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'Bureaucrats were in charge': Japanese doctor blasts ship quarantine

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By Rocky Swift

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Good for him I hope it leads to some swift action to remove people from the ship. It seemed obvious to me from the beginning that a ship is the perfect breeding ground for a virus

34 ( +36 / -2 )

These should of been put on Anti viral drug, as soon as possible, to minimise any possible infection, lots these Japanese, will spreading the virus, if they are asymptomatic, a percentage of them

-9 ( +5 / -14 )

We can see one difference between China and Japan here: The Japanese government will not disappear this doctor for having spoken out.

3 ( +28 / -25 )

Its a good reminder to a citizen of the fact that politicians are more concerned with things like tourism money, the Olympics, and their reputations than the general populations well being.

You have to intelligently protect yourself and your loved ones.

33 ( +33 / -0 )

Dystopia.

3,711 people on board. That's many. Paying customers and the crew on board.

Is it correct for me to understand crew were still serving customers?

People have sex. There are sex addicts. Fact.

Boredom. Free wifi (probably monitored). The world watching you. Fear.

Have you ever wondered if restaurant staff ever spits in your food?

Let the experts do their thing in the right environment I would say, and I wouldn't mind sitting on a beach (empty holiday resort on a remote island?) with my loved ones while I wait. Now spreading more I fear.

-46 ( +0 / -46 )

So the Doctor on board had no mask on because she most likely had the virus already, that is the so scary. She probably infected every single patient that were not already carrier positives for the virus.

10 ( +17 / -7 )

this what happens when government breaks down, current people in charge have no idea because they are not specialists. it's not too late PM, you can change this course, listen to you emergency medical panel, put people in charge who had experience dealing with SARS, other virus.

Also get those ship passengers in an isolated facilities now,before it's too late. If you have just one passengers getting out yesterday and this week, you will have 100s and 1000s other infections,

15 ( +15 / -0 )

What the hell are they supposed to have done? That's what happens when you try to help people, they should've turned the ship away.

-38 ( +3 / -41 )

a salute to this guy and the reporter from CNN who was brave enough to report it,

39 ( +39 / -0 )

"The cruise ship was completely inadequate in terms of the infection control". True. This is cruise ship, not a hospital ship, my kid.

How could he become a professor ?

-49 ( +3 / -52 )

If you can’t offer help, don’t help. At least don’t make it worse.

In this case, turning the ship away would have been better than having bureaucrats, non experts, run the show.

-4 ( +11 / -15 )

@Yrral

These should of been put on Anti viral drug, as soon as possible, to minimise any possible infection, lots these Japanese, will spreading the virus, if they are asymptomatic, a percentage of them

What are you talking about? Antiviral medications are not the same as antibiotics. Antivirals need to be coded specifically for a particular virus. Just giving them antivirals will be useless. Also, the cruise ship didn't have only Japanese people. It was filled with people from all over the world.

Also, the government official really said just washing your hands and wearing a mask was appropriate? He only furthered the claims by the specialist in the video about their inadequacies.

23 ( +23 / -0 )

Good on the doc for doing what is right in calling out the pencil pushers and clowns in suits on high for their uselessness and inadequacy.

27 ( +27 / -0 )

When asked about the videos and the criticism, the government's top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said staff on the boat were thoroughly protected from infection through the use of masks and hand washing.

I'm curious to know what are Suga's qualifications are in regards to quarantine and and disease control? You don't have to be a medical professor to realise that, locking nearly 4,000 people on a ship with minimal viral protection is going to result in mass-infections.

Sadly, I feel Iwata's speech is going to end his career for upsetting the 'reiwa'. Just the fact that over 600 people (around 18%) on the boat are now infected shows how poorly the quarantine was handled.

25 ( +26 / -1 )

Disillusioned, this quarantine is about to protect large populations, 120 millions to be exact. Japanese did great sacrifice in this adventure, that needs to be recognized.

-39 ( +3 / -42 )

Dr Iwata described the conditions on board the ship as “completely chaotic”

Even preliminary measures to separate infectious areas and non infectious zones were not in place according to the infectious disease specialist.

Reliance on governments to take care of our health (in this case) has shown that infection has spread markedly, making Japan no 2 in the league of NCOV infections outside China!

