers can be found entertaining crowds. Vendors sell street food such as ice cream, homemade fruit drinks, esquites (flavored corn kernels) and corn-on-the-cob served with mayonnaise, lime, chili pepper and grated cheese, amaranth bars, and various candies. In the evening, food vendors tend to sell more hot items such as quesadillas, sopes, tortas, tostadas, pozoles and more. One known food vendor, located in the Mercado de Comida Coyoacán, goes by the name of Rogelio. He is known for making pancakes (called hotcakes) in the shape of animals and humans. These are usually eaten as a snack with jam, cream and other toppings.


title: Coyoacán

text: The tourism has been a mixed blessing for the historic center as commercial establishments open, helping the economy, but also push residents out. In the historic center, there are over 860 retail businesses, mostly restaurants, about 200 of which were established in the last five years. Residents attribute the growth to Mexico City's promotion of the area tourism in general as well as the opening of commercial centers in the borough. While the growing business helps the economy, resident groups fear that the area will lose its current character, as many businesses are opening in formerly residential buildings, with questionable legal basis. Currently, most of the borough, especially in historic center, is residential with older adults. Property prices are high, leading to sales not to new families but rather to larger commercial interests, squeezing out smaller businesses along with residents. Neighborhood groups have formed to confront the changes and preserve the historic value of the area. Another serious problem for the area is the traffic jams and serious lack of parking in the historic center. The quantity of cars and the lack of traffic patrols have meant the proliferation of “franeleros” or people who illegally take possession of public areas such as streets to charge for parking.


title: Coyoacán

text: The historic area is centered on two large plazas filled with Indian laurel trees called the Jardin del Centenario and the Jardín Hidalgo. These plazas cover an area of 24,000 m, which were renovated, along with the areas around them in 2008. The green areas were rehabilitated, and areas were paved with red and black volcanic stone. Renovation of the two plazas and the streets around them cost 88.3 million pesos. For over twenty five years, these plazas, especially Plaza Hidalgo, and the streets around them were filled with vendors (wandering and with stalls). When renovation efforts began, 150 vendors were removed from the plazas proper with about 500 total including the surrounding streets. While the practice was illegal, it had been tolerated by authorities, even though it caused damage to the plazas and caused traffic problems. One of the main goals of the renovation work in 2008 was to remove these vendors and move them to a new crafts bazaar built nearby. Initially, opposition to the removal of the vendors came not only from the vendors themselves, but also from some neighborhood groups and local businesses who feared their removal would hurt tourism. When renovation work finished in 2009, police were assigned to the plazas to keep vendors from returning, leading to confrontations, both physically in the plazas and legally in the courts. The borough began to issue some permits for vendors, but there was opposition. Eventually, a group representing the vendors obtained a court order to allow forty vendors to return to the plazas, citing the history of tolerating such activity in the past. This order is still opposed by some neighborhood groups, but as of 2010, there are still a limited number of these vendors selling in the plazas.


title: Coyoacán

text: Plaza Hidalgo, also called Jardín (garden) Hidalgo is the main plaza or square of the borough. It is bordered by Calle Carillo Puerto on the east, Calle Caballocalco on the west, Calle B. Dominguez and the Casa Municipal on the north and the Plaza del Centenario and the Parish is San Juan Bautista on the south. In the center of the plaza, there is an early 20th-century kiosk with a stained glass cupola topped by a bronze eagle. This kiosk was donated to the then village by Porfirio Díaz for the then-upcoming Centennial of Mexico's Independence in 1910. The eagle design is one adopted by Mexico after the French Intervention. As the plaza is named after Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a statue of the priest, created by Luis Arias can also be found on the plaza. Behind it is a sculpture carved from a tree trunk called “La Familia de Antonio Alvarez Portual y Josué.


title: Coyoacán

text: The Plaza del Centenario (also called the "Jardín del Centenario") is slightly smaller and located just west of the Plaza Hidalgo, separated by Calle Carrillo Puerto. This plaza originally was part of the very large atrium that belonged to Parish of San Juan Bautista during the colonial period. The main entrance to this atrium still exist on the west side of this plaza and are called the Arcadas Atrial or the Arcos del Jardín del Centenario. This entrance was built in the 16th century of stone with decorative motifs that show both European and indigenous influence. The current name for this area comes from the Centennial of Mexico's Independence. In the center of the plaza, there is a fountain which contains a bronze sculpture of two coyotes, which refer to the borough's name. The south side of the plaza is lined with cafes and restaurants, including the well-known Café El Parnaso, and the north side features a very large crafts market.


