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Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#191

Post by luhn »

chrischen wrote: post #149
adev_ wrote: post #78

Not so surprising. You have also the same outliers with Hong Kong and Taiwan. - In Japan, people naturally respect social distancing. Touching someone is considered rude, everyone bows instead of shaking hands and nobody kiss. - Almost everybody wear mask when they are sick to avoid contaminating others. They do that since way before Cornavirus and on voluntary based. - Washing hands is common, being clean (bath cult…

- People do shake hands in Japan. In Western countries hand-shaking is limited almost exclusively to business (I’d imagine the same goes for Japan). - Washing hands is common, but not necessarily any more of a practice than in Western countries. But in many places like in subway station bathrooms they do not have soap. Some of the cultural things like mask wearing (which was born out of the density and close proximit…

> In Western countries hand-shaking is limited almost exclusively to business

I can't speak for all Western countries, but in the US I shake hands with every new person I meet, whether in a professional or social settings. I'll also shake hands as a greeting for acquaintances I'm not close with. (As opposed to a hug for close acquaintances.)

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#192

Post by dragonwriter »

l_davis wrote: post #180
zrail wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would we find operation masks? s far as I can tell they’re still sold out literally everywhere.

I ordered cotton masks from Etsy. They are supposed to arrive by the end of the month. Select vendors in the US for speed. Amazon has lots of cotton masks, but they all seem to be shipped from China, which means they will take awhile to arrive. (Am assuming US buyers. Looks like Etsy vendors are all over though so you can probably find a vendor locally in many countries.) There are plenty of patterns for cotton masks…

> I ordered cotton masks from Etsy.

“Cotton masks” from Etsy are almost certainly not the same thing as the medical/operation/surgical masks being suggested, which typically have a melt-blown polymer filter layer between non-woven fabric exterior layers.

It's true that even medical providers are turning to these type of masks as emergency supplies (and calling on hobbyists to make them for medical use!) because actual proper surgical masks are in short supply, but that doesn't mean that they are as effective and, moreover, it means that mass public use would lead to supply shortage into what has become the necessary fallback for actual medical use.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#193

Post by lbeltrame »

inciampati wrote: post #170
ysw0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the case. Japanese (and other East Asians) already have a pre-existing mask culture. Wearing a mask is normal over there and is encouraged. They also do not hug, shake hands and have body contact with does that are not family or close friends. Another big factor is that they tend to follow the rules unlike in Italy or America where social distancing suggestions were not taken seriously by a large chun…

The social distancing suggestions (laws) in Italy have been taken extremely seriously. It is effectively voluntary, so there are some people who flaunt the rules. But people went from kissing everyone to never getting I think people in Italy feel that the quarantine isn't working because it's not strong enough. And people around the world kind of expect Italians not to take it seriously. Actually, it doesn't work exc…

> I think people in Italy feel that the quarantine isn't working because it's not strong enough.

That's also because, in my view, those in power have no idea how to read the curves and the scale, and the fact that you have at least 10-14 days in lag before seeing any effect. Also, this is about growth, so the number of cases (and, unfortunately, deaths) will keep on increasing even with a perfect containment until it "burns out". Again, the powers that be, at least in their public statements, seem to have little to no understanding of this fact.

But they also prefer cherry picking those who don't follow the rules (or go with statements that can't be traced to the data itself).

What is needed most now is field hospitals, staff and protection equipment, because the system, again even assuming a perfect containment, will take at least a month to get relief from the pressure. But those, as opposed to quarantine measures, still go through bureaucracy (note for the non-Italian HN crowd: it's really hard to explain because it is something very peculiar of highly burocratized governments, and in some aspects, unique to my country).

Also this won't be able to go perfectly for more than a couple months at best, IMO. Let's not mention economy, for now, but isolation (despite the "reassuring" messages from the media) will start taking its toll sooner or later. We're at week 3 and for me (in Lombardia) I'm already starting to feel that. Not that I'm going to break quarantine, but if the period extends for too long, some may tempted to do so, with potentially bad effects.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#194

Post by l_davis »

tsimionescu wrote: post #185
l_davis wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ordered cotton masks from Etsy. They are supposed to arrive by the end of the month. Select vendors in the US for speed. Amazon has lots of cotton masks, but they all seem to be shipped from China, which means they will take awhile to arrive. (Am assuming US buyers. Looks like Etsy vendors are all over though so you can probably find a vendor locally in many countries.) There are plenty of patterns for cotton masks…

3D printing cotton masks? Are there 3D printers that can work with plant fibers?

I wasn't clear; I meant some kind of reusable 3D mask, not cotton.