That is certainly not a concern to be brushed aside!

26 ( +26 / -0 )

Chip Star,

The good doctor won't disappear thankfully,but the good old boys of J-Inc will see to it that he won't ever excel in his chosen career.

There is nothing the 'elites' hate more than being publicly shamed.

32 ( +33 / -1 )

Japan is approaching 1000 cases, which is pandemic

0 ( +9 / -9 )

@ spitfire

they are protecting their jewel, the olympics, no matter the cost

in a true democracy its the job of the people to shame the elites, no matter

if they are in gov media or entertainment, otherwise you get what we

have here in japan. fukushima flashbacks anyone?

18 ( +20 / -2 )

@Chip Star

The Japanese government will not disappear this doctor for having spoken out.

While the Japanese government won't make Dr. Iwata Kentaro disappear, they will make sure he will not be heard by pressuring the press to not cover him.

26 ( +29 / -3 )

Japan messed this up, those people in early stages of infection would pass the test. Japan has infected the entire country just before the Olympics... #idiotsrunningtheshow

13 ( +15 / -2 )

Some have asked about the doctor's qualifications in quarantine and disease control. As mentioned in the article and the video he has worked with SARS and ebola before.

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that someone was trying to prevent him boarding the ship despite his much needed expertise. He effectively had to sneak on the ship and then was promptly removed once he was discovered. Why the coverup?

23 ( +24 / -1 )

The cruise ship was completely inadequate in terms of the infection control". True. This is cruise ship, not a hospital ship, my kid.

Its a quarantine ship now, my kid, and all they had to do was implement proper procedures to prevent the spread of the disease. Which they didn’t do because they didn’t have experts on site and instead left things to people who didn’t know what they were doing.

But by all means save all your wrath and disdain for the guy who simply pointed this out rather than the ones who caused this disaster.

How could he become a professor ?

By knowing what he was talking about.

36 ( +36 / -0 )

they were woefully unprepared, and it seemed to me to be a "gaijin problem" with a 'gaijin solution" that is, just put them over there and ignore it.

I have to say however that CNN did an outstanding job of exposing this.

20 ( +21 / -1 )

@Akie

Disillusioned, this quarantine is about to protect large populations, 120 millions to be exact. Japanese did great sacrifice in this adventure, that needs to be recognized.

This is too soft Akie. Everyone should receive a trophy in your world.

While the Japanese government won't make Dr. Iwata Kentaro disappear, they will make sure he will not be heard by pressuring the press to not cover him.

He was on Zero, 23:00 channel 4 last night. Will he be broadcasted in NHK?

9 ( +9 / -0 )

I'm really surprised at all the surprise and outrage over this. This is exactly out of the Japanese governments play book. Bureaucrats run everything, even though they have no experience in most things they are in charge of. They have thick manuals that they must follow and even if the situation is different than what the manual says, they go ahead and do it as they cannot think outside of the box, or even worse think to consult with any real professionals. Case in point Fukushima!

29 ( +29 / -0 )

While I applaud Japan for having tried something and not let all these people into the country at once, what the doctor said makes perfect sense. Bureaucrats running the show. Like that guy who didn't even know how to operate his own computer but was out in charge of cyber security.

Suga said the staff aboard were perfectly protected... by the use of face masks and washing their hands. Lol.

23 ( +23 / -0 )

His English and Japanese language videos criticizing what he saw inside have been seen more than 1 million times and forced a response from the government.

And I have uploaded his videos to facebook and sent them out to everyone and to all groups that I am in.

When asked about the videos and the criticism, the government's top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said staff on the boat were thoroughly protected from infection through the use of masks and hand washing. The government has repeatedly defended its measures as appropriate.

Same stupid MO as when they were criticized for their hostage justice. No proper response. No proper rebuttal. Just deny deny deny.

But everyone knows- they botched this up BIG TIME. And people are talking...

18 ( +18 / -0 )

Akie; Name ONE other country that had a problem regarding a cruise ship at the same magnitude as Japan? Keep in mind that the Diamond Princess is not the only ship entering a port with an infected passenger.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Chip StarToday 06:48 am JST

We can see one difference between China and Japan here: The Japanese government will not disappear this doctor for having spoken out.

