"Foreigners are blamed for spreading the virus in Japan" is on heat here now. So I took a look at the original press conference. See below. Of the ~2hrs, around 5 mins are dedicated to foreigners. Here's a small breakdown:

The ‘foreigners’ talk is part of the larger ‘cluster approach’ part of the conference. Below you see a picture of the specific clusters between 1 Sep and 10 Nov. Taking the largest numbers amounts to 382 infections. In that national context, not even a day's worth.

Speaker: “It is not like all foreigners are bad, and everyone can get infected by this virus. There should never be discrimination. However, information is not coming across well. There is a language barrier. Something needs to be done about this.”

No mention of “culture” here.

The part about foreigners is between 35:00 and 39:00 mins, for those who do not want to watch the whole thing.

The presentation continues with how information can best reach foreigners in Japan. This includes multilingual contact centers, online information, connecting with local health centers, all in 17 different languages. The information is provided together with foreign embassies.

They have determined that information is not reaching foreigners. That is difficult to consult a doctor or specialist, there are often no translators. Using social media and international NPO’s, the current goal is to set up a single multilingual contact point (one-stop center).

Now the “culture” part. There is an annual Nepalese event taking place between 13-16 Nov, with a tradition of getting together, says the speaker. They're working with the embassy to provide information. The event is an example, “as many countries have events at different times.”

That’s it, as far as I can tell. That’s the whole culture argument. So what happened? Well, the media happened. For example, this TBS clip covers the whole event (2hrs), but dedicates 1/3 of its time to the “foreigner” issue.

0Tere does the same thing (watch from 26:00-28:10 mins). A few little generalizations of the "foreigner" and we are set to go. (This is actually one of the better ones).

Fuji TV thought it necessary to add in big letters that it is about “CULTURE” as well. A very liberal interpretation of the press conference. Overflowing with stereotypes, this is a good example of how the media can distort information and make us angry. https://twitter.com/RaraSensei/status/1326814338720567296?s=20