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Abe, IOC agree to delay Tokyo Olympics by one year
- chrisweekly 7y agoGood call!
- rvz 7y agoPretty much expected and no surprise there due to the seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak made this completely impractical to carry on the Olympics. Postponement was the right decision.
- laurieg 7y agoGlad to see the safety of athletes and the public is being protected. I wonder why Japan seems to have such low numbers even though they had coronavirus very early as well as many cases from the cruise ship.
- afarrell 7y agoI conjecture that since there is a cultural norm of wearing masks when sick, everyone had masks at home. Because of this, they put the masks on when apparently-healthy to avoid getting sick. Because of this, the asymptomatic people didn't spread the virus nearly as much.
- bitwize 7y agoI think that more than masks, Japanese are more fastidious about handwashing. For example, Japanese restaurants routinely supply a wet Handi-Wipe with your meal -- even McDonald's.
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y agoAnd they don't shake hands. That's a very easy way to transfer germs, and endemic to Western culture.
- umanwizard 7y agoMasks also help you avoid getting the virus if you’re not infected. It’s a complete myth that they don’t; literally all research points in the same direction.
- ChrisBland 7y agoOf course; we just can't say that part out loud otherwise there would be a run on masks and the healthcare workers would be in such a shortage it would further exacerbate the strain on the healthcare system.
- mindslight 7y agoIs there not already a run on masks? More like the truth is not being said because then people would be more inclined to ask questions like why the "greatest country on earth" is unable to procure basic necessities for a crisis, especially with two months to prepare.
- GuB-42 7y agoYes, if we somehow manage to get a massive supply of masks, I expect all officials to do a 180 turn and ask everyone to wear them. The problem now is that we don't have enough, so we downplay their effectiveness, to limit panic buying and to make sure that people who need them the most get them. It is a perfectly understandable, though a little dishonest strategy. Also, we don't to give people a false sense of security, being close to someone with a mask is still worse than being far from someone without a mask.
- xamuel 7y agoIt runs the risk, though, of murdering the credibility of those officials. Who will trust anything they say, when they're right there on the record intentionally telling ridiculous lies? If masks should be diverted to hospitals, then the correct action would be to divert them to hospitals, not to lie to people.
- kijin 7y agoYou don't even need to wear a N95 mask, or wear it according to the book. Anything that can reduce the number of virus particles you are exposed to when someone nearby sneezes, or when you touch a surface that was recently sneezed on and then touch your face, can be helpful when millions of people do the same. A T-shirt over your mouth or a handkerchief tied around your head might not protect you personally. But if enough people wear them, even a small reduction of viral load in the community will compound over time and result in a meaningful difference in the total number of cases and the load it puts on a nation's health system. That's what ultimately matters, and that's what the Japanese and Koreans understand. Any country that has the guts to order their citizens to stay home should also have the sense to order them to cover their faces with something substantial whenever they have a valid reason to be outside, e.g. going to work.
- Razengan 7y agoAn overall high level of urban hygiene and general cleanliness, some social distancing already being the norm (generally not touching each other, though there are severe exceptions like the overcrowded trains at rush hour) and a respect for public order.
- spuz 7y agoWhat is your source for this?
- cm2012 7y agoGenerally when people tell anecdotal stories/things they remember, there's no source. It's kind of silly to ask him for something like hand washing statistics for Japan vs the world, that's clearly not what he's providing.
- spuz 7y agoSorry I guess my question wasn't clear. I meant to ask, what is the source that those hygiene practices he mentioned are factors in the lower rates of spread of the virus given that other countries such as Italy and Spain have enacted stricter measures and yet show higher rates of spread? I am not asking for sources to show the difference in cultural practices.
- Razengan 7y agoI have no source for that, and it was a guess/suggestion for your original question, that maybe because preventive measures were already in place in the culture, they may have slowed the spread before proactive measures were taken.
- Razengan 7y agoVisiting, watching and talking. You can get some sense of it just from watching any of the street walks/tours on YouTube and other unscripted videos of daily life there.
- brazzy 7y agoFairly early government measures for containment and mitigation: selective border closure or preventative quarantine for people from affected regions (much easier to implement as an island nation), closing of schools.
- jariel 7y agoWhat's interesting is that none of the answers seem definitive. 1) 'Mask wearing' - we know even cloth masks will help reduce spread, but not by what factor overall. We don't know the real vectors here. 2) Someone mentioned 'hygiene' - do the Japanese really wash their hands every time they enter the house? Or do they 'rinse their food' i.e. maybe package handling is a big vector. 3) 'Early border closing' - it only takes a handful of cases to cause the spread. Nobody has been able to 'keep it out' this way. 4) Some cynical commenters indicated it's due to low testing and governments wanton to 'keep the numbers down' which is hard to buy because the truth would hit hard when hospitals start to fill up. 5) Timing. Taking strong measures early may have made all the difference. If you can truly keep the numbers small, it becomes more manageable on a case by case basis. Or all of the above. I hope we are able to isolate the real transmission vectors that affect R0, but we may never really know.
