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I'm curious what happened / is happening in Japan. Here in Tokyo it looks almost like business as usual. Some companies are letting people stay at home but mos

I'm curious what happened / is happening in Japan. Here in Tokyo it looks almost like business as usual. Some companies are letting people stay at home but most are not. While cities in the USA are banning gatherings of 100 or more, here in Tokyo every train ever 3 minutes during rush hour has 8 to 16 cars stuffed with 100+ people per car. I have no idea what the actual infection rate here is or the ICU usage rate. 2 weeks ago Japan was considered the place to avoid. Now it's the USA and Europe. Japan hasn't seemed to have taken any drastic measures so far or maybe I'm just not paying attention.

bsaul 7y ago
what you're saying is extremely surprising. I'd love to have more infos on the situation in japan. Last time i read something about it, it seemed the japanese gvt wasn't very open on what they were doing.
stevenwoo 7y ago
AFAIK they are doing very little testing in Japan, so there is no problem that can be reported, the USA and UK as far as we can tell were copying that until the UK got called out on it after that PM press conference and the states got testing approved independently of the CDC test. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/10/Japanese-doctor-warns-Tokyo-against-limited-COVID-19-tests/6281583857586/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/10/Japanese-... This has an infographic on testing - Japan was next to last (on the chart at least) per person testing for industrialized countries as of March 4. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/coronavirus-covid-19-testing-usa https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/co...
- quest88 7y ago
  It's not a problem if you can't see it!
- asiachick 7y ago
  Not testing would still mean there should be an issue with lots of people dying from respiratory failure. If their infection rate is high even without testing I'd expect that issue to end up in the news.
occamrazor 7y ago
Japan has strange numbers. The infection grows steadily at a rate of 10% per day, compared to 20% in most other countries. It doesn’t seem to slow down however.
seemslegit 7y ago
Indeed, given what I remember of Tokyo's morning peak hour density in subway cars it would have gone ballistic or will yet. Although they do use routinely use masks even in normal times. The cynical take is that aging demographic is one of the biggest problems facing Japan today and this is a way to deal with it.
- marvin 7y ago
  Maybe it's the masks. Not by avoiding people catching it, but by reducing the spread to others. How tragically ironic it would be if the West has derided the most effective measure.
- lightgreen 7y ago
  > The cynical take is that aging demographic is one of the biggest problems facing Japan today and this is a way to deal with it The problem is aging population are people who 40 or 50 now, not people who are 70 and 80. The latter may die because of cv, but the problem of aging population goes nowhere because people in 40 or 50 will get older eventually. This my cynical response to you cynical take.
  - seemslegit 7y ago
    The current 65+ bracket is already pretty heavy - heavier than Italy, the 40-50 bracket at the top of the inverted pyramid and will become a big problem couple of decades from now. This is cynical nitpicking.

bsaul 7y ago

what you're saying is extremely surprising. I'd love to have more infos on the situation in japan. Last time i read something about it, it seemed the japanese gvt wasn't very open on what they were doing.

stevenwoo 7y ago

AFAIK they are doing very little testing in Japan, so there is no problem that can be reported, the USA and UK as far as we can tell were copying that until the UK got called out on it after that PM press conference and the states got testing approved independently of the CDC test. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/10/Japanese-doctor-warns-Tokyo-against-limited-COVID-19-tests/6281583857586/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/03/10/Japanese-... This has an infographic on testing - Japan was next to last (on the chart at least) per person testing for industrialized countries as of March 4. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/coronavirus-covid-19-testing-usa https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/12/21175034/co...

quest88 7y ago
It's not a problem if you can't see it!
asiachick 7y ago
Not testing would still mean there should be an issue with lots of people dying from respiratory failure. If their infection rate is high even without testing I'd expect that issue to end up in the news.

occamrazor 7y ago

Japan has strange numbers. The infection grows steadily at a rate of 10% per day, compared to 20% in most other countries. It doesn’t seem to slow down however.

seemslegit 7y ago

Indeed, given what I remember of Tokyo's morning peak hour density in subway cars it would have gone ballistic or will yet. Although they do use routinely use masks even in normal times. The cynical take is that aging demographic is one of the biggest problems facing Japan today and this is a way to deal with it.

marvin 7y ago
Maybe it's the masks. Not by avoiding people catching it, but by reducing the spread to others. How tragically ironic it would be if the West has derided the most effective measure.
lightgreen 7y ago
> The cynical take is that aging demographic is one of the biggest problems facing Japan today and this is a way to deal with it The problem is aging population are people who 40 or 50 now, not people who are 70 and 80. The latter may die because of cv, but the problem of aging population goes nowhere because people in 40 or 50 will get older eventually. This my cynical response to you cynical take.
- seemslegit 7y ago
  The current 65+ bracket is already pretty heavy - heavier than Italy, the 40-50 bracket at the top of the inverted pyramid and will become a big problem couple of decades from now. This is cynical nitpicking.