title: Coyoacán

text: The Casa Municipal, also referred to "La Casa de Cortés", is a building located on the north side of the Plaza Hidalgo. It has served as an administrative/governmental building since it was constructed in the 18th century. The erroneous name of Casa de Cortés (House of Cortés, referring to Hernán Cortés), comes from Coyoacán's association with the conquistador. Cortés did live in Coyoacán in 1521 and 1522, while the destroyed Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was being rebuilt into Mexico City, and the area was the capital of the colony of New Spain. However, Cortés never lived at the site, despite a plaque on building that says that he did. Cortés residence in Coyoacán was on lands that belonged to the then leader of the indigenous of this area, Juan de Guzmán Iztolinque, in the area where the La Conchita Church and plaza are found now. What Cortés eventually built here where administrative buildings for the offices used to manage the vast lands he was granted as the Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, which included the Coyoacán area. Local legend states that this was the location were Cuauhtémoc was tortured as the Spanish tried to learn of the whereabouts of more treasure.


title: Coyoacán

text: The current structure was built in the mid 18th century, by Cortés’ descendants, who still carried the title of the Marquis of the Valle de Oaxaca to replace the old structure, which had deteriorated. In the 1850s, the building began to be used as the seat of the government of the municipality of Coyoacán, which then belonged to the State of Mexico, very separate from Mexico City. When the borough of Coyoacán was created in 1928, as part of the Federal District, the building remained the government seat but of the modern “delegación.” The structure was declared a Colonial Monument by INAH in 1932.


title: Coyoacán

text: The structure is much the same as it was when it was constructed in the 18th century. The facade is simple and is fronted by a series of columns in sandstone and wood over which is a roof. The door and window jambs are typical of civil constructions of the 18th century with wrought iron work. The facade is topped by a wide cornice and inverted arches. At the very front is a sculpture of two coyotes in volcanic stone, the current logo of the borough. Above the entrance is the coat of arms granted to Coyoacán by Charles IV of Spain. On one side of the building is the Sala de Cabildos, or City Council Hall. It was painted by Aurora Reyes Flores with a mural depicting pre-Hispanic Coyoacán and includes depictions of the landscape of the area including the Xitle volcano, the Tepaneca god Xocotlhuetzin as well as the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl. Next to this hall is an attached chapel. The mural in the chapel was done by Diego Rosales in 1961, depicting the early history of Mexico with personages such as Cuauhtémoc, Cortés, La Malinche and Pedro de Alvarado. Scenes of the work cover the walls and the ceiling.


title: Coyoacán

text: One of the most important historic buildings in the borough is the Parish of San Juan Bautista. Built between 1520 and 1552, it is one of three oldest parish churches in Mexico City, along with the ones in Tlalpan and the small community of Amaqueman. Originally, this church and the cloister next to it were constructed as a monastery by the Dominicans, but the complex was transferred to the Franciscans. Over time, as the complex deteriorated and was reconstructed and restored various time, most was replaced so that now the only original parts from the 16th century are the choir area, the Rosario Chapel and the main altar. However, much of the same layout remains. The parish church has a large open chapel, but only a portion of the atrium it had in the 16th century. During much of the colonial period, the atrium functioned as a cemetery. Today, much of this atrium is now the Plaza del Centenario. The interior of the church has seven chapels, with the Rosario Chapel containing an ornate Baroque altarpiece from the end of the 17th century. The monastery portion is two floors surrounding a large inner courtyard. It conserves a large part of the original wood beams and decorative work in wood which was done by indigenous hands. The feast day for San Juan Bautista is 24 June. In the church a special altar is installed and mass is said all day. The most important mass occurs at midday with mariachi music, with a meal offered in the adjoining monastery building. The event is organized by 24 civil associations and the chaplains of the parish.


title: Coyoacán

text: In 2005, the San Juan Bautista church underwent renovations to its tower, atrium, facade, portal for pilgrims, the north and south sides and the cupola and more under the supervision of INAH and academics from UNAM. Prior to this, there had been no restoration work to the building for about a century. The cupola was particularly damaged, with trees and other plants growing out of it. Much of the work was to make straight many of the walls and floors, which had cracked and warped. Studies were done on the building to determine what materials in what colors were used in order to use the same. It was declared a National Monument in 1934. The work was sponsored by government and private funds.