Come on Chip Star, you know how it works here. Chiune Sugihara, the man who saved 6,000 Jews from the Nazi death camps, was blackballed for the rest of his career after returning to Japan.

Why the coverup?

Because it was politics, not epidemic management.

21 ( +22 / -1 )

@Akie, I am sorry but you just have to admit that Japan failed. It seems that saving face is more important than saving lives. If you had tested and removed everyone from the start you would have only had a few cases. Now it is over 500!

20 ( +21 / -1 )

Remove 3000 people to where?

-11 ( +2 / -13 )

James Stowe, I keep asking people that question and always get downvoted! Where and how do you deal with such a large group of people at once. The flights of Japanese coming back from Wuhan were staggered so they could find adequate places for them. But even then they were two to a room, which is not adequate. But they had time to find other places to keep them. But not 3500 all at once, with many who could not speak Japanese. I would like someone to tell me where to take and put all of these people. But nobody has an answer.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

Sack all the beaurcrats immediately!

7 ( +7 / -0 )

We can see one difference between China and Japan here: The Japanese government will not disappear this doctor for having spoken out.

I'm guessing you haven't heard of Prof. Masaki Shimoji who got arrested for 30 days for speaking against the nuclear radiation in Fukushima, and tried to organized several protests against nuclear energy. He had to flee to America to tell his story there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YKRvT3Ku_H0&feature=emb_logo

Of course this wasn't covered by any Japanese or American media, but if this was a Chinese professor, oh god..

16 ( +17 / -1 )

Well done.

Fight the government

10 ( +10 / -0 )

I admire and respect Mr.Kentaro Iwata for making such statement and to give a spotlight to such incompetence of his government,his sense of duty as professional took the priority above his chair.

As someone mentioned before,yes Japan is not China but still for his statement against the regime he can risk his career,this is not freedom.

17 ( +17 / -0 )

The doctor has committed an omerta by speaking up against the Japanese collective bureaucrats's position.

@ Samir Basu

While the Japanese government won't make Dr. Iwata Kentaro disappear, they will make sure he will not be heard by pressuring the press to not cover him.

As they have done to me by erasing or altering my comments on Quora , Disqus etc while pretending to be a free- speech society. I too, will begin to speak up publicly against the devil.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

@James Stowe, Removed to a location better suited to a quarantine. The ship, clearly was not. Or it could have been if it had been managed correctly and not by 'bureaucrats'.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Well done to him. Countries need to stop viewing this as a political problem rather than a health issue.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

So 28 of the people from the Diamond Princess diagnosed with the virus are now in serious/critical condition. If any of these people die because of the bungling bureaucrats forcing them to stay on that boat instead of putting them into proper quarantine, then those bureaucrats should be up on charges.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

So what is the likelihood that these same criminally incompetent Bureaucrats, are ultimately responsible, for the population Tokyo, to remain safe from coronavirus - Olympics 2020?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

AkieToday  07:25 am JST

Disillusioned, this quarantine is about to protect large populations, 120 millions to be exact. Japanese did great sacrifice in this adventure, that needs to be recognized.

Actually, looking at the points mentioned by Dr.Iwate, the 120 millions haven't been protected.

High chances are that the virus has been let loose into the mainland, through people who have not followed adequate safety measures.

Everything doesn't need to be expressed as nationalism, emotions, and sacrifice. You need to consider facts and be objective sometimes.

Look at this article:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-51542241

I'll quote the specific paragraph from the above:

Spending two weeks aboard the vessel did not count as a proper quarantine because passengers could have come into contact with an infected person at any point during that period, he added.

In my experience, infection with a bacterium or virus don't show up in a test until a few days have passed. That's why sometimes, you test negative initially, but test positive a few days later.

Which means if a person in the ship contracted the virus a day before leaving the ship, he/she would test negative, but still be a carrier.

Await expert comments on this

.. And meanwhile, Japanese TV shows try to show how people are getting back to normal life after 2 weeks on the Diamond Princess. Everything is hunky dory..

14 ( +14 / -0 )

chip star:

We can see one difference between China and Japan here: The Japanese government will not disappear this doctor for having spoken out.

