Japan was feared to be the next US or Italy. Instead their coronavirus success is a puzzling 'mystery'

ABC Australia ^ | May 22, 2020 | Jake Sturmer and Yumi Asada

[CheshireTheCat]

Crushingly crowded public transport. The world's oldest population. A huge outbreak on a cruise ship. A state of emergency without penalties. It sounded like a recipe for a coronavirus catastrophe, and there were fears among public health experts that Japan could become the next Italy or New York. But it hasn't happened. The country hasn't exactly escaped unscathed. About 800 people have died and more than 16,000 have been infected in a country of 126 million...

[wgmalabama]

Me either. Orderly, follow the rules, healthy, not obsess, already self isolate, homogeneous population. Go figure.

[dfwgator]

Japanese are the Germans of Asia.

LOL, thinking of the Three Axis Powers: Germany, Italy and Japan....One of these things is not like the others......

[LouieFisk]

“Nice to be an island.”
—
That does help, but without closed borders it doesn’t work at all. Meanwhile, outside of NZ...
https://flightaware.com/live

[dfwgator]

New Zealand has like what one international airport, compared to the number in the US?

[crusty old prospector]

Or Beijing or Shanghai. A big nothing burger for such big cities.

[PA Engineer]

There is no mystery. Black Pigeon Speaks videos cover this including walking Tokyo at night.

The Japanese do not shake hands, wear masks so as no to infect others (normal flu season) and are meticulous about distancing.

The Japanese government stated they had no legal grounds to shut down the country. The Japanese people individually distanced themselves and limited urban travel. Tokyo has a population of 37,393,129. Further, the Japanese are meticulous about (probably exceptions) hygiene and cleanliness. That includes sidewalks, roads, handrails and other public accommodations.

In one of the videos he showed a closed "smoking" station. The Japanese smokers stood outside it, distanced themselves and smoked their cigarettes. The station was closed due to COVID. There was not a single ash or butt on the ground.

Their culture is the exact opposite of those with hot zones.

[fhayek]

Vitamin D. Black skin does not absorb vitamin D from sunlight very well, hence the overrepresentation of blacks coming down with Coronavirus. No, its not racism. (Not sure how well orange skin perform...). And if you ask me why the Chinese had so much more incidence of the disease than Japan did, I will tell you...

I don't know.

[LouieFisk]

“New Zealand has like what one international airport, compared to the number in the US?”
—
One or one million, they get an order to shut down to incoming flights, they shut down. Think just after the 9/11 attack.

[PA Engineer]

Ping to 26. I think it is cultural mostly.

[M Kehoe]

Hi.

Interesting article.

Speculation. An island with a homogenous population that already wears masks and washes their hands.

5.56mm

[MinorityRepublican]

Easy for New Zealand. They shut down their borders after they saw what was happening in the rest of the world.

[SmokingJoe]

Well the Japanese didn't have at least 5 deep blue state governors, deliberately sending coronavirus patients to old folks nursing homes to infect and kill them, just for political reasons like Cuomo, Murphy. Wolf etc did.

[bramps]

Were there any superspeaders in America deliberately contaminating surfaces and crowds?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yes, they were the governors in states that sacrificed the elderly in nursing homes to inflate the numbers.

[politicianslie]

Were there any superspeaders in America deliberately contaminating surfaces and crowds?

The states hit the hardest are easy to spot:

IF you live in a BLUE state, you are much more likely to die from COVID-19.

So what are the blue states doing differently that might explain this observation?

One response I heard from a Democrat state was that there were about a dozen states forcing nursing homes to take in COVID-19 infected people. This graphic shows Ca, Mich, Pa and NY but there are several Democrat states with this policy of seeding nursing homes with COVID-19.

I've seen figures of around 70% of the infections and deaths occur in nursing homes. So what were the Democrat governors thinking to put so many seniors in nursing homes at risk? The last figures I've seen for NY is the number of deaths in Nursing Homes which were caused by the NH policy is over 5,000 persons.

Of course, I'm NOT implying that Democrat governors are intentionally killing seniors in nursing homes for political reasons. Just like I'm not saying there were dirty tricks in the last two major financial crashes that occurred during Presidential election years when the Democrats were trying to flip the White House to Democrat (2008 and 2020).

It looks like the Democrat states all initiated their nursing home seeding policies at the end of March to the first of April.

[cba123]

Masks.

Taiwan uses them. Taiwan now is basically cured.

Thailand uses them. Now basically cured.

Vietnam uses them. Now basically cured.

Japan uses them. Now basically cured.

Korea got CLOBBERED early on, but Korea is rapidly getting better.

Korea wears masks.

Masks WORK.

[sushiman]

“The station was closed due to COVID. There was not a single ash or butt on the ground.”

It is a station . Somebody gets @aid to sweep up the butts and ashes . Japanese are some of the worst litterbugs in the world .

[Bonemaker]

Italy has superb artists, sculptors, chefs, Beretta.

[Ancesthntr]

ECGC is , AFAIK, the zinc ionophore in green tea. Green tea also makes it more difficult for any virus to attach to cells, so it packs a double anti-viral whammy.

[Ancesthntr]

“And if you ask me why the Chinese had so much more incidence of the disease than Japan did, I will tell you...

I don’t know.”
————————
My understanding, based on an extensive and detailed article from someone who was there, is that they are (as a society) pigs.. up to and including having their infant kids crapping and peeing in the streets. That would make their society pretty much the polar opposite of the Japanese in this regard (and would also at least partially explain Japanese contempt for China during WW2).

[Mr Rogers]

“Masks WORK.”

Having spent time in Taiwan. Korea & Japan, I’m betting CLEANLINESS works! NYC didn’t even START disinfecting their subways until 30 APRIL.

BTW - lots of states are not mandating masks, and we’re doing fine. Heck, if it were not for the nursing home deaths & NYC’s influence, we’d have 1/4 of our current death total in the USA. And we are not an island.