4 ms·

> we have loads of evidence the societies with more locking down and more extreme interventions saved more lives Japan had no lockdowns (because current law pr

> we have loads of evidence the societies with more locking down and more extreme interventions saved more lives Japan had no lockdowns (because current law prevents such government overreach). Would you like to compare death figures between the more populace and much older and therefore, on the face of it, much higher risk Japan, with Germany?

stonogo 4y ago
Japan, famously possessed of a masking tradition which long predates COVID-19 and equally famously possessed of hundreds of thousands of shut-ins pre-pandemic ('Hikikomori'). Not a useful comparator to a nation that had neither.
- philjohn 4y ago
  And a highly evolved contact tracing operation because they learned the lessons from SARS.
- brigandish 4y ago
  The masking had no effect on either influenza, of which it suffered regular pandemics, nor COVID-19, as even though people wore them at work and, laughably, outside in the open air a) the virus is aerosolised b) Japan still experienced large waves of infections c) the masks used are not of the requisite quality nor used properly (if you've ever had the horror to witness an old man pull down his mask to cough because he doesn't want to sully the mask, which perhaps he wants to wear tomorrow too, you'll know what I mean) d) most transmission occurs at home, which may be the only place Japanese people do not usually bother with masks e) Hikikomori is a real social phenomena in Japan but the vast majority of people are not hikikomori, nor did most people isolate. Even at the height of "soft lockdown" there were still lots of people moving around and work from home was still not something widespread.
jltsiren 4y ago
Japan managed to secure its national borders tightly. Once you were inside the "lockdown facility", which was effectively the entire country, you could continue living more or less as before. Other countries had to resort to internal lockdowns, because land borders are harder to secure. Cross-border truck traffic was particularly problematic, as it involves a large number of people crossing borders and continuing inland without any quarantine. Legal issues also made the borders more porous, for example by not having sufficient testing and quarantine requirements for returning citizens. And widespread individualism made voluntary measures less effective, because people were less likely to follow the self-isolation and testing recommendations.
- brigandish 4y ago
  And yet Japan still experienced large waves of infection of every variant, prior to reopening the borders to tourists and after reopening the borders (which only happened properly in the last couple of months). Possibly because the borders weren't really closed as "essential" travel by Japanese nationals among others occurred, and of course, trade. Much to the chagrin of far too many nationalists the sakoku[1] is a distant memory. Aside from which, it's been known since 2020 [nature 1] that such closures are ineffective once the virus is international, as pointed out in [nature 2]: > We found no evidence in favor of international border closures [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku [nature 1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03605-6#content https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03605-6#content [nature 2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05482-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05482-7
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    The details matter. Japan did not experience a major wave before the borders were reopened. The peaks were lower than in Europe and the US, and contact tracing never failed as badly. Contact tracing was the key tool, at least before omicron. If there were sufficient resources for it and compliance was high enough, local outbreaks could be kept under control. Contact tracing was also where international border closures helped. If somebody crosses a jurisdictional border with an infection, the first sign of trouble is usually when they test positive. By that time, they have often had plenty of time to infect other people. On the other hand, if the infection came from within the same jurisdiction, contact tracing may reach that person several days earlier. And regarding essential travel and international trade, land borders make everything worse. When the goods travel by trucks, there are many people who cross borders and interact with the general population. With planes and ships, it's much easier to isolate the people who cross borders from everyone else. And with ships, the long journey acts as a natural quarantine, while the cargo volume per crewmember is much higher than with other forms of transport.
    - brigandish 4y ago
      > Japan did not experience a major wave before the borders were reopened. The peaks were lower than in Europe and the US, and contact tracing never failed as badly. Japan's testing rate was described as "ultra-low … 0.2% of the population"[1][2], no one can claim to be able to compare the infection waves with any certainty, and there certainly were major waves[3]: > Japan is reporting nearly 200,000 Covid-19 cases a day—more than any other country in the world currently > The ongoing surge in cases—which is being referred to as Japan’s seventh Covid wave That was a month after a tiny reopening of the border so unless there were 6 waves in a month, you're a tad off. What there weren't were major numbers of deaths compared to some other places. I can't share your faith in Japan's general response and contact tracing (after a number of high profile incidents[4][5], and this excellent and realistic article by the Diplomat[6] goes over many of the flaws, including poor contact tracing that wouldn't work anyway[7]) but I'm going to go with a reason much more obvious for the lack of deaths, especially given what we know now[8] - less obesity, and the old in Japan are far more active than I've seen in Europe. I can't speak for the US but we know the stereotypes. Certainly, "closing" the borders did not do anything but impoverish people and cause trouble. [1] https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/japans-contact-tracing-method-is-old-but-gold/ https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/japans-contact-tracing-method-... (that article is a bit presumptuous in its description, there was a long way to go at that point;) [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-tests-per-thousand-people-smoothed-7-day?time=earliest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-tests-per-thousand-... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/07/27/japan-is-now-reporting-more-covid-19-cases-than-any-other-country/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/07/27/japan-i... [4] https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-experts-admit-diamond-princess-quarantine-was-not-perfect-20200225-wimelipik5c6vbtlktcq4hlufe-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-experts-admit-d... [5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/05/japans_covid19_contact_tracing_app/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/05/japans_covid19_contac... [6] https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/lack-of-transparency-complicates-japans-handling-of-covid-19/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/lack-of-transparency-complic... [7] https://inference-review.com/article/on-the-futility-of-contact-tracing https://inference-review.com/article/on-the-futility-of-cont... [8] https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145170935/covid-19-exercise-hospitalizations-death#mainContent https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145170935/covid-19-exercise-...
the_why_of_y 4y ago
There is an important aspect of culture that you're missing here. If the government simply recommends to follow certain protocols for the health of the community, a Japanese person is culturally inclined to do their duty. In contrast, a lot of red-blooded Americans are going to yell "socialism" and emphatically refuse to do anything that would benefit their neighbour, in some cases even if it would also benefit themselves, as we have seen.
- brigandish 4y ago
  How strange, I can remember seeing hordes of people out for hanami, in bars, on trains, in stadiums… I foresee lots of seppuku for not doing one's duty!

