Japan isn’t doing major testing or lockdowns?

[UsedUpUsername]

I’ve been puzzled by posters claiming that we are two weeks behind Italy. Can we really say that? A lot is made of South Korea’s testing, but Japan has not rolled out testing for the masses.

The metro is packed, restaurants are open, no lockdowns and afaik even travel to China is only restricted to the provinces in and around Wuhan.

Some say it’s because Japan is hygienic and people don’t shake hands and maintain personal distance. Or that they have less of the secondary diseases that are actually huge risk factors. All of it is guesswork for the moment.

Maybe these are all apple and orange comparisons and no one has all the answers here! Why is coronavirus exploding in Italy and Spain and not Japan?

www.economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/a-coronavirus-explosion-was-expected-in-japan-where-is-it/amp_articleshow/74724091.cms

Japan closed schools and libraries and museums. i have a friend in Tokyo and she has been home and her daughter for a while... even her husband has been wfh

I sort of doubt that Japanese companies have the infrastructure for a mass WFH. Are you friend local or expat?

With its 33 deaths, I’d wonder if some of it is that they have more cases than they’ve found, and they’re actually more like the countries at 2-3k cases.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic

@UsedUpUsername my friend is British but married to a local, she has lived in Japan for 15 years now.

She teaches English to nurseries and primary schools...
Not 100% sure what her husband does but he has been allowed some days WFH...

I sort of doubt that Japanese companies have the infrastructure for a mass WFH.

Why would you doubt that? Japan is highly technologically advanced.

Why would you doubt that? Japan is highly technologically advanced.

I agree! I mean if my archaic bank can supply Bloomberg terminal computers/keyboards for us to take home, I’m sure Japan will be able to sort something similar in the worst case scenario

I’ve been puzzled by posters claiming that we are two weeks behind Italy. Can we really say that?

Well we are two weeks behind them at the moment, in terms of numbers of fatalities. We will see if that trend continues (god forbid) over the coming days.

I have a friend in Bangladesh. She said not much has changed there. Mass prayers still going ahead, restaurants and workplaces running as normal and only 15 cases reported so far.

She did say that panic buying had started due to reports of it happening in the west.

It’s strange how differently places are dealing with things.

Why would you doubt that? Japan is highly technologically advanced

This is such a misconception. Japan has robots lol. No, they don’t. They are usually behind the curve technology-wise. A surprising amount of Japanese people do not even have a home computer as they rely a lot more culturally on their smartphones.

Are you mix8ng japan up with some other country ?

A country I’ve lived and worked in for almost five years and speak the language? Hardly.

Really interesting re Japan.
Perhaps their elderly are generally much healthier?
Green tea, Better diets?

That article also said not as much physical touching and better hand-washing.

Also those countries wear masks like gloves, so perhaps early mask wearing did help in concert with their other measures.

For sure they are super cautious and wash their hands constantly and never had a culture of shaking hands much less hugging. And wear face masks at the first sign of a cold. And are generally healthier.

All things which may set them apart so don’t need such draconian measures. But they do have a lot of elderly people, so 🤷‍♀️

I lived and worked in Japan for longer than five years, am also fluent in the language. In what way do you think they're behind the curve technology-wise? This wasn't my experience tbh.

There are some cultural differences around the use of technology, for sure, but behind? I don't think so.

I'm also curious though about the Covid19 numbers in Japan. I expected them to rise quite rapidly, but apparently they haven't. Initially, I thought this was due to a lack of testing, ie they just didn't know how many cases they had. However, the death rate is still really low too.

I suspect that the underlying health of the population is one factor, but it's still a bit of a mystery as to how they've got off so lightly.

I think a lot of the stats we see have become a bit meaningless as each country uses a different methodology. It seems that in Germany they count the comorbidity as the COD , so you die with CV rather than of CV. Meaning their numbers would be only the otherwise healthy people who have died of CV. That could also be the case in Japan.

Criticism re lack of testing in Japan here - Channel News Asia;

www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/covid-19-coronavirus-japan-testing-abe-shinzo-map-clusters-12552100

"Japan aims to double its daily testing capacity of 3,800 in February to 8,000 within this month, Mr Abe said in his press conference, adding that the country has reached about 6,000 a day."

"So it is baffling why the actual number of tests remains many times fewer than the figure Mr Abe has offered. Japan only tested 29,112 samples between Feb 18 and Mar 14, according to the Health Ministry, a figure that includes multiple samples from the same patient."

"In fact, only 15,655 people have been tested in Japan as of Mar 17, figures that include returnees by chartered flights."

The UK had tested 44,000 people as of Mar 17.

I could be wrong but I thought Japan had been fairly aggressively following infection contacts for a while.

I dare say their population are slightly more clued up due to relatively recent SARS outbreaks.

I'm inclined to agree with @UsedUpUsername my friends who have lived in Japan for 3 years now have only just got a debit card! They've been really surprised by how slow some technology is to catch on. No chip and pin. Household bills to be paid in cash.

A part of me can't help but wonder if they have been reluctant to test because of the potential impact on the Olympics. However, surely they now know that the Olympics can't possibly go ahead as planned, whatever they might be saying in public!

In what way do you think they're behind the curve technology-wise? This wasn't my experience tbh

I think mobile pay support is hugely lacking. Even using credit/debit cards is not that common. I compare this to China, where a crazy percentage of transactions are done through mobile pay apps.

I was also always surprised at the lack of home computers. I think most people are way more reliant on smartphones (except to pay for stuff!)— but if you have long office hours, maybe there is less call to do some work at home. And a surprising number of people still use flip phones!

Website interface for most local websites are straight out of the late 90s it’s actually very annoying.

And wwwwwhhhhhhyyyyy are fax machines still a thing in Japan? Have businesses not heard that you can use smartphones to scan and send documents? This has been an expat complaint for years 😂

I have my doubts about Japan's figures due to the olympics.

Yeah, I know what you mean about credit/debit cards, but I think that's down to cultural preference as much as anything - it isn't as if they don't have the technology.

I was also always surprised at the lack of home computers. I think most people are way more reliant on smartphones

See, I think this is ahead of the curve in many ways - lots of younger people in the UK use smartphones rather than home computers these days. Even I barely touch my home computer any more, it's so much easier to do everything on the phone.

As for the flip phones, maybe cultural preference again? I know that the Japanese all had camera phones long before they were a thing in the UK, so I think it's just about people wanting different things?

lots of younger people in the UK use smartphones rather than home computers these days

Smartphones do a lot, but you still need computers to perform many complex school and work-related tasks though. I think those kids without home computers in the U.K. will fall behind in their studies compared to those that do.

it isn't as if they don't have the technology

Technology being there or not depends on companies supporting and rolling it out. Why do most Japanese companies seem content with terrible web design? Not just for home computers but also for smartphones? It’s inexcusable.

They just have their way of doing things, but I think this is an excuse made by companies. It was said cash was king in China too, but once convenient alternatives came out on the market, even rural grannies on the farm used it!

I have my doubts about Japan's figures due to the olympics

They aren’t testing so who knows how many are infected, but there’s no evidence that more people are dying of pneumonia or pneumonia-like diseases

Japan is highly technologically advanced.

hahahaHAHAHhahahaaa.... Sorry, I'm not mocking you, just amused at the general irony. Japan's image is that of a super high tech company. In reality, it is a real stick-in-the-mud, with serious institutional inertia that makes it very hard to change the way companies operate.

Working from home is catching up but is well behind comparable countries.