5 ms·

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 onl

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-...
  - 4y ago

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-...
- 4y ago