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Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

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Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#81

Post by tensor »

usaar333 wrote: post #20
phoenixstrike wrote: post #3

Popular opinion in the US regarding the integrity of various countries' coronavirus reporting is hilarious. Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie, on the other hand, the US numbers are not "suppressed," it's just incompetence. Meanwhile, nobody is batting an eye at Japan's ridiculously and obviously doctored numbers. Hey guys, maybe China was just having literally the same organizational problems the US is having…

> Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie, on the other hand, the US numbers are not "suppressed," it's just incompetence. Well, this jibes with reality. I could care less about actual case counts - few countries are close to having the capacity to test everyone so who cares. What is a huge problem with China is the death statistics. Looking at Lombardy with 6k+ deaths with the outbreak not yet peaked, am I really s…

China's reporting in no way made it seem less urgent. The reported fatality rate hasn't significantly changed from their reports.

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#82

Post by tigermelon »

StavrosK wrote: post #71
bogomipz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Well, this jives with reality." You want "jibes" here. Jive means to talk nonsense: https://www.grammarbook.com/homonyms/jibe-jive.asp

Plus, "couldn't care less", though I'm fighting a losing fight.

Sorry, I have to.

"I could care less" can mean "I could (stand to) care less".

As in, "The amount I could care about this is zero because it's so irrelevant, but in responding to this discussion or otherwise engaging the topic, I have exhibited a bit of care, albeit undue."

For fun, I sometimes like to propose this to anyone who brings it up, but I could care less whether people say "could" or "couldn't". :)

Edit: Hah! neltnerb gets me :)

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#83

Post by MobileVet »

bogomipz wrote: post #59
usaar333 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie, on the other hand, the US numbers are not "suppressed," it's just incompetence. Well, this jibes with reality. I could care less about actual case counts - few countries are close to having the capacity to test everyone so who cares. What is a huge problem with China is the death statistics. Looking at Lombardy with 6k+ deaths with the outbreak not yet peaked, am I really s…

>"Well, this jives with reality." You want "jibes" here. Jive means to talk nonsense: https://www.grammarbook.com/homonyms/jibe-jive.asp

"Oh stewardess... I speak Jive" https://youtu.be/g0j2dVuhr6s?t=58

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#84

Post by svara »

At the end of the day, hiding exponential growth of this is impossible.

That's what really bugs me about those who love to point fingers at how this or that country is counting things wrong (often revealing their biases in the process).

Maybe every country has a random constant factor between actual cases and reported cases. But it doesn't matter - if it goes exponential, we'll know.

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#86

Post by xrd »

reustle wrote: post #23

The team behind https://covid19japan.com fights with this nonsense every day. We're open ears to improvements, and are playing with ways to possibly automate bits. Our GitHub: https://github.com/reustle/covid19japan/

This is fantastic, terrific way to visualize this information. It's interesting that Hokkaido is red for infections but the growth rate is really slow. Are the distant prefectures less likely to follow guidelines from Tokyo and reporting more honestly?

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#87

Post by cossray »

intpx wrote: post #52
phoenixstrike wrote: post #3

Popular opinion in the US regarding the integrity of various countries' coronavirus reporting is hilarious. Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie, on the other hand, the US numbers are not "suppressed," it's just incompetence. Meanwhile, nobody is batting an eye at Japan's ridiculously and obviously doctored numbers. Hey guys, maybe China was just having literally the same organizational problems the US is having…

i dont know if their data is bogus or not but I can tell you that japan has engineered their society with infection control in mind. if people are even the least bit under the weather they put on a face mask. Many people who directly interface with large numbers of people wear them all the time (clerks, train station employees etc). hygiene is very important. many more doors are automatic than in most of the world. a…

The automatic doors might be the quiet heroes here. Given that hands have proved to be among the predominant avenues for the virus spread, I have been keen to monitor where my hands are put into use here in Japan. The only door knobs I have to turn on a normal day routine are my apartment and office doors. Any other place: from convenient stores, ATMs to buildings, automatic doors are quietly but effectively protecting the masses

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#88

Post by squaresmile »

reustle wrote: post #23

The team behind https://covid19japan.com fights with this nonsense every day. We're open ears to improvements, and are playing with ways to possibly automate bits. Our GitHub: https://github.com/reustle/covid19japan/

I found tabula or camelot to be pretty good at extracting tables from pdf. I worked on a few JP's gov PDFs and they are not fancy so that's nice. Some light post-processing is still needed but the automation probably will keep working if the PDF format doesn't change (big if of course).

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#89

Post by viklove »

GuB-42 wrote: post #79
usaar333 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever China says must ALWAYS be a lie, on the other hand, the US numbers are not "suppressed," it's just incompetence. Well, this jibes with reality. I could care less about actual case counts - few countries are close to having the capacity to test everyone so who cares. What is a huge problem with China is the death statistics. Looking at Lombardy with 6k+ deaths with the outbreak not yet peaked, am I really s…

China locked down Wuhan much earlier than Italy did. And they did it harder. Totalitarian states have an advantage in situations like that. The numbers are probably not accurate, but there is no place where the numbers are accurate. Case fatality rates go from less than 1% to more than 10%. In France, on the official website where they give the numbers, it is clearly written "we don't test everyone, the actual number…

China has a long, long history of suppressing access to information though. Not just in reporting false data, but also in limiting the press from investigating issues themselves. Are you honestly saying that Japan and the US have a comparable history?

> And don't tell me that anything after January was China's fault. It is not like governments around the world didn't know what happened there.

Both are possible, and both are very likely. China suppressed information to save face, and many other countries were incompetent in responding to the information they did have access to.

Re: Problems with Japan's Covid-19 reports

#90

Post by keiferski »

tiborsaas wrote: post #69
keiferski wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false equivalency. China is a totalitarian state that quite literally controls information; Japan and the US are not in any real sense. About six months ago, on a different HN topic, I said this about China's claim that foreigners committed crimes and thus couldn't leave the country: I call it “crying wolf in reverse”: The problem with being a totalitarian state that falsely imprisons people on a regular ba…

> China is a totalitarian state that quite literally controls information; Japan and the US are not in any real sense. The US has a long history of spreading misinformation and lies too. Japan also tried to cover up its WW2 crimes. Point is, all governments want to control information to a certain degree.

As I said, this is a false equivalence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

These “information control” done by the US and China are in no way comparable and any suggestion that they are is pure whataboutism. We are discussing this on a website based in the US, where freedom of speech is more-or-less guaranteed. Try doing the same in China and see how the CCP reacts.

For another example of this, consider that the American president often complains (rightly or wrongly, not commenting on its validity) that the media is against him, misinterprets his statements, etc.

Can you imagine such a situation in China? It is almost absurd to contemplate: an independent media that is overly harsh on Xi or the ruling party. Such a state of affairs should make it obvious that the intensity of censorship is a level of magnitude greater under the CCP.

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