TOKYO, April 1, 2022—On April Fool’s Day of 2022, I took a Covid-19 PCR test, a program that the city of Tokyo is offering for its citizens, for the first time. It was not a job that I thought can be done in quarter of an hour as I had been told before: Time-consuming, eye-straining and full of unnecessary required entries that are accepted only from the smart phone. In a nutshell, the program is a highly complicated, expensive structure constructed in multi-layer administrative form for unknown reasons.
Tokyo’s free Covid testing requires making a reservation so I booked my appointment on-line with a neighborhood drug store of the Welcia drug store chain March 30. So in the April 1 afternoon, I visited the store and identified myself for the appointment. I was the only soul taking the virus infection test.
The pharmacist first asked me to fill a simple two-page form, which looked like a document that would be stored in-house at Welcia. When that’s done, he brought a small cardboard box containing a test kit and labels, telling me to open it carefully. He then handed me a 4-page instruction that was written in tiny letters that must be illegible for seniors and told me to zap a QR code printed on the front.
The test application form appeared on my smart phone. It instructed entering my email address, my name, gender, date of birth, nationality, residential district, occupation, telephone number. Next page was registration form that demanded entry of totally irrelevant information as compulsory such as whether my work was virtual or in-person; work outdoors or indoor; Covid vaccination times; whether diagnosed as positive and how recently. It then asked for information about home doctors and clinics I visit, then sign on-line for proof of accuracy of the entered information by again writing my name, address, and other personal data. And then, ‘to verify the authenticity of the specimen’, it again demanded the entry of all the same personal data I entered first. After this cumbersome, privacy-intrusive entry is done, the instructed told me to put my saliva into the container, wrap it in a plastic bag, then into the kit box and finally slap the necessary labels and hand it over to the pharmacist.
The Tokyo government entrusted the whole test program to a company called Corona Examination Center Co.’s KinoMedic Clinic Kawasaki, the unit of Kinoshita Group, whose core business is housing construction. Corona Examination Center has 7 locations in Japan, covering all key regions of the country.
I became curious as to why a housing company had got into the medical diagnosis business. My web search revealed that the group’s founder is Naoya Kinoshita, 56, and after employment at a property company and Rohm semiconductor manufacture for several years, he bought Kinoshita Komuten (no relation to him), which was in bankruptcy chapter with $1 billion liabilities in 2004 and became its CEO. Not soon afterwards, he launched a film making company, and later nursing homes, and numerous other businesses. Kinoshita also is chairman of World Victory Road, which promotes wrestling and other fighting sports.
What’s not available by my short research is his political and government connections to win Covid testing contracts from not only Tokyo but also from many other municipalities.
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Insight Into the Future