title: Coyoacán

text: Other landmarks off the plazas include the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, and the Acuavida Coyoacán. The museum is located just off the Plaza del Centenario, and features mostly temporary exhibits related to popular or mass culture such as one related to lucha libre wrestling. The museum was created in 1982, to show the values and ways of live of the various modern cultural groups in Mexico. It has various halls, an auditorium and two courtyards in which are exhibitions, auditions, concerts, plays, recitals and craft workshops for children. The Acuavida Coyacán Aquarium is on the north side of the Plaza del Centenario. It offers exhibits of fishes, reptiles, live coral, aquatic plants and more, including the only freshwater manta ray in captivity in the Americas.


title: Coyoacán

text: The rest of the historic center and nearby neighborhoods are filled with homes built from the colonia era to the middle of the 20th century, many of which have been catalogued for their historic value. Many of these homes can be found one two of the historic center's oldest streets, the Calle de Higuera, which leads southeast away from the Parish of San Juan Miguel and to the La Concepción neighborhood and Calle Francisco Sosa, which leads away from the same area towards San Angel. Calle Francisco Sosa alone has 65 structures catalogued by INAH for their historic value. One of the most important of these structures is the Casa de Ordaz, located on Calle Francisco Sosa on the corner with the Plaza de Centenario.) It was long thought to have belonged to conquistador Diego de Ordaz, who died in 1532, but research has shown that it was built sometime in the 18th century. Remodeling work was authorized on the Casa de Ordaz in 2004 by the INAH, but complaint stated that the owner, Banamex, gutted the interior and exceeded the limits set for the work by INAH. However, the chronicler of the borough, Luis Everaert, stated that the only original part of the building was the facade, which was not changed. The house underwent modification in the 1930s. In the 1920s, it was a school for girls, the first in Coyoacán, In the 1930s, it was the Instituto Centroamericano, a middle school for boys. The Instituto Italiano de Cultura (Italian Cultural Institute) on Francisco Sosa Street is house in a structure built between the 17th and 18th centuries and remodeled in the 20th. This structure is an adobe and stone mansion with a flat red façade with Moorish style decorative features. It has an inner courtyard with a tile decorated fountain and a private altar. It houses the cultural offices of the Italian Embassy. The main house of the San Pedro Martír Hacienda is located off of Belisario Dominguez Street. The house is now divided into three independent parts, but they retain their original facades. In 1932, this house was where the Escuela de Pintura al Aire Libre (Open Air Painting School) was established, which was an important artistic movement.


title: Coyoacán

text: The borough of Coyoacán was created in 1928, when the Federal District of Mexico City was divided into 16 administrative parts. The borough is named after the old village of Coyoacán, where the borough government is seated. This borough is much larger than the village, extending for 54.4km2 in the geographic center of the Federal District. Accounting for 3.6% of the Federal District, it is the tenth largest borough. The borough is bordered to the north by the boroughs of Benito Juárez, Iztapalapa, Xochimilco, Tlalpan and Álvaro Obregón. Border roads include Avenida Río Churubusco, Calzada Ermita Iztapalapa, Calzada de la Viga, Canal Nacional, Calzada del Hueso, Avenida del Bordo, Calzado Acoxpa, Calzada de Tlalpan, Avenida de Pedregal, Anillo Periférico, Boulevard de las Cataratas, Circuito Universitario, Avenida Ciudad Universitaria, San Jerónimo, Río Magdalena and Avenida Universidad.


title: Coyoacán

text: Sixty-nine percent of the land is residential, 60% is open or green space and the rest is mixed use or commercial. The borough contains 167,157 housing units with between two and four occupant, which is 7.5% of the total of the District. It contains 7.2% of the total population of the Federal District. This population has fallen slightly from 640,423 to 628,063 (2000 to 2005) as the overall population of Mexico City has risen.


