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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?

#221

Post by discordance »

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…

Have you caught the JR Yamanote in peak hour?

I’ve never been touched by so many strangers so much in life.

Workers in japan also rarely take sick leave, even at this time.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#222

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

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…

>In Japan, the elders often live alone, sustain their life by themselves: it's a matter of proud. Even contact with their own kids is often sparse

I doubt this is true. In most Asian cultures including Japan the children live very close to parents and take care of them all their life.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#223

Post by adventured »

lazyier wrote: post #215
K0SM0S wrote: post #203

I'm also thinking of the "biological resistance" angle. Japan is known to have extremely low rates of common comorbidity factors: cardiovascular conditions, obesity, etc. By very significant margins, consider dividing the prevalence of these conditions by 2 to 10 compared to the West. Add to that a generally balanced nutrition, due to a culinary culture quite aligned with those goals (whether by chance or by design,…

Probably more likely they are just ignoring it. In 2018 influenza killed around 61,000 people (46000-95000 95%UI) in the USA. Estimated 45,000,000 people got sick. 21,000,000 people made hospital visits with around 810,000 people hospitalized. So it didn't fling the USA into a recession. Business continued as normal. For Italy you had 7,027 deaths for the '13-'14 flu season, 20,259 '14-'15, 15,801 '15-'16, and 24,981…

> So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population?

Because Covid is not comparable to the 2018 influenza in terms of how many ICU cases it produces and how quickly. The common flu is also far less infectious. That combination is the problem.

The 2013-2014 flu season in Italy didn't collapse their healthcare system with intensive care patients. 10-15% of the people testing positive for Covid are ending up requiring intensive care. If four million people with flu in the US in 2018 were put into intensive care (much less just during the span of the flu season), it would have collapsed the US healthcare system rapidly. It would take less than a month of that onslaught to collapse the US healthcare system entirely. The majority of US ICU beds are routinely being used (meaning there would have been very little spare capacity at all for the four million flu ICU patients).

In that scenario, with four million ICU patients from the 2018 influenza, you're going to see several million deaths.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#224

Post by dragonwriter »

lazyier wrote: post #215
K0SM0S wrote: post #203

I'm also thinking of the "biological resistance" angle. Japan is known to have extremely low rates of common comorbidity factors: cardiovascular conditions, obesity, etc. By very significant margins, consider dividing the prevalence of these conditions by 2 to 10 compared to the West. Add to that a generally balanced nutrition, due to a culinary culture quite aligned with those goals (whether by chance or by design,…

Probably more likely they are just ignoring it. In 2018 influenza killed around 61,000 people (46000-95000 95%UI) in the USA. Estimated 45,000,000 people got sick. 21,000,000 people made hospital visits with around 810,000 people hospitalized. So it didn't fling the USA into a recession. Business continued as normal. For Italy you had 7,027 deaths for the '13-'14 flu season, 20,259 '14-'15, 15,801 '15-'16, and 24,981…

> So why does ~25,000 deaths one year goes practically unnoticed, yet less then 5,000 deaths send the economy into a death spiral and the government to essentially strip all rights from the population?

Because one is an annual total, and one is a subannual total of a number that is increasing exponentially, so they aren't comparable.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#225

Post by Jedd »

barry-cotter wrote: post #219
JCharante wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wear a scarf. The OP didn't say criticize people for not wearing mask-alternatives in a time of a shortage, they critized people for not wearing anything. DIY masks may not be as effective, but they still help (some top HN post claimed 70%-80%). This isn't a situation where if you can't do something perfectly you might as well not try. This is a situation that calls for doing anything within reasonable measures (don'…

Scarves are about the least effective makeshift masks, catching less than 50% of virus sized particles. A tea towel/dish cloth catches over 70% and a vacuum cleaner bag is over 80%, almost as good as a surgical mask. > Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections among the General Population https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/

> ... catching less than 50% of virus sized particles.

This is true but irrelevant.

You want to catch larger globs that carry virus-sized particles, and almost any material will help to some extent with this.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#226

Post by barry-cotter »

dragonwriter wrote: post #190
bagacrap wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wish US politicians would tell people to go back to work, but wear operation masks.

> I do wish US politicians would tell people to go back to work, but wear operation masks. Surgical masks, as well as N95 respirators, are already in short supply for medical use. Encourage further non-medical use would exacerbate the supply shortage and hasten the rapidly-approaching catastrophic collapse of the healthcare system. The current recommendation (and, increasingly frequently, mandatory order) that non-es…

A vacuum cleaner bag is over 80% effective at catching virus size particles, a tea towel/dish cloth 70%, a surgical mask 90%. There’s no tea towel shortage. Western governments should be encouraging use of makeshift masks.

> Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections among the General Population

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#227

Post by SiVal »

rendaw wrote: post #151
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…

I don't think this is the answer. - There's no more social distancing in Japan than in the US. Nobody goes around hugging, shaking hands with, or kissing strangers in the US. Trains are still packed. - Most public bathrooms don't have soap and I've rarely seen people wash their hands after using the bathroom anyways. - People don't listen to the government - most people I know are arranging or participating in flower…

I agree with every point you're making, so I wonder if it isn't just one big factor: lots of people routinely put on masks at the first suspicion that they might be sick, even before they're sure. They just go ahead and do it just in case. And they do this all the time, so there's no delay due to self-consciousness or unfamiliarity or having to go buy a mask. It's just ordinary life.

Like taking shoes off in the house and making high school a college-admissions death march, maybe this widespread East Asian custom will spread in the West as well.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#228

Post by barry-cotter »

Hamuko wrote: post #146
Reason077 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, there's a big difference between South Korea - which seems to largely have largely gotten the epidemic under control, and Italy where it seems to be totally out of control despite a severe lockdown. Whats a key difference between South Korea and Italy? Widespread use of face masks.

> Whats a key difference between South Korea and Italy? Widespread use of face masks. Gonna wager a guess that there are vast amount of differences between South Korea and Italy that could affect the spread of a virus.

Indeed. Italy has among the highest rates of working adults living with their parents in the world for one.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#229

Post by taeric »

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…

I have been looking at it the other way. That it is not something about Japan making it better. There is something about Italy, Milan specifically, that makes it worse. Point I was able to isolate is air quality.

My hypothesis that had borne out rather well, if a place reports high severe cases, they have historically bad air. At the least bad air for the past three months.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#230

Post by wolco »

maps7 wrote: post #138
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…

- Almost everybody wear mask when they are sick to avoid contaminating others. They do that since way before Cornavirus and on voluntary based. We're told that masks do not work

We were and some were being mocked who wore them and called racist (this is when the virus was only in wuhan).

This downplay is one of the major reasons for the slow public adoption of safety measures.

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