stonogo 4y ago

Japan, famously possessed of a masking tradition which long predates COVID-19 and equally famously possessed of hundreds of thousands of shut-ins pre-pandemic ('Hikikomori'). Not a useful comparator to a nation that had neither.

philjohn 4y ago
And a highly evolved contact tracing operation because they learned the lessons from SARS.
brigandish 4y ago
The masking had no effect on either influenza, of which it suffered regular pandemics, nor COVID-19, as even though people wore them at work and, laughably, outside in the open air a) the virus is aerosolised b) Japan still experienced large waves of infections c) the masks used are not of the requisite quality nor used properly (if you've ever had the horror to witness an old man pull down his mask to cough because he doesn't want to sully the mask, which perhaps he wants to wear tomorrow too, you'll know what I mean) d) most transmission occurs at home, which may be the only place Japanese people do not usually bother with masks e) Hikikomori is a real social phenomena in Japan but the vast majority of people are not hikikomori, nor did most people isolate. Even at the height of "soft lockdown" there were still lots of people moving around and work from home was still not something widespread.

jltsiren 4y ago

Japan managed to secure its national borders tightly. Once you were inside the "lockdown facility", which was effectively the entire country, you could continue living more or less as before. Other countries had to resort to internal lockdowns, because land borders are harder to secure. Cross-border truck traffic was particularly problematic, as it involves a large number of people crossing borders and continuing inland without any quarantine. Legal issues also made the borders more porous, for example by not having sufficient testing and quarantine requirements for returning citizens. And widespread individualism made voluntary measures less effective, because people were less likely to follow the self-isolation and testing recommendations.