- qiqitori 7y agoThere are too many things that may or may not have some kind of effect. Adding to the brainstorming list: taking your shoes off at home, showering in the evening vs. in the morning. BTW I don't think people wash their hands more in Japan, but who knows. There definitely are places within Japan that have more cases despite having a lower population density. Okinawa (south) has very few cases, while Hokkaido (north) has a lot of cases. That seems to support the hypothesis that climate plays a major role.
- jariel 7y agoYes, literally showing at night might make a difference. So many things: maybe they regularly clean the handles on doors. Maybe the restaurants always use a disinfectant wipe. Maybe people 'stay at home' more regularly if they are sick. There's a really powerful EpiCurve calculator someone at OpenAI published - and the most interesting thing is how sensitive everything is to R0. R0 1.8 v. 2.2 is just a huge difference. If 'social distancing' brings it down some, but then 'showing at night' nudges it a little bit lower, voila, noticeably less spread. It's going to take a very keen measure of variables, in fact, it's going to take a keen observation of culture to even figure out what those variables are. Sadly, I don't have faith we'll ever get there.
- lawn 7y agoIn addition to the other points they aren't testing as much.
- williamscales 7y agoI read yesterday that Japan had administered something like 16,000 COVID-19 tests in total. So I think they're basically not testing and hoping that it goes away.
- freetime2 7y agoI would be interested to read if you could share the source for the above. It’s true that Japan only seems to be testing people with serious symptoms at the moment. But we would expect hospitalizations and deaths to be higher if the number were really that high.
- Hamuko 7y agoDoesn't Japan already have a pretty high number of death for the supposed amount of cases? Sweden for example has 36 deaths for 2286 cases whereas Japan has 42 deaths for 1140 cases. And South Korea has 9037 cases and 120 deaths, so about three times as many deaths but nine times as many cases.
- summerlight 7y agoJapan actively avoids testing if those deaths are due to COVID-19. If someone recently dies with pneumonia, it's worth to test if this is the COVID-19 case. Japan doesn't and it claims that the public fear will overload and collapse their medical infrastructure. I don't really understand why this can even be the case, but this is a broadly accepted sentiment around Japan. And its annual death toll from typical pneumonia is around 100k, so Japan can easily hide it even if they had hundreds of the COVID-19 death cases by not testing it. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/24/national/tokyo-governor-urges-cooperation-avoid-city-lockdown/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/24/national/tokyo-... Meanwhile, Tokyo's governor is actively considering lock-down due to a potential explosive rise. Lock-down for a city like Tokyo (which has roughly one third of their entire GDP) is clearly a nuclear option. If you really have only hundreds of the cases, this can (and should) be handled by comprehensive testing and tracing like S. Korea. Or perhaps their confidential COVID-19 projection doesn't agree with Japan's official stats...
- jimbob45 7y agoAre they even still drug testing right now? If I’m an elite athlete, I’m hammering those PEDs every day in this quarantine.
- C19is20 7y agoPED? Only three letters and you spelled TUE wrong.
- jimbob45 7y agoI meant Performance-Enhancing Drug. Yours is funnier though.
- rwmurrayVT 7y agoI need SARMs, SERMS, and I'm mainlining test e. Don't worry guys it's for therapeutic use.
- jaywalk 7y agoMore so than the games themselves in July, you have to consider all of the training and qualifiers that the athletes must participate in leading up to the games. All of that has been put on hold, making it impossible to properly prepare for the games even if the virus were to somehow be totally eliminated by July. There was no other possible outcome.
- agumonkey 7y agoalso a ton of investments for events, tourism that may or may not be doable months later.
- rangibaby 7y agoJapan’s preferred date in October would be much more pleasant for athletes, spectators, and tourists, but there was a lot of pressure from US broadcasters to schedule it for July.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoWhy is July for them so important? Football season?
- slg 7y agoJuly is after the NBA and NHL finals. It is before the NFL preseason. MLB is at the midpoint of their long season when it is late enough that the excitement of the new year has warn off and it is too early for the playoff race to reinvigorate fans. July is generally the slowest sports month in the US. Meanwhile in October, the NBA and NHL both start their seasons. The NFL and college football are both going strong. MLB is in the middle of their playoffs. It is one of the busier sports months. This is also just the sports calendar. Other aspects like the school schedule and traditional TV calendars also point to July as an ideal month.