title: Coyoacán

text: However, quality of life in this borough his ranked among the top in the nation and has been ranked internationally. Coyoacán was ranked third best place to live in the country in 2004 by the United Nations Development Programme, behind Benito Juarez and San Pedro Garza García in Nuevo León. The ranking is based on income levels, health and education. Coyoacán was ranked sixth in education, fourth in income and fifth in health. In quality of life, which takes into account factors such as crime statistics, Coyoacán ranked second behind Benito Juarez in Mexico City. This ranks the quality of life as equivalent to that in developed countries. In 2004, Coyoacán was ranked the fifth most livable neighborhood in North America, ahead of Rittenhouse, Philadelphia and behind Camden, Maine. The borough contains 228 preschools, 227 primary schools, 103 middle schools, and 66 technical, preparatory and other high schools serving about 155,000 students. Illiteracy is lower here than in the rest of the Federal District at 1.9% for residents over the age of 15. About 55% of the population is of working age with less than 2% unemployed. 77.8% are employed in commerce and services, with 7% in industry; 44.8% of industrial jobs is related to pharmaceuticals with food processing accounting for 18.7%. However, industry accounts for 47.3% of the borough GDP, followed by services at 32.6% and commerce at 16.7%. As of 2004, the borough accounted for 4.1% of Mexico City's total GDP, but its industry accounts for 21% of industrial GDP. Tourism is an important part of the borough commerce and services sector. However, there are only nine hotels rated with three stars or above.


title: Coyoacán

text: Most of the borough located at 2240 meters above sea level with little variation. Minor elevations are located in Ciudad Universitaria, San Francisco Culuacán and Santa Úrusula Coapa. The most important elevation is in the far south called the Cerro Zacatépetl which rises to 2420masl. Parks and other green spaces cover 4,318,783.56m2 and can be found in most of the communities of the borough. Soil composition is of two types, of volcanic origin and the former lakebed of Lake Texcoco. Volcanic land is subdivided by volcanic rock which is decomposing and that which has not. The best known of the areas with still-hard lava rock is called the Pedregal, which covers the communities of the Ciudad Universitaria, the Pedregal de Carrasco, Santa Úrsula Coapa, Copilco el Alto, Viveros de Coyocan and the Villa de Coyoacán or historic center. The southeast of the borough is dominated by volcanic rock from an eruption of a now dormant volcano called Xitle. This lava bed covers the current communities of Colonia Santo Domingo, Colonia Ajusco and Pueblo de Santa Úrsula. Decomposing volcanic rock is mostly found by the former lake. The borough is part of the Pánuco River Basin, in the subregion of the Lake Texcoco Zumpango. The lake no longer exists except for a canal called the Canal Nacional which is on the east border. Two rivers pass through the territory called the Río Magdalena and Río Mixcoac. Both of these are almost fully encased in cement tubes as they pass through. These two rivers join to form the Río Churubusco on the border with Benito Juárez.


title: Coyoacán

text: The borough is divided into 140 communities, classified as colonias, pueblos, unidades habitacionales and barrios. The oldest of these divisions are former villages which are distinguished by their colonial era churches and who still celebrate their feast of their patron saint much as they did when they were independent, with fireworks, masses, processions, folk and indigenous dance and more. A number of these villages also have certain unique traditions associated with these celebrations. These barrios and pueblos can still be somewhat distinguished by their narrow, winding roads and alleyways. Culturally, they are still distinguished by having their own histories and legends. Many of the old villages are linked by the old Calle Real, which was renamed Santa Catarina, then Benito Juarez and now Francisco Sosa. Today, this road extends from Plaza or Jardín Hidalgo to the Panzacola Bridge. This street used to have a trolley car that linked the historic center of Coyoacán with San Ángel and Churubusco. At first this trolley was pulled by mules, but later it was electrified. Sometime after that, it was replaced by modern busses. Another main road in the borough is La Higuera, which links Plaza Hidalgo which the La Conchita Plaza.


title: Coyoacán

text: In additions to structures from the colonial era, Coyoacán has important structure from the 19th century, replicas of colonial and 19th century buildings constructed in the 20th century and modern buildings. In total, the borough contains 349 registered buildings of cultural or historic importance, with 157 of these in the historic center. Coyoacán was declared a “Zona Típica y Pintoresca del Distrito Federal” (Typical and Picturesque Zone of the Federal District) by INAH in 1934 due to is historical, cultural and artistic value. This declaration recognizes 278 buildings within the borough. This historic center has the most with fifty buildings on 86 blocks over 1.64km2.


title: Coyoacán

text: Despite its rural past with villages and farmlands, today the borough is urban, with all of its territory paved and developed with the exception of parks and other reserved green spaces as it is completely integrated with the urban sprawl of Mexico City. This has brought a number of problems to the area. Traffic in Coyoacán is some of the worst in the city. While there are 70.7 km of primary roads through the borough, with 8,200,947m2 of pavement, many sections have maintained the narrow winding streets and plazas from its colonial past. These sections bring in a large number of visitors, especially on weekends and holidays, with these roads unable to cope with the volume of traffic and need for parking. Other issues are graffiti and vandalism, and other crimes, the most serious of which is theft/robbery, followed by assault. However, Coyoacán generates only 7.2% of all crime reports in Mexico City.