You're deluding yourself if you think there won't be other repercussions for this doctor. They may not 'disappear this doctor' (if that makes any sense), but they will find other ways to ostracize him. Japan and China aren't really THAT different.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Thank you so much Dr.Iwate.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Mr. Iwata you did an excellent job standing up to those big guns and reporting facts and truth. God bless you.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

The government has repeatedly defended its measures as appropriate.

This is the problem with people who can't admit mistakes, and insist that they are perfect in the face of facts showing otherwise. They DON'T LEARN, because they WON'T LEARN.

Argh!!

7 ( +7 / -0 )

This is not China or Russia. The gov't has to own up to its mistakes no matter how big of it wants to also be respected. Good going Iwata.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

This quarantine is to protect Japan from the cruise basically. That is the number 1 priority. In that sense, the government did a good job. However, thanks to stupid media and countries' criticism, they are released. Do they really think it good to put out those who have not been found positive in the epidemic area in China? Same as the cruise from the begining as of coming to Yokohama.Few media airs how many sick people enjoyed parties before Yokohama.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

'Bureaucrats were in charge': Japanese doctor blasts ship quarantine

Bureaucrats in charge. What could go wrong?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Think small is recipe for disaster.

-11 ( +0 / -11 )

Mr Iwata has now canceled all of his classes and meetings at university and placed himself into a 14 day home quarantine, separated from his wife and family.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

For such a disaster prone country crisis management is woeful. Quarantine for 4,000 people should be an easily achievable goal. What happens when a massive disaster hits?

Too little action, too slow and inadequate response. Time and time again we see this, days to get drinking water to thousands, inadequate emergency housing. If any at all. Complete breakdown in the most basic needs. God help us when a huge disaster hits, the governments response as usual is "we didn't see that coming". There seems to be no preparedness or for thought. When it should be one of the most important. A really get experts in straight away, listen to them. Not someone recently moved from another ministry with no knowledge of what to do.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

This quarantine is to protect Japan from the cruise basically. That is the number 1 priority. In that sense, the government did a good job. However, thanks to stupid media and countries' criticism, they are released.

My thoughts mostly. If I could add...

However, thanks to stupid media and countries' criticism, and inept and childish government bureaucrats, they are released.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

> AkieToday  07:25 am JST

Disillusioned, this quarantine is about to protect large populations, 120 millions to be exact. Japanese did great sacrifice in this adventure, that needs to be recognized.

They let the Japanese passengers that tested negative go home, commuting by metro even though the virus is already known to spark false negatives! They should have been put in a real quarantine, not one where dozens of people with the disease are walking around any area without restrictions...... What are you even talking about?

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Remove 3000 people to where?

The idea was to remove the infected, the ones who tested positive from the ship to stop the spread. It wasn’t 3000 not even close.

You may need to build emergency quarantine hospitals. China built a 1000 bed hospital in ten days, 6 days per BBC. Japan can but won’t unless it gets worse. It’s the let’s wait and see approach. Reactionary instead proactionary

You will need places to quarantine once the infected numbers get into the thousands and multiply exponentially. Again there is a tipping point before all hell breaks loose. Stop experimenting and do what is required.

Thank God for Dr. Iwasaki

3 ( +3 / -0 )

For such a disaster prone country crisis management is woeful. Quarantine for 4,000 people should be an easily achievable goal. What happens when a massive disaster hits?

Cricky, easy to say! But please give some examples. This is not like trying to provide water and food after an earthquake. Quarantine is so specific and logistically intensive. Did you just want them to cast them off on a deserted island to fend for themselves? Do you think the US, or the UK could handle such a large group all at once?

Hell the Aussies dumped them on Christmas Island. That was their solution!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

What's the Japanese proverb, "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down."??

Disagreeing with the bosses is basically a career death sentence in this country.

Gotta tow the line.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

No one seems knowing what he has tweeted about new corona virus around the beginning of this month

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

You're deluding yourself if you think there won't be other repercussions for this doctor. 

It seems clear, if you actually watch the video, that Dr. Iwata has a history of rocking the boat and making enemies.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

This whole sad saga simply exposes the govt's inadequate disaster management plan in the case of a widespread contagion / epidemic.

If you are willing to hold the largest show on earth - the olympics - with millions of global visitors coming to these shores, it's paramount to have some sort of emergency medical strategy which could deal with sudden unforseen circumstances such as a viral contamination.

