One thing that Japan, and indeed all of East Asia, has going for them is they are not reluctant to wear masks. Here if you wear a mask people assume you have the disease and treat you like a leper. This discourages even sick people from wearing them. But in East Asian countries everybody, sick or not, dons a mask as soon as the pandemic starts so there is no stigma. Food for thought.
Well, they actually HAD masks, because the culture is one of wearing masks.
Here we didn’t have enough masks, so we just told people not to wear them.
Although mask-wearing is not for the healthy, but for the sick; it keeps you somewhat from spreading germs, because if you cough or sneeze it gets mostly caught in your mask, and not in the air or on your hands.