I wonder if there could be a genetic factor. Maybe something ~unique to Japanese?
Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
241–250 of 430 posts
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#242I'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…
I could not agree more with this. Do keep in mind that Italy has had 5000 deaths in a rather short timespan, while the 25,000 deaths in 16-17 was over a much longer timespan.
I fear the economic repercussions will be grossly underestimated, when we could have done like Japan.
At least the environment will benefit from all the lockdowns around the world.
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#243Not 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
If you are sick, masks are an effective way of preventing others from catching it.
If you are healthy, masks do not prevent you from getting sick.
It's a fairly easy misunderstanding to make.
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
And South Korea has the highest rate of soju drinkers.
If you’re gonna pull a statistic out of a shadowy place, at least explain its link to the question.
(For the record South Koreans drink twice as much alcohol as Italians)
https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alco...
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wouldn't hide it FOR LONG. In a month, we'll know which hypothesis was correct.
A month ago Italy was fine and now 5,000 people are dead. A month ago the virus had been in Japan for a month already... and still today fewer than 50 deaths. Obviously time will tell with all of this. But so far, time has told us that either a) the transmission rate is extremely low in Japan for some reason or b) no one is dying from the virus in the world's oldest country, for some even harder to explain reason. Th…
I strongly agree. Yet Japan is rarely mentioned along with Taiwan, HK, S. Korea as exemplars of good management.
I think it's because they've bucked the Test, Test, Test advice yet still had a relatively good outcome so far.
It feels wrong to so ignore Japan. If they are doing something right here, the world should try to find out.
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#246Not 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…
With Japan, things are not always as they appear. There appearances are everything. They will do everything to look clean, but it doesn't mean they really are. Even the masks are a bit of a show. There is, of course, truth behind it. They don't fake when they wash themselves and clean things up, and the masks really protect others, but don't assume they all behave the same way when no one is watching.
And while they tend to touch each other less then westerners they are also packed, and often go to public places in large groups.
For the elders, I don't know. The traditional way is to have everyone in the same house: children, parents, and grandparents. But the modern way leaves the elders by themselves. The traditional way would leave them very exposed, but I don't know how many are living like that. It is also more common for children to sleep with their parents.
And while the Japanese are generally more obedient and disciplined than we are, I am not entirely convinced about their faith in the government.
All and all, I think your points are mostly valid. But for me, it isn't as clear cut.
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#247Because they don't test enough, Masayoshi Son was criticized by netizens because he wanted to test more people.
https://inc42.com/buzz/masayoshi-son-gets-criticised-for-his...
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#248I’m here in japan and have been trying to find an answer to this for the past week. It has to be the masks.
What if the vaccine program for school children that ended in 1994 has introduced a slower spread of virus ?
Interestingly, that program had a real impact on the flu, but was still discontinued, link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210121/#!po=1....
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#249I'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…
At a 4.3% death rate if the same number were infected you would be looking at 2 million in the US.
Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I don't think your conclusion necessarily follows from your premises.
For instance, if there's a significant difference in testing regime and/or calibration of results.