On September 7, the Japan Meteorological Observatory announced that it had observed the first snowfall on Mount Fuji in 2021, 21 days earlier than 2020 and 25 days earlier than the historical average.
Affected by the new crown epidemic and rainfall, the number of climbers on Mount Fuji has decreased by more than 60% year-on-year in the last two months. On September 6, Japan newly confirmed 8232 cases in a single day and 40 deaths in a single day. The population vaccination rate reached 58.3%.
The Japanese government plans to implement a digital "new crown vaccine passport" policy by the end of 2021, and encourage physical businesses to provide discounts and consumer incentives to vaccinators.
Mount Fuji was seen snowcapped for the first time this season, the local meteorological office in this central Japan city announced on Sept. 7. The spectacle came 25 days earlier than normal and 21 days earlier than last year.
According to the Kofu Local Meteorological Office, there was a clear sky early in the morning of Sept. 7, and at around 5:30 a.m., a staff member confirmed visually that the area around the top of the 3,776-meter peak was slightly blanketed in white.
By 8:10 a.m. on that day, the lowest temperature near the summit was minus 3.1 degrees Celsius. The Fujiyoshida Municipal Government in Yamanashi Prefecture and other local governments at the base of the mountain had received reports of snow on the summit since the day before, but clouds blocked observations from the city of Kofu, where the meteorological observatory is located.
The earliest first snowcap since observations began in 1894 was on Aug. 9, 2008, and the latest was on Oct. 26, 2016.
Japan will issue online COVID-19 vaccination certificates from December, the Nikkei newspaper reported Sunday.
The government plans to issue the certificates — which will be intended for overseas travel rather than domestic use — via a QR scan code through a smartphone app from around mid-December, the Nikkei said, without citing sources.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and other Cabinet members are slated on Monday for a council meeting on the promotion of a digital society where they will decide on the government’s policy for digital vaccine passports, the report said.
The Nikkei said the project will be a priority for Japan’s new Digital Agency, which was launched last week to focus on bringing central and local government infrastructure online.