Those suggesting "What could they do?" miss the point, that this govt was woefully unprepared. That there are no large scale isolation facilities or facilities that could be quickly transformed certainly does not create a strong degree of faith in the govt.

Other countries like US & Australia have placed their citizens into secure quarantine for the defining periods on unused facilities - Austs case Xmas Is & Howard Springs an empty mine workers village site.

That no such place could be part of a greater plan by the govt shows weak decision making when it counts.

Why not second a military base for the short term? It is an emergency.

Professor Iwata was right to go public with this.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

These people should of being taken off, and quarantine in small groups, Britain has taken over a hotel near Heathrow, that will serve as a quarantine facility for British citizen ,the US will use it base in Japan to house sick military personnel in Japan.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Having been a beaurocrat for the first fifteen years of my working life, I can testify that they should never be put in charge of anything that is outside their area of expertise, and certainly nothing medical, scientific, military, educational etc etc. But the world has seen the rise and rise of the beaurocrat:this needs to be reexamined as a governmental model!

7 ( +7 / -0 )

Does Japan have govt whistle-blower protection laws?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Here is a statement from Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health in US:

The quarantine process failed. I'd like to sugarcoat it and try to be diplomatic about it, but it failed. People were getting infected on that ship. Something went awry in the process of the quarantining on that ship. I don't know what it was, but a lot of people got infected on that ship.

Period.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Finally, he deleted the video after he was accused of providing wrong information.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Finally, he deleted the video after he was accused of providing wrong information.

Yep. He removed his own youtube as it ocntains too many inaccurate info but too many has got copied already by others.

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

contains

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

For those who're interested in Dr Takagi's counterarguments for each one of Dr Iwata's reporting.

Only in Japanese

https://anonymous-post.mobi/archives/20127

Also, China once denied but now has officially admitted that the possibility of Aerosol infection exits.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Much thanks Dr. Iwata.

This is copy-past from something I posted on Dr. Chris Mortenson's YouTube video, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXelEi4tqAo

This would not be so bad if it were restricted to my own anecdotal experience ... but it was pretty much authoritarian bureaucratic bungling that led to the Fukushima meltdown. The U.S. government, though the military ... twice offered to help, first by dumping water on the heating reactors, then by replacing failing Japanese water pumps with military grade pumps ... but help was rejected by the Japanese government ... as they have the technology to take care of themself ... NOT.  I suspect a twist on Hanlon's razor here ... Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity ... or arrogance.

For anyone interested in looking at the details and documentation of the bureaucratic bungling ... please look at my Quora post .... https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-horrifying-examples-of-corporate-evil-greed/answer/Steven-Martin-2

Disclaimer ... I have lived 36 consecutive years in Japan, and have found Dr. Iwata's experience to be rather common in the authoritarian obsessed, institutionalized culture. 5 years ago, I resigned in protest from a tenured position as Associate Professor of English Education from Jissen Women's College, Tokyo. I was the only tenured academically qualified, native speaker at the Jr. College campus. Now there are none. I have been largely unemployed-underemployed for 5 years now. Even though I have been a judge at Tokyo University's All Japan English Speech Contest for three times (and many others), I may be just a poster boy for 'the imposter syndrome'.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Just watched the video and it would be comedic if it weren't so tragic.

He notes that the officers were requiring passengers to fill out paperwork by hand and then collecting the papers, distributing them, etc. Totally oblivious to how this violated infectious disease control principles and common sense.

And then they kicked him off the ship for pointing stuff like that out.

Its like you couldn't come up with a better caricature of a bureaucratic approach to something if you tried. Paperwork must be adhered to even if the paperwork itself is literally a cause of the problem.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

There goes your career, matey.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

He'll be a hero if this covid becomes super viral in Japan and the source was one of the released cruise ship passengers.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

This quarantine is to protect Japan from the cruise basically. That is the number 1 priority. In that sense, the government did a good job.

Is that so ? 3 onlanders part of the quarantine team got infected. As I do not know the size of the full team, I do not know the current pour-cent. Can you guaranty no other than these 3 onlanders got infected ?

However, thanks to stupid media and countries' criticism, they are released.

Neither media nor countries' criticism has nothing to do with the release and release date. The government stated it from the beginning. They never changed it. The only