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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?

#351

Post by ALittleLight »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #344
ALittleLight wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If masks don't prevent you from getting infected then why do medical professionals want masks? Everything I've read suggests that masks reduce your risk of infection, and that pairs with the common sense idea that filters in front of your respiratory tract entrance would reduce the risk of foreign particles entering and infecting you.

Simply putting on a mask does a great deal to limit the spread of a virus you already have - you’re not spewing particles all over your environment due to respiration. Simply putting on a mask does very little to keep you from getting sick, because you’re very unlikely to be following proper PPE donning/doffing procedures. Unless you your house set up as a “clean zone” with two rooms between it and the outside world…

I don't think that's how things work. Infection is a probabilistic thing. Maybe you'll get infected and maybe you won't. A high quality mask properly fit and worn according to an exacting protocol will reduce your risk of infection by X. Compromising on any of those factors may mean your risk is only reduced by Y and Y is less than X, but that doesn't mean it's a complete waste to wear a mask without a clean room or without fitting.

In one of the articles linked in this thread there is a study showing mask usage in children is nearly as effective as intervention against flu as vaccines are. I only read the summary of that paper but I don't think the children are working with clean zones or following doffing procedures carefully.

The article does mention that the effectiveness of masks was greater along older children. To me, that connects with what I wrote earlier. The better you are about using your mask, and here I expect mask diligence comes with age, the better a result you will have, but something is still better than nothing.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#352

Post by l_davis »

lovemenot wrote: post #257
fiblye wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Japan, people wear masks so they don't spread their germs. In the US, people want to wear masks to avoid other's germs. Totally different mindset. Absolute orientalist BS. I work in a Japanese workplace. Lots of people here don't normally wear masks. When they do wear masks, they pull them down to cough or sneeze so that they don't walk around with a wet and dirty mask. The idea that I could be dirty and infecti…

>> Absolute orientalist BS. I politely disagree with your observations, though I acknowledge that I may not be right, I have observed and discussed this behaviour dozens of times with Japanese people in Japan for over twenty years and most find your parent's observation to be correct. Please don't call people a racist for espousing reasonable views that you don't happen to believe.

I think I understand the point behind that post. Many Japanese believe that they are special and superior and love to sell that to non Japanese. It can be really annoying, and it isn't true that as a nationality they are somehow inherently superior.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#353

Post by lovemenot »

bsder wrote: post #324
aaron695 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surgical masks are designed to prevent you spreading viruses That maybe true but that doesn't change the fact they help you from catching it as well. It simply doesn't make any sense going one way is 100% and the other is 0% And what we want is to chip away at the R0 in as many ways as possible. And that's skipping the fact people thinking they are protecting themselves are also protecting others.

> It simply doesn't make any sense going one way is 100% and the other is 0% It's not 100% vs 0%. It's probably something like 70% vs 5% (Disclaimer: I'm pulling numbers out of my ass). When someone who is sick wears a mask, they dramatically cut down on how much virus is PROPELLED OUT OF THEIR MOUTH . That's the big win. It still likely comes out their nose or is on their hands. But at least it isn't propelled with…

Conceptually, I agree completely. Your conclusions are right.

Factually, perhaps you never have seen a mask such as we are discussing here. They do cover the nose. Perhaps not perfectly, but to a very large extent.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#354

Post by danenania »

bsder wrote: post #330
barry-cotter wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said masks aren’t effective at stopping people getting sick. That’s misinformation. If they weren’t effective at reducing infection healthcare workers wouldn’t wear them. Saying there aren’t enough for healthcare workers isn’t. Save respirators and surgical masks for healthcare workers. Wear a mask if you’re going outside even if it’s just a tshirt covering your face.

> If they weren’t effective at reducing infection healthcare workers wouldn’t wear them. Have you seen the pictures of healthcare workers using "effective" mask protocol? Have you also noticed that said protocol almost always includes goggles ? If I can't trace the seal lines on your face for an hour after you remove your mask, it isn't doing shit for you as a healthy person. If you are sick , however, that's a diffe…

"If I can't trace the seal lines on your face for an hour after you remove your mask, it isn't doing shit for you as a healthy person."

Just because it isn't 100% effective doesn't mean it's not doing anything. Exposure isn't binary--the quantity matters.

Healthcare workers have very little room for error because they're constantly exposed to large quantities of the virus. For them, blocking 80% of droplets from a cough is useless, of course, because they're surrounded by infected coughing people all day long. Even 99% isn't good enough for them. But for someone going to the supermarket once a week, blocking 80% might mean the difference between a deadly level of exposure and a level that their immune system can fight off.

