At one point Japan and South Korea had the same level of infection, South Korea did massive amount of testing and tracing the contacts to keep the epidemics under control.
Japan succeeded by doing very little.
This makes me suspect that they actually had way higher number of infections and deaths but did not want to ruin the Olympics -- lots of money involved. Once the epidemics became global and the Olympics are off, there is no more reason to be creative... so they would let the numbers reveal the true picture... slowly.
The other country definitely involved in creative statistics is Turkey. About 3 weeks ago Turkey was surrounded by countries with infections and deaths ... huge number of cases in Iran on one side and growing in Greece on another in particular... but showed 0 infections. Reason? Tourism... again, serious money.
With 47 deaths in a country of 160 million there is no fudging the stats. The US has fallen for the ‘lock down’ defense... The result so far. Over a thousand deaths with double the population of a very densely populated Japan. That’s 21 times more deaths than Japan.
America and many other western countries that bought into the lock down nonsense will soon out pace Italy... Japan will still have low numbers. The proof is in the pudding... China and Japan... No more lock downs and a thriving economy. The rest of us... Heading for a disaster.
“This makes me suspect that they actually had way higher number of infections and deaths but did not want to ruin the Olympics — lots of money involved. Once the epidemics became global and the Olympics are off, there is no more reason to be creative... so they would let the numbers reveal the true picture... slowly. “
Exactly !