I know nothing about 3D printing, so if you do you might want to search and see if what you find looks workable. I got many results that indicate it is possible.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#195

Post by adev_ »

product50 wrote: post #123
adev_ wrote: post #78

Not so surprising. You have also the same outliers with Hong Kong and Taiwan. - In Japan, people naturally respect social distancing. Touching someone is considered rude, everyone bows instead of shaking hands and nobody kiss. - Almost everybody wear mask when they are sick to avoid contaminating others. They do that since way before Cornavirus and on voluntary based. - Washing hands is common, being clean (bath cult…

Do you know these are the real reasons or are you just rehashing what you have read? This feels more like confirmation bias. Can't imagine the rest of first world countries are completely shut down and here Japan is just doing fine with 1000s of ppl picnicking etc. There has to be something else going on..

>Do you know these are the real reasons?

I don't pretend to know, that's my personal thoughts, I think they are. I am rather often in Japan for family reasons.

> Can't imagine the rest of first world countries are completely shut down and here Japan is just doing fine with 1000s of ppl picnicking etc.

I personally think one of the main reason is currently the exposition (or non-exposition) of the elders.

They account for over 95% of the victims. If for a reason the elders are more isolated / protected / healthy. It ends up impacting a lot how deadly the pandemia is.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#196

Post by pdr2020 »

Zarel wrote: post #175
baxtr wrote: post #6

Some days ago, I found this comment from someone living in Japan. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605657

This is what I've heard from my friends living in Japan – people are sick, but the government is refusing to test them because they want to keep the numbers down so the Olympics don't get cancelled. But other threads further up pointed out that even with massive under-testing, it should be hard to cover up a COVID-19 outbreak if it spread exponentially as expected – there would be reports of hospitals being overloade…

If the government has such strict criteria for testing, might it also not have implemented strict 'stages' that you must proceed through after a diagnosis? And a further, stricter criteria before even allowing hospitalisation?

My other suspicion is severe cases will try their best to hold off on self-reporting given the strict government testing criteria and lack of awareness/panic.

This is one key way that Japanese and US society diverge - Americans are much less afraid to 'make a fool of themselves' if they believe they are correct/in danger. Japanese unfortunately, much more so and especially when given direct government directions.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#197

Post by pdr2020 »

greedo wrote: post #137
Quarrelsome wrote: post #33

Why do we place such low stock in mere fortune? If original cases that penetrated borders were asymptomatic then that merely creates a rare event (i.e. all Japanese risk vectors being clearly symptomatic) and its always plausible for a rare event to happen. Instead we're bending over backwards wondering if its about Japanese bowing/shoe/mask culture.

Luck can play a role, but consider the confounding factors against luck: 1. Travel with China. There was a huge amount of inter-country traffic up until the New Year. 2. Population density. Japan is quite high, and this should increase the country's R0. 3. Population demographics. Over 20% of Japan's population is over 60. This should increase the CFR for the country. So there are two basic scenarios. One is that Jap…

This is the correct mode of thinking.

Rationally consider what conditions could be creating the current scenario, and keep all of them in mind when considering any news/claims that Japan is an outlier.

Also agree that COVID-19 will be fertile ground for dissertations in the future.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#198

Post by mikekchar »

paulddraper wrote: post #100
bruxis wrote: post #5

> New tests that produce produce results in 10-15 minutes are becoming available, but even with the improved tech, under the current policy a test will only be administered in the most extreme circumstances, when people have had a fever for four days or more . This is an important factor that may indicate this "outlier" is more of a delay, rather than a reality of some exception. As a resident, I'm quite concerned ab…

And yet, there have only been 36 reported deaths in the entire country. As long as you test symptomatic cases, the death count should at least be reliable, right? That a third the deaths of South Korea (who has very aggressively contained).

Kind of extrapolating from other countries, I think this points to the number of cases as being about 3-4x higher than reported -- if you are trying to do an apples to apples comparison (which is virtually impossible, but...). Also, I think it's instructive to look at the ratio of people tested to the number of positive results. Wikipedia has about 18k people being tested as of 2 days ago (compared to the nearly 70k people tested in the UK). So the ratio of people infected to the ratio of people tested is fairly close to other places. This indicates to me that the lower numbers of people infected are primarily due to lack of testing.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#199

Post by KingFelix »

adev_ wrote: post #78

Not so surprising. You have also the same outliers with Hong Kong and Taiwan. - In Japan, people naturally respect social distancing. Touching someone is considered rude, everyone bows instead of shaking hands and nobody kiss. - Almost everybody wear mask when they are sick to avoid contaminating others. They do that since way before Cornavirus and on voluntary based. - Washing hands is common, being clean (bath cult…

and Bidets! TOTO knows whats up!

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#200

Post by debevv »

baxtr wrote: post #6

Some days ago, I found this comment from someone living in Japan. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22605657

I live in Lombardy, and I can assure you that the conditions to meet in order to get tested are the same. Me and my three flatmates had 37-39 °C for some days, including a very bad cough. We called the emergency number, and they said that they could test us only in case of prolonged temperature and/or respiratory problems. This happened like 2-3 weeks ago, and considering the current state of the national health service, I don't think requirements became lesse strict
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