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Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

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Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#181

Post by fomine3 »

dagw wrote: post #102
HenryBemis wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The upside is that you modernise your city. In this case, they would have receive X thousand/million of tourists, which they won't come. If you travel to Japan (e.g. from Europe) you don't just go for the events. You also say an extra 5-10 days. That is a big loss for the tourist industry, the millions of mouths eating in restaurants, drinking in bars, and on top of the costs/profits, imagien that the state takes a 5…

The upside is that you modernise your city. In some cases that is true. But I've been to Tokyo twice as a tourist and didn't see much in desperate need of modernization. And even if your city is in need of modernization, hosting an Olympics is a very inefficient way to go about it. The only argument that can be made is a political one where it is easier to convince the government to spend $10 billion on hosting the O…

Yes, not so much.

* Adoption of Credit card and NFC payment on real shop is growing.

* Smoking in restaurant/bar/road is well restricted

* Haneda airport add a runway, by plane flying over Tokyo

* Airbnb is allowed in some situation because of lack of hotels for audiences

* R-18 Porn books are removed from convenience store (IMO it's bad for people who not affordable to internet, it should be zoned but not banned)

* It is rumored that police forces print industry/digital content shop to strictly hide/put mosaic on that on porn content, due to the Olympic. (Why it matters??)

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#182

Post by fomine3 »

DocTomoe wrote: post #81
reedf1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visited Japan a few months before the pandemic hit and it is really sad thinking back now. There was a real effort from the airport in Tokyo to as far away as Osaka and Kyoto accommodating for foreign languages and really showing off Japanese culture. At the time it felt like I was being practised on - so sad to see all that effort go to waste.

That also was related to the general idea that the Tokyo Olympics were meant as a Japan Rebirth after Fukushima, much like the 1964 Olympics were considered a Rebirth of a modern Japan after WW2.

This is far-fetched argument by who involved Tokyo Olympic. If they really think to support Tohoku area that damaged from tsunami/nuclear event, Tokyo, the most crowded and developed city, shouldn't be chosen.

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#183

Post by strogonoff »

mleonhard wrote: post #180
timr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you've written here is consistent with what I'm seeing out of Japan (not terribly surprising, but it's good to see confirmation that I'm not getting a biased sample).

Based on your replies, my own experience living in Japan, conversations with Korean people, and conversations with my sister who is living in Korea, I believe the the reduced spread of the virus in Japan & Korea compared to western countries is because of many behavior differences of Japanese & Korean people. For example: 1. In USA, few restaurant workers have job security. If they take sick leave, they lose their jo…

What you say in the first part sounds correct, in that visibly sick people could be more likely to be aware of it and stay home or wear a mask than in other parts of the world, but don’t underestimate the pressure to conform. A maskless gathering will hardly have someone standing their ground wearing a mask, regardless (if one is visibly sick one will be unlikely to attend though).

If people here were more aware of the mechanics of spread and asymptomatic carriers, I think the high peaks could have been avoided.

As to ventilation, before it was officially banned many restaurants were already non-smoking. Add to that the incredibly fast churn of restaurants closing, opening and renovating, and you can see there’s no perceptible residue from that period. (I don’t observe particularly strong ventilation in Seoul restaurants or cafes, but to be fair I am mostly comparing to Hong Kong, not US.)

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#184

Post by timr »

mleonhard wrote: post #180
timr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you've written here is consistent with what I'm seeing out of Japan (not terribly surprising, but it's good to see confirmation that I'm not getting a biased sample).

Based on your replies, my own experience living in Japan, conversations with Korean people, and conversations with my sister who is living in Korea, I believe the the reduced spread of the virus in Japan & Korea compared to western countries is because of many behavior differences of Japanese & Korean people. For example: 1. In USA, few restaurant workers have job security. If they take sick leave, they lose their jo…

> In Japan & Korea, wearing a mask when sick in public is expected, like wearing clothing over your underwear.

No, this isn't even close to true. I've spent far too many hours crammed into trains, classrooms, offices and bars, next to sniffling Japanese people who were walking around sans masks, to believe this silly narrative. Getting on a crowded train and having a guy repeatedly sniffing his runny nose six inches from your face is practically a running joke.

The Japanese people I know mostly seemed to wear masks to keep their faces warm in winter, and to reduce allergies during the cedar season. Girls would sometimes wear them to hide their faces or to hide a blemish. Maybe some people wore them to prevent disease, but it was far from a universal goal.