- m4rtink 7y ago
- KwanEsq 7y agoOff-topic, but is anyone aware of many English-language news publications respecting the switch to family given name ordering? The only one I know of is the Economist.
- umanwizard 7y agoIt’s pretty common to see for Chinese and Korean names. I never read about “Jinping Xi” or “Jong-un Kim”.
- currymj 7y agohistorically, Japan officially used Western name order when communicating in Western languages. but this year it was switched, with requests going out to media organizations to update their style guides.
- aikinai 7y agoJust this week I saw a good article about this[0]. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/media/japan-abe-shinzo-name-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/media/japan-abe-shinzo-name-i...
- KwanEsq 7y agoThanks, that was interesting and illuminating.
- cltsang 7y agoWe need to let Japan know that this is not their fault. It's ingrained in Japanese culture that they often put too much pressure on themselves. They might think if they had put extra 120% effort, the Olympics would have gone as scheduled. But this is not on them. Although it's only speculation, we wouldn't want another case of heartbreaking suicide[0] because of a Japanese blaming himself/herself too much. [0] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-confirms-three-more-citizens-evacuated-from-wuhan-test-positive-for-coronavirus https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-confirms-t...
- draw_down 7y agoI agree no one should kill themselves as a result of this. If a social condition were to force someone to that point, perhaps the social condition could be questioned.
- thieving_magpie 7y agoThat's sad but what does "let Japan know that this is not their fault" even mean?
- minitoar 7y agoAs a global community we should come to and express the (IMO) correct conclusion that Japan did an amazing (perhaps the best) job of containing this, and it was still the right thing for them to postpone the 2020 olympics.
- jakeinspace 7y agoMy understanding is that Japan didn't do the best job, although definitely better than the US. Taiwan probably has had the best Coronavirus response.
- Hamuko 7y agoDoesn't Japan have a much higher case fatality rate than the US?
- mhh__ 7y agoHad to happen: If they tried to have it, there would have been no crowd and all the athletes would get it like wildfire (The Olympic Village has a lot of Tinder activity, at least). That doesn't even account for the sad reality that some athletes can't go due to the virus (already). At least three of the South Korean Fencing team (Very likely medal contenders) are confirmed positive, for example.
- jolmg 7y ago> If they tried to have it, there would have been no crowd I'd be more concerned that there would be a crowd and that it would greatly affect Japan's population given how a significant proportion are elderly.
- VWWHFSfQ 7y agonot to mention that Canada and Australia have already said they wouldn't attend anyway. It basically forced their hand. Same thing happened with NCAA March Madness. They kept trying to figure out how they could still hold the tournament and then Duke and Kansas said they were dropping out. And that was the end of that.
- dmix 7y agoThe NBA was moving towards crowdless games and as soon as single player got sick they shut it down. Which was later followed by NCAA and a bunch of other major sports leagues. Technically the first major sports player in a similar league was a soccer player in Europe, but it took a (European) player in America for it to really take hold.
- jbay808 7y agoWouldn't the fencing team have recovered fully by this summer?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mackey 7y ago
- defterGoose 7y agoSo glad that Dick Pound finally got in on the action!
- nine_k 7y ago(Obligatory joke:) So, the events of Akira are not going to happen.
- Legogris 7y agoOh, they're still branded Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games. Maybe Akira is set in 2025.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoIs anything insured? A lot of companies bet their farm and then some, on this happening. Not to mention the countries, including the host.
- benatkin 7y agoUnlike other postponement announcements, many of which are cynical attempts to prevent people from demanding refunds, this feels legitimate. I can see it being well-contained in Japan in a year, with strict restrictions on entering Japan. I think the advice is gonna be for people who want to watch or participate in the olympics to go there about a month early so they can isolate first, and longer if they're in a country that doesn't have it under control. It's through strict border control that Japan has been able to keep it from spreading as much as other places, and I'm sure it's going to be less convenient for people going to the Olympics. I'm just guessing at what it will look like from the perspective of people going. If they go very early, athletes will need to do a lot of training in Japan, but I assume it must have been common for olympic athletes to arrive early and train in the host country in past olympics. Some may even want to travel from a high-risk country to a moderate-risk country first and spend at least two weeks there first before going to Japan. There will probably be people who won't endure the inconvenience and won't go to the olympics, but it will be much better attended than if they tried to hold the olympics in Japan late this summer.
- verify_sirrah 7y agoJapan has been trying to downplay COVID because they didn't want Olmypics to be delayed. Now expect their script to flip.
- rurban 7y agoWhat they didn't write, is that there will be no Olympic village next year then. They already sold all the new apartments. And now they have add contracts to all those buyers to let the private appartment for 3 weeks to the athletes. Or something like this. Hotels? In Tokyo during the high Olympic season? Tents?