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Comiket Visitors Reportedly Come Down With Fever, Test Positive For COVID-19

A lot of people who attended the Comiket already had fever, spreading the risk of infection.

Multiple visitors of the 100th Comic Market, commonly known as Comiket, which was held on Aug 13 & 14, 2022, revealed that they have come down with fever and are showing symptoms of COVID-19, spreading fears of a spike in cases once again.

Apparently, a lot of people who attended the Comiket 100, already had a high fever. But, this didn’t stop them from attending the event.

According to Twitter user bee000456 (@bee000456), a lot of Comiket visitors got themselves tested after coming down with a fever, and their PCR test results came out as positive.

“A simple search revealed a few tweets about fever after participating in Comiket. A significant number of positive people are thought to have participated,” bee000456 tweeted. “The original tweeters may have simply had a cold due to getting wet in the rainstorm on the first day, etc., but I also found tweets that said they tested positive for PCR on Sunday.”

The user added that some visitors might only develop symptoms post Tuesday, Aug 16, 2022, as the incubation period for the BA.5 omicron strain of coronavirus was usually over 2 days.

Many visitors are believed to have participated in the event, because their antigen test result came out as negative, and therein lied a main problem.

“Antigen test doesn’t show up if it’s before the onset of illness. PCR test is the only way to find out. People who don’t have anything will not have the PCR done. If the antigen test didn’t come back, they went there and developed the disease afterwards,” said a twitter user, pointing out the downsides of antigen test.

However, some people pointed out that visitors also attended Comiket because the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the organizing committee did not have a refund or a compensation policy for the visitors, in case the event got cancelled.

The organizers were also blamed for their lack of planning by many, as they went on to hold the event, despite the recent spike in cases in the prefecture.

This act has led to an increased risk of COVID-19 cases spreading, which is apparently showing, with the increasing number of people who are reported to be sick.

“I think there is nothing we can do on an individual level, but with the recent number of infected people, it is easy to imagine that if the event is held, it could be a factor in further spreading the infection. I think the problems lie with the organizers and participants who went ahead with the event in spite of this, and with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the government for not compensating the participants if the event was canceled.”

There were fans who believed that Comiket should have been cancelled, as the risk of infection was evidently high. Circles pulling out from the event, after the seller got infected by COVID-19, was proof enough for this.

The event was carried out, even with a typhoon warning in place on the first day. Despite that, Comiket 100 attracted crowd of 170,000 people, with no restrictions placed on the movement of visitors whatsoever.

The footfall of 170,000 is still less compared to the December 2019’s winter Comiket which had 750,000 attendees.

Comic Market, more commonly known as Comiket, is a semiannual doujinshi convention, usually held at Tokyo Big Sight in Japan in August and December every year.

A grassroots market focused on the sale of doujin (self-published) works, Comiket is a not-for-profit fan convention administered by the volunteer-run Comic Market Preparatory Committee (ComiketPC). Inaugurated on 21 December 1975 with an estimated 700 attendees, Comiket has since grown to become the largest fan convention in the world.

Source: Yaraon, Twitter

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