title: Coyoacán

text: For long before it became a borough, the area was home to a number of small community and villages. Vestiges of a number of these communities can still be distinguished by street layouts and by customs and traditions which have survived. Many of the old villages, now called colonias, pueblos and barrios (roughly “neighborhood”) are linked by the old Calle Real, which was renamed Santa Catarina, then Benito Juarez and now Francisco Sosa. Today, this road extends from Plaza Hidalgo to the Panzacola Bridge in Santa Catarina. This street used to have a trolley car that linked the historic center of Coyoacán with San Ángel and Churubusco. At first this trolley was pulled by mules, but later it was electrified. Sometime after that, it was replaced by modern busses. Another main road in the borough is La Higuera, which links Plaza Hidalgo which the La Conchita Plaza in the La Concepción neighborhood. These two roads, along with other colonial-era roads still have structures which are centuries old. Another street with a number of country mansions and homes is Calle de Fernandez Leal, mostly built at the beginning of the 20th century. A film called “The Matador, with Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear was filmed partly on the Plaza Santa Catarina.


title: Coyoacán

text: One neighborhood which is as old as the historic center is the "La Concepción" or "La Conchita" neighborhood (Barrio de la Concepción), an area where the Spanish conquistadors settled in the 1520s. The neighborhood centers on a small plaza with a church just southeast of Villa Coyoacán or the historic center. This main chapel and plaza are called the Purísima Concepción Chapel and the Plaza de la Conchita. This plaza is surrounded by very small streams still fed by a spring called "Los Camilos". It is thought that "Los Camilos" once provided potable water to Tenochitlan. According to INAH, the plaza was a pre-Hispanic ceremonial center, upon which Cortés had this chapel built. The first Catholic mass in Mexico City was celebrated here and according to tradition, Hernán Cortés’ lover and translator, La Malinche, prayed here. The official name of the building is the Purísima Concepción Chapel, but its more common name is "La Conchita", a nickname for “Concepción” (literally, “the little shell”).


title: Coyoacán

text: The feast day for this neighborhood is 8 December. The façade of the La Conchita Church is decorated with a large flower portal, usually donated by a sister community of Coyoacán such as Los Reyes or La Candelaria. The festival begins with chamber music and then the patron image of the Virgin Mary is “awakened” with the song Las Mañanitas as she is surrounded by numerous floral arrangements for mass. On the plaza in front of the church, wind bands play while participants share tamales and atole. Later in the night, student musical groups perform "callejoneadas" where they roam the streets playing music as a traveling party.


title: Coyoacán

text: Most of the area's oldest buildings are located on this plaza, Calle Fernando Sosa, which leads to Villa Coyoacán and Calle Fernandez Leal. The Casa Colorada or Casa de la Malinche is located on a corner of the Plaza La Conchita, but it is not open to the public. It is said that Cortés built it for La Malinche, and historians believe Cortés had his Spanish wife, Catalina Juárez de Marcaida, murdered there. In spite of the house's historic and aesthetic value, it receives little attention. The reason for this is that La Malinche is often blamed for the downfall of the Aztec Empire, acting as a traitor to her own people.


title: Coyoacán

text: La Casa de los Padres Camilos (The House of the Camillo Priests) is on Calle Fernandez Leal in the Barrio de la Concepción. This structure was part of a farm and hospice which was owned by a Camillian religious order. The brothers cultivated a number of crops including fruit trees and flowers. Today the main house is used for commercial purposes but the building retains many of its original architectural details. It is a small stone-block building with a door made of black stone. A hall was added in the early 1900s. Opposite the Casa de los Camilos is the Jardín Frida Kahlo which has a statue of the painter and a fountain.


title: Coyoacán

text: On Calle Fernández Leal you can also find the Elena Garro Cultural Center. Since its inauguration, on October 5, 2012, this space was conceived as a project of community life around books and a permanent offer of cultural activities that make available to visitors various expressions of the culture of Mexico and the world. The mansion of the early twentieth century, illuminated by its glass windows, calls readers to walk among its high shelves of two floors and to know its wide range of titles.