brigandish 4y ago
And yet Japan still experienced large waves of infection of every variant, prior to reopening the borders to tourists and after reopening the borders (which only happened properly in the last couple of months). Possibly because the borders weren't really closed as "essential" travel by Japanese nationals among others occurred, and of course, trade. Much to the chagrin of far too many nationalists the sakoku[1] is a distant memory. Aside from which, it's been known since 2020 [nature 1] that such closures are ineffective once the virus is international, as pointed out in [nature 2]: > We found no evidence in favor of international border closures [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku [nature 1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03605-6#content https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03605-6#content [nature 2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05482-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05482-7
- jltsiren 4y ago
  The details matter. Japan did not experience a major wave before the borders were reopened. The peaks were lower than in Europe and the US, and contact tracing never failed as badly. Contact tracing was the key tool, at least before omicron. If there were sufficient resources for it and compliance was high enough, local outbreaks could be kept under control. Contact tracing was also where international border closures helped. If somebody crosses a jurisdictional border with an infection, the first sign of trouble is usually when they test positive. By that time, they have often had plenty of time to infect other people. On the other hand, if the infection came from within the same jurisdiction, contact tracing may reach that person several days earlier. And regarding essential travel and international trade, land borders make everything worse. When the goods travel by trucks, there are many people who cross borders and interact with the general population. With planes and ships, it's much easier to isolate the people who cross borders from everyone else. And with ships, the long journey acts as a natural quarantine, while the cargo volume per crewmember is much higher than with other forms of transport.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    > Japan did not experience a major wave before the borders were reopened. The peaks were lower than in Europe and the US, and contact tracing never failed as badly. Japan's testing rate was described as "ultra-low … 0.2% of the population"[1][2], no one can claim to be able to compare the infection waves with any certainty, and there certainly were major waves[3]: > Japan is reporting nearly 200,000 Covid-19 cases a day—more than any other country in the world currently > The ongoing surge in cases—which is being referred to as Japan’s seventh Covid wave That was a month after a tiny reopening of the border so unless there were 6 waves in a month, you're a tad off. What there weren't were major numbers of deaths compared to some other places. I can't share your faith in Japan's general response and contact tracing (after a number of high profile incidents[4][5], and this excellent and realistic article by the Diplomat[6] goes over many of the flaws, including poor contact tracing that wouldn't work anyway[7]) but I'm going to go with a reason much more obvious for the lack of deaths, especially given what we know now[8] - less obesity, and the old in Japan are far more active than I've seen in Europe. I can't speak for the US but we know the stereotypes. Certainly, "closing" the borders did not do anything but impoverish people and cause trouble. [1] https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/japans-contact-tracing-method-is-old-but-gold/ https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/japans-contact-tracing-method-... (that article is a bit presumptuous in its description, there was a long way to go at that point;) [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-tests-per-thousand-people-smoothed-7-day?time=earliest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-tests-per-thousand-... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/07/27/japan-is-now-reporting-more-covid-19-cases-than-any-other-country/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/07/27/japan-i... [4] https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-experts-admit-diamond-princess-quarantine-was-not-perfect-20200225-wimelipik5c6vbtlktcq4hlufe-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-experts-admit-d... [5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/05/japans_covid19_contact_tracing_app/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/05/japans_covid19_contac... [6] https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/lack-of-transparency-complicates-japans-handling-of-covid-19/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/lack-of-transparency-complic... [7] https://inference-review.com/article/on-the-futility-of-contact-tracing https://inference-review.com/article/on-the-futility-of-cont... [8] https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145170935/covid-19-exercise-hospitalizations-death#mainContent https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145170935/covid-19-exercise-...

the_why_of_y 4y ago

There is an important aspect of culture that you're missing here. If the government simply recommends to follow certain protocols for the health of the community, a Japanese person is culturally inclined to do their duty. In contrast, a lot of red-blooded Americans are going to yell "socialism" and emphatically refuse to do anything that would benefit their neighbour, in some cases even if it would also benefit themselves, as we have seen.

brigandish 4y ago
How strange, I can remember seeing hordes of people out for hanami, in bars, on trains, in stadiums… I foresee lots of seppuku for not doing one's duty!