Also, this whole "only sick people should wear masks" refrain rather exasperatingly ignores that we don't know who's sick and who isn't. That's exactly why this virus is so difficult to contain. Supply issues aside, the only way to make sure all the sick people are wearing masks is to get everyone wearing masks.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#355

Post by boomboomsubban »

tagrun wrote: post #340
boomboomsubban wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Health care workers are required to use masks to protect immunocompromised patients Protect them from what? Their potentially disease carrying bodily fluids. I don't have the slightest clue what misinformation you think I'm spreading. You have responded to four of my posts, and none of the replies give any reason to think healthy people should wear masks.

I gave two reasons, I'll give them here again: 1. Masks do work. Wearing a mask obviously provides a better protection than nothing for a healthy person. You can also read a few studies https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/003335491012500206 https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/744899/facemasks-hand-hyg... Mask isn't a substitute for hygiene and social-distancing, it's a complementary countermeasure. 2. You don't k…

>You can also read a few studies

The first study only advocated wearing a mask when sick,or within three feet of someone who was sick, and concluded

>there was no detectable additional benefit of hand sanitizer or face masks over targeted education on overall rates of URIs, but mask wearing was associated with reduced secondary transmission

And from the second

>facemasks seemed to prevent household transmission of influenza virus when implemented within 36 hours of index patient symptom onset.

So both say "wear a facemask when sick or interacting with the sick."

>You don't know for sure a person is healthy right now, and asymptomatic cases are the main drivers of the contagion.

Asymptomatic doesn't mean healthy though. If you feel unwell in anyway a mask is a good idea. Erring on the side of caution is different than everyone always wearing one.

>How dangerous is this? Look at the spread rate and the number of cases in US vs Japan.

Aren't masks common in both South Korea and China?

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#356

Post by adev_ »

adventured wrote: post #216
adev_ wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> They [elders] account for over 95% of the victims. Half the most severe cases in France are under 60 years of age. It begs the question of why Japan is also not seeing anything like that. Deaths are certainly one thing to consider in terms of age, however if Japan had a mass spread of the virus I would expect to see a lot of ICU cases regardless. Even when countries aren't testing properly, the intensive care cases…

> And yet, Germany also has three times the cases of Switzerland, with the same number of deaths

Switzerland is a much smaller country than Germany or France. Proportionally to their inhabitants they are highly infected.

But Switzerland is special, both largest cities in Switzerland are highly multicultural and with many people who were traveling in infected area every week, including in Italy.

What happened currently in Switzerland was easy to anticipate.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#357

Post by unishark »

michaf wrote: post #49
tomerico wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extreme testing policies wouldn’t hide exponential growth - if it is growing exponentially, you’d expect the number of people meeting the criteria to also grow exponentially.

If the number of tests administered is the limiting factor, and if you only increase the number of tests linearly in time, then case numbers would grow linear as well.

Only if all tests are positive already. Otherwise you should see an exponentially increasing number of positives if the number of infected is increasing faster than the number of tests.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#358

Post by l0ner »

ALittleLight wrote: post #342
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't do much to protect you from getting infected. They do a lot to prevent you from infecting other people.

If masks don't prevent you from getting infected then why do medical professionals want masks? Everything I've read suggests that masks reduce your risk of infection, and that pairs with the common sense idea that filters in front of your respiratory tract entrance would reduce the risk of foreign particles entering and infecting you.

They simply need masks to protect their patients. They can never be sure that they themselves are not infected, and they treat a lot of severly ill (non COVID-19) patients in hospitals. If they spread the virus, those patients are at very high risk.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#359

Post by unishark »

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…

It could simply be that the test will not work until several days have passed. To get a test with such a fast result, trade-offs elsewhere probably need to be made.

Even South Kora required symptoms for free testing. Else it cost about $140 as I recall. That would certainly motivate me to wait a bit to watch symptoms. A fever should mean staying at home, no matter what the cause turns out to be.

Re: Why is Japan still a coronavirus outlier?

#360

Post by E14n »

aaron695 wrote: post #348
E14n wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were an unlimited supply of surgical masks that would make sense. If you wearing a mask deprives actually sick people of wearing one then you are still worse off then not wearing one.

Imagine if everyone didn't just accept this lie and we retooled factories 2 months ago https://www.news-journalonline.com/business/20200320/coronav... When you sell to the public to protect themselves they can fund a lot more than a hospital and maintain it for long periods of use. Other than just letting people all die off and getting herd immunity any possible solution will involve everyone wearing masks. We have a…

Good advice 1 year too late.
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