No restrictions were placed on residents’ movements, and businesses from restaurants to hairdressers stayed open
Japan’s state of emergency is set to end with new cases of the coronavirus dwindling to mere dozens. It got there despite largely ignoring the default playbook.
“Just by looking at death numbers, you can say Japan was successful,” said Mikihito Tanaka, a professor at Waseda University specializing in science communication, and a member of a public advisory group of experts on the virus. “But even experts don’t know the reason.” An early grassroots response to rising infections was crucial. While the central government has been criticized for its slow policy steps, experts praise the role of Japan’s contact tracers, which swung into action after the first infections were found in January. The fast response was enabled by one of Japan’s inbuilt advantages — its public health centres, which in 2018 employed more than half of 50,000 public health nurses who are experienced in infection tracing.
Burning CarThe early response was also boosted by an unlikely happening. Japan’s battle with the virus first came to mainstream international attention with its much-criticized response to the Diamond Princess cruise ship in February that led to hundreds of infections. Still, the experience of the ship is credited with providing Japanese experts with invaluable data early in the crisis on how the virus spread, as well as catapulting it into the public consciousness.
“Social distancing may work, but it doesn’t really help to continue normal social life,” said Hokkaido University’s Suzuki. “The ‘Three C’s’ are a much more pragmatic approach and very effective, while having a similar effect.” Large questions still remain over the true extent of the pathogen’s spread. In April, a Tokyo hospital conducted tests on a handful of non-COVID-19 patients and found that around seven per cent had the coronavirus, showing the danger of missing asymptomatic or mild carriers that can become the source of an outbreak. An antibody test on 500 people in the capital suggested the true outbreak could be nearly 20 times larger than figures have shown.
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