3 ms·

> 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 ba

> 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-...

jltsiren 4y ago
Testing rate is a meaningless statistic, because the criteria for testing vary between countries and over time. Especially after some places started testing everyone routinely every week, which made the number of tests artificially high and the positivity rate artificially low. Comparing statistics between countries is difficult, because data definitions vary, old definitions may no longer be appropriate, and there are all kinds of measurement errors. However, if you compare multiple statistics (e.g. cases, deaths, hospitalizations, positivity rate) and look how they change over time, you can get some idea. According to various per capita figures, Japan had the first nontrivial wave in August/September 2021. That wave was maybe half as bad as in the US and Europe around the same time. Then there was an Omicron wave in early 2022, which was bigger than the previous one but much smaller than in the US and Europe a bit earlier. Then, in August/September 2022, there was a major wave similar to the initial Omicron wave in other countries. Contact tracing is mostly about public health personnel interviewing those who test positive and actively seeking out their contacts. And then using targeted measures to isolate those who may have been exposed to the virus. Apps may be of limited use, but as far as I know, they were not a significant part of any successful contact tracing effort (except maybe in China). Infectious diseases spread exponentially before they get out of control. Measures used to control them lower the base, and there is a qualitative change around 1. As a consequence, if you look at any individual measure (e.g. mask use, border closures, lockdowns, contact tracing), it is likely to be ineffective. However, if you use multiple "ineffective" measures at the same time, the combination may be effective.
- brigandish 4y ago
  > Testing rate is a meaningless statistic, because the criteria for testing vary between countries and over time. Testing is useful for two reasons - helping people who may have the disease (obviously), and for seroprevalence. Since Japan's testing was so low those seroprevalence statistics are lacking. As we know now, severity of the disease is linked to the overall health of the individual. It's quite possible those waves you call nontrivial were just as large but that the health of the population meant the severity of symptoms (which is what actually makes a wave trivial or not, along with availability of health services) was lower and continued to be lower. I've been in Japan for the whole of the pandemic and to claim that people were isolated - either from each other or the outside world in any way that is meaningful for disease or contact tracing was of a high level is to contradict reality. Finally, the article I shared by Bhattacharya and Packalen goes over contact tracing and points out why it is futile in the case of COVID-19, but Martin Kulldorff, Bhattacharya's infamous co-signatory on the Great Barrington Declaration sums it up in two tweets[1][2]: > Contact tracing, testing and isolation is important against many infectious disease outbreaks, such as Ebola and post-vaccine measles. It is ineffective, naïve and counter-productive against COVID19, influenza, pre-vaccine measles, etc, and by definition, against any pandemic. > Problems when one or more of: (1) disease is widely spread, (2) there are many mild or asymptomatic cases, (3) there is pre-symptomatic transmission, (4) we cannot identify the first index case in a given population, or how that person got infected. [1] https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/1307377809619288065 https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/13073778096192880... [2] https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/1307381297917161472 https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/13073812979171614...

jltsiren 4y ago

Testing rate is a meaningless statistic, because the criteria for testing vary between countries and over time. Especially after some places started testing everyone routinely every week, which made the number of tests artificially high and the positivity rate artificially low. Comparing statistics between countries is difficult, because data definitions vary, old definitions may no longer be appropriate, and there are all kinds of measurement errors. However, if you compare multiple statistics (e.g. cases, deaths, hospitalizations, positivity rate) and look how they change over time, you can get some idea. According to various per capita figures, Japan had the first nontrivial wave in August/September 2021. That wave was maybe half as bad as in the US and Europe around the same time. Then there was an Omicron wave in early 2022, which was bigger than the previous one but much smaller than in the US and Europe a bit earlier. Then, in August/September 2022, there was a major wave similar to the initial Omicron wave in other countries. Contact tracing is mostly about public health personnel interviewing those who test positive and actively seeking out their contacts. And then using targeted measures to isolate those who may have been exposed to the virus. Apps may be of limited use, but as far as I know, they were not a significant part of any successful contact tracing effort (except maybe in China). Infectious diseases spread exponentially before they get out of control. Measures used to control them lower the base, and there is a qualitative change around 1. As a consequence, if you look at any individual measure (e.g. mask use, border closures, lockdowns, contact tracing), it is likely to be ineffective. However, if you use multiple "ineffective" measures at the same time, the combination may be effective.

brigandish 4y ago
> Testing rate is a meaningless statistic, because the criteria for testing vary between countries and over time. Testing is useful for two reasons - helping people who may have the disease (obviously), and for seroprevalence. Since Japan's testing was so low those seroprevalence statistics are lacking. As we know now, severity of the disease is linked to the overall health of the individual. It's quite possible those waves you call nontrivial were just as large but that the health of the population meant the severity of symptoms (which is what actually makes a wave trivial or not, along with availability of health services) was lower and continued to be lower. I've been in Japan for the whole of the pandemic and to claim that people were isolated - either from each other or the outside world in any way that is meaningful for disease or contact tracing was of a high level is to contradict reality. Finally, the article I shared by Bhattacharya and Packalen goes over contact tracing and points out why it is futile in the case of COVID-19, but Martin Kulldorff, Bhattacharya's infamous co-signatory on the Great Barrington Declaration sums it up in two tweets[1][2]: > Contact tracing, testing and isolation is important against many infectious disease outbreaks, such as Ebola and post-vaccine measles. It is ineffective, naïve and counter-productive against COVID19, influenza, pre-vaccine measles, etc, and by definition, against any pandemic. > Problems when one or more of: (1) disease is widely spread, (2) there are many mild or asymptomatic cases, (3) there is pre-symptomatic transmission, (4) we cannot identify the first index case in a given population, or how that person got infected. [1] https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/1307377809619288065 https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/13073778096192880... [2] https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/1307381297917161472 https://twitter.com/MartinKulldorff/status/13073812979171614...