3 ms·

> One theory, Japanese wear masks. They didn't until the lockdown which was late This is untrue. People in East Asia wear masks a lot more than any place else

> One theory, Japanese wear masks. They didn't until the lockdown which was late This is untrue. People in East Asia wear masks a lot more than any place else even without a pandemic. I started seeing a lot of masks in Tokyo in January itself. Softbank tested all their employees and the ones who were working in shops had less infections than the ones who worked at home, even though the number of people WFH were much lower than ones who worked in shops. Which gives a very solid backing to the theory that masks + personal hygiene is enough to keep this pandemic under control. Source for the softbank tests - https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/SoftBank-conducts-44-000-antibody-tests-0.43-come-back-positive https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/SoftBank-condu...

greggman3 6y ago
It's not untrue. I've lived in Japan 14 years. I have pictures from late March of people out and about without masks. Sure, it was not uncommon to see a few people wearing masks in Asia (and Japan) before the epidemic but it was not remotely everyone at any time until the lockdown in April. Usually an average train of 200 people might have 10-20 people with masks on (before the lockdown) Here's pictures March 24th (and one in late Jan which shows zero masks) https://photos.app.goo.gl/aUWB5YB6vBnjZk8j6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/aUWB5YB6vBnjZk8j6 So no, it's not because Japanese wear masks. I'm not saying that doesn't help but it's clearly not enough given how crowded the trains are and how late it was until everyone started wearing them
- harpratap 6y ago
  So how else do you explain SoftBank's testing results? The testing pool is large enough to not be an outlier, everything else was exactly the same for all their employees - their genetic pool, healthcare system, their cultural habits. The only difference was their level of alertness to personal hygiene. People working in stores were extra cautious of everything while who WFH were laid back and might have ended up slipping up more often, hence the higher cases.

greggman3 6y ago

It's not untrue. I've lived in Japan 14 years. I have pictures from late March of people out and about without masks. Sure, it was not uncommon to see a few people wearing masks in Asia (and Japan) before the epidemic but it was not remotely everyone at any time until the lockdown in April. Usually an average train of 200 people might have 10-20 people with masks on (before the lockdown) Here's pictures March 24th (and one in late Jan which shows zero masks) https://photos.app.goo.gl/aUWB5YB6vBnjZk8j6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/aUWB5YB6vBnjZk8j6 So no, it's not because Japanese wear masks. I'm not saying that doesn't help but it's clearly not enough given how crowded the trains are and how late it was until everyone started wearing them

harpratap 6y ago
So how else do you explain SoftBank's testing results? The testing pool is large enough to not be an outlier, everything else was exactly the same for all their employees - their genetic pool, healthcare system, their cultural habits. The only difference was their level of alertness to personal hygiene. People working in stores were extra cautious of everything while who WFH were laid back and might have ended up slipping up more often, hence the higher cases.