> So a Japanese or Korean person who feels a little under the weather will opt to keep their mask on when attending a maskless gathering, but an American in the same situation will likely take theirs off.

This is a great example of stereotyping and asian exceptionalism. If anything, Japanese people are immensely aware of social pressure, and won't go against obvious social cues.

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#185

Post by strogonoff »

timr wrote: post #184
mleonhard wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on your replies, my own experience living in Japan, conversations with Korean people, and conversations with my sister who is living in Korea, I believe the the reduced spread of the virus in Japan & Korea compared to western countries is because of many behavior differences of Japanese & Korean people. For example: 1. In USA, few restaurant workers have job security. If they take sick leave, they lose their jo…

> In Japan & Korea, wearing a mask when sick in public is expected, like wearing clothing over your underwear. No, this isn't even close to true. I've spent far too many hours crammed into trains, classrooms, offices and bars, next to sniffling Japanese people who were walking around sans masks, to believe this silly narrative. Getting on a crowded train and having a guy repeatedly sniffing his runny nose six inches…

Japan and Korea weren’t hit much by the original SARS in 200x (no confirmed deaths). However, it was a huge deal in Hong Kong (considering the deadliness of the disease and high population density). IMO for an example of strong mask-wearing practices for primarily infection-related purposes one could look there, though I’m willing to be corrected.

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#186

Post by SiVal »

anm89 wrote: post #178
SiVal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't seem to understand the difference between earning dollars and exchanging currency. I'm not claiming they face a "shortage of a specific currency". I'm saying they want to earn money from foreign customers, not exchange currency with them, and that (nationally) they would prefer earning money from foreign customers to earning it from each other. Earning money from foreign customers gives the Japanese as a na…

Are you potentially confusing the concept of "dollars" with the concept of "money". While there are multiple currencies named "dollars" the term "dollars" is not generally interchangeable with the word "money". Under your scheme, if a Polish person exchanges Euros for Yen in Japan and then buys a beer in Tokyo, did Japan just "earn dollars"? Because I think it's pretty clear that nothing referred to as a "dollar" mov…

When I referred to tourist dollars "both literally and metaphorically" and explicitly distinguished between the two categories, it was because the metaphorical tourist dollars weren't literally "dollars". So you responded that Euros weren't literally dollars. Well, yes, that was the "metaphor" part. They were in that other category I mentioned, the one where tourist dollars aren't literal, just metaphorical. And yet you still don't get it. "But they're not dollars." The only guess you have is that maybe I'm confused and think that all money is called "dollars"? Yeah, that must be it.

So, 'if a Polish person exchanges Euros for Yen in Japan and then buys a beer in Tokyo, did Japan just "earn dollars"?' Yes, they DID just metaphorically earn tourist dollars, and no, they did NOT literally earn any "dollars". I might also have said that thanks to the Polish customers, Japanese bartenders were able to metaphorically bring home the bacon, except that you would then probably get upset and explain to me that Poles in a Japanese bar would pay in yen, not in pork products.

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#187

Post by brigandish »

cdavid wrote: post #140
brigandish wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, problems with obesity might also correlate with older, wealthier populations but they also looked at that: > The figures are affected by the age structure of national populations and a country’s relative wealth and reporting capacity, but our findings appear to be independent of these contributory factors It's got links to a lot of other studies (admittedly, I'm yet to read those) but the summaries they give se…

Just looking at your second link, the odds to hospitalized w/ a severe obesity (> 35 BMI) is 2.5 higher than people w/ BMI in healthy 20-25 range Now, according to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi... , the risks of hospitalization in 85+ years is more than 10x the risk in 30-39 year old range. If we're talking about mortality, it is more than 100x difference between those two age ranges. I…

No one is disputing that age is a factor. From the very first line of the foreward:

> As we show in this report, increased bodyweight is the second greatest predictor of hospitalisation and a high risk of death for people suffering from COVID-19. Only old age rates as a higher risk factor.

But if you're really going to compare against age then you'd need to correct for obesity or you're simply including it and possibly compounding any risk.

> the risks of hospitalization in 85+ years is more than 10x the risk in 30-39 year old range.

Is the difference 10x in Japan, too?

The point is (or was) to discern a difference between why Japan has lower cases and/or mortality vs Europe and America. All three have plenty of old people, Japan has the greatest percentage. There is also a marked difference between their average waistlines too.

Japan should have the highest cases and/or mortality of the three and yet it has the lowest. I'm not a betting man and "masks are the reason", without a shred of evidence to back it, isn't going to change that habit, especially given the competition:

> Is this link between COVID-19 and overweight found across the globe? > Yes. > A large number of studies and systematic reviews have found increased risk of severe symptoms from COVID-19 associated with excess bodyweight. The table here gives some examples (pg 14)

And the table really does give plenty of examples. From the US:

> People with obesity more than twice as likely to need hospitalisation and more than six times as likely to need mechanically assisted breathing and more than six times as likely to die following development of COVID-19. (pg 14)

From the UK:

> People with overweight 67% more likely to need intensive care, and people with obesity three times as likely to need intensive care, following development of COVID-19. (pg 14)

…among many others. It continues:

> Taking data from over 160 countries, we find linear correlations between a country’s COVID-19 mortality rates and their estimated degree of overweight or obesity prevalence (pg 15)

and here's the kicker:

> The diagram shows high mortality rates *only* in countries where overweight prevalence exceeds around 50% of the adult population. (pg 15)

Emphasis mine. As to directly comparing Japan and the US and UK, they've added a helpful index:

- COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population (01/01/2021)

- Adult overweight BMI >25kg/m2 (2016)

- Adult obesity BMI >30kg/m2 (2016)

- Population age over 65 years (%) (2020)

- Per capita Gross Domestic Product $US (2019)

- Healthy life expectancy years (2019) Insufficient physical activity % adults (2016)

- Japan 2.60, 27.2, 4.3, 28.4, 74.1, 35.5

- UK 110.73, 63.7, 27.8, 18.7, 70.1, 35.9

- US 105.68, 67.9, 36.2, 16.6, 66.1, 40.0

As to mask wearing, well, if survey results of real world usage are to be believed, then it really is no contest, as the charts here show:

https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1366148529983426560

Edit: formatting. I do like the stripped down approach of HN but would it really be too much to supply a markdown processor, or a format guide?

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#188

Post by lhl »

brigandish wrote: post #91
lhl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s true that Japan has done many non-optimal things, but the biggest difference from the west IMO is that there has been close to 100% mask usage (eyeballing in Tokyo, about 95% surgical masks) for over a year now. Any Japanese who see things like Idaho’s recent mask burning protests are simply bewildered. Of course, people take their masks off when eating out, but still keep them on while ordering and waiting for…

The biggest difference is in the waistlines. As reported just the other day[0]: > Of the 2.5 million COVID-19 deaths reported by the end of February 2021, 2.2 million were in countries where more than half the population is classified as overweight Japan is not one of those countries. As someone who lives in Japan I can tell you that the general population isn't wearing high quality, fitted masks in controlled condit…

Co-morbidities certainly have an impact on outcomes and explains why the IFR is much worse in certain parts of the world but IMHO it doesn't fully explain the magnitude lower attack rate/spread (50-100X worse in the US). That's still a mystery for which there are many plausible contributors, but I don't think it's so easy to just say it's obesity. In the US, this n=5700 NYC study showed 41.7% were obese [1] (not so different from the current US adult obesity rate is currently of about 42% [2]).

Note that age is actually the most reliable predictor for hospitalization and death with COVID-19 [3][4] although you can make more accurate estimates with some other factors as well [5]. Note, based on the age-stratified pyramids, Japan's expected IFR sits right at the top [6], so even if you discount the undercounting of hospitalizations and deaths, there's still a huge disparity to make up.

BTW, your argument on flu outbreaks actually lends credence that the mask mitigations have been extremely effective. Here's a recent NHK report on the flu numbers this year [7]: - "The number of patients with seasonal flu in Japan was below 100 during the first seven days of February. That's far below the levels seen before. ... Usually, seasonal flu peaks at this time of year, with the number of flu patients per week ranging between 100,000 and 200,000 people." Flu cases are 1000-2000X less than normal.

I'm in Tokyo myself and paying close attention to how people are behaving (and comparing it to the footage and media I'm seeing from the US and other countries) and there's a huge difference in behavior from what I've seen over this past year. If you're disappointed by how the general population behaves here, I suspect you'd be horrified/stupefied by what's going on in the rest of the world. My conclusion is that on a population/public health level, it actually doesn't take all that much effort to contain the spread of the virus (elimination is much harder, although several countries have shown that it can be done, and have reaped the economic & social benefits of doing so).

[1] Richardson, Safiya, Jamie S. Hirsch, Mangala Narasimhan, James M. Crawford, Thomas McGinn, Karina W. Davidson, and the Northwell COVID-19 Research Consortium, et al. “Presenting Characteristics, Comorbidities, and Outcomes Among 5700 Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 in the New York City Area.” JAMA 323, no. 20 (May 26, 2020): 2052. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.6775.

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

[3] O’Driscoll, Megan, Gabriel Ribeiro Dos Santos, Lin Wang, Derek A. T. Cummings, Andrew S. Azman, Juliette Paireau, Arnaud Fontanet, Simon Cauchemez, and Henrik Salje. “Age-Specific Mortality and Immunity Patterns of SARS-CoV-2.” Nature 590, no. 7844 (February 2021): 140–45. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2918-0.

[4] Levin, Andrew T., William P. Hanage, Nana Owusu-Boaitey, Kensington B. Cochran, Seamus P. Walsh, and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz. “Assessing the Age Specificity of Infection Fatality Rates for COVID-19: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Public Policy Implications.” European Journal of Epidemiology 35, no. 12 (December 1, 2020): 1123–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1.

[5] Ghisolfi, Selene, Ingvild Almås, Justin C Sandefur, Tillman von Carnap, Jesse Heitner, and Tessa Bold. “Predicted COVID-19 Fatality Rates Based on Age, Sex, Comorbidities and Health System Capacity.” BMJ Global Health 5, no. 9 (September 9, 2020). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003094.

[6] https://github.com/mbevand/covid19-age-stratified-ifr#age-st...

[7] https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20210215_26/

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#189

Post by mealkh »

cdavid wrote: post #106
brigandish wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest difference is in the waistlines. As reported just the other day[0]: > Of the 2.5 million COVID-19 deaths reported by the end of February 2021, 2.2 million were in countries where more than half the population is classified as overweight Japan is not one of those countries. As someone who lives in Japan I can tell you that the general population isn't wearing high quality, fitted masks in controlled condit…

Obesity does not really explain order of magnitude fewer cases, and obesity is much less of a factor than age for mortality. I can't find the numbers now, but it is better to be younger and quite fat than much older and fit. Japan does not lack people above 85 years where the fatality rate is double digit if you catch the disease. The only reasonable answer I have seen so far about Japan is that we don't really know.…

I have heard air humidity cited as one relevant factor, which was also recently brought up as one of the reasons masks may have a protective effect (humidity from breathing collects in there). Something about keeping membranes being healthier in warm, humid air than in cold, dry air?

Re: Japan to stage Tokyo Olympics without overseas spectators

#190

Post by brigandish »

offtop5 wrote: post #143
brigandish wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest difference is in the waistlines. As reported just the other day[0]: > Of the 2.5 million COVID-19 deaths reported by the end of February 2021, 2.2 million were in countries where more than half the population is classified as overweight Japan is not one of those countries. As someone who lives in Japan I can tell you that the general population isn't wearing high quality, fitted masks in controlled condit…

Agreed, I feel one result of political correctness has been a refusal to acknowledge how much obesity affects every aspect of your health. I used to be morbidly obese and I was constantly sick up until I lost 70 or so pounds and got to a reasonable weight. This also made dating so much easier. I'm going off on a tangent, but if I had to give one piece of advice to any young person it would be to get to a healthy weig…

> I'm going off on a tangent, but if I had to give one piece of advice to any young person it would be to get to a healthy weight.

Following that tangent, I had a couple of family members turn 16 recently and I wondered what advice I could give them now that they are adults (or, at least, they will certainly believe that to be so! Ah, the folly of youth:)

My thoughts settled on what would basically be me telling my younger self about my regrets or (perceived) failings in life and to avoid them. I then wondered if they'd listen, which I doubt (again, the folly of youth) and whether I'd even be able to put it in a form that they would understand. Rather like me trying to teach them programming before they've opened a terminal or even an HTML file, I can't tell them the deepest insights until they've done quite a bit and failed quite a bit too.

I haven't decided on my advice yet or if I should, but yours sounds good. Still, it's hard to realise what unhealthy means when you're young and fit, even if it's only relative to your older self.

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