Keeping Down the COVID-19 Numbers in Tokyo

Japan has reported fewer deaths from COVID-19 than other major nations—and they plan to keep it that way. The Stay Well Campaign of the Church of Scientology has been embraced by businesses and nonprofits as a way of ensuring this happens.

After only a month and a half of restrictions, Japan ended the COVID-19 state of emergency last week. According to Shigeru Omi, vice chairman of the government’s expert panel on the pandemic, the “strong health consciousness among the Japanese helped keep the outbreak under control.” And although it is predicted there will be a second wave, people are optimistic that they are over the hump. 

Over the past two weeks, Volunteer Ministers of the Church of Scientology Tokyo placed some 42,000 educational booklets in 1,000 shops and companies in Shinjuku, the ward where the Church is located, for the use of their customers and clients.

“People were very positive,” said Yotaro, a Church executive who helped coordinate the activity of the 80 volunteers. “They wanted to assist what we were doing to prevent infection.” He said neighbors were eager to offer these booklets to their customers. It created a sense of being part of a team—of uniting the area to fight this pandemic. 

The booklets—How to Keep Yourself and Others Well, How to Protect Yourself and Others with a Mask and Gloves and How to Prevent the Spread of Illness with Isolation—provide effective prevention measures and educate individuals on what they can do to keep themselves and others well. 

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Worldwide VM distribution of these booklets began approximately a month ago and is ongoing in communities around every Scientology Church and Mission across the globe. The Church of Scientology International Dissemination and Distribution Center made this possible by printing 5 million copies of Stay Well booklets. The three booklets may also be read and downloaded from the How to Stay Well Prevention Resource Center on the Scientology website along with more than a dozen public service announcements.

The Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers program is a religious social service created in the mid-1970s by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. It constitutes one of the largest and most visible international independent relief forces. The Volunteer Minister’s mandate is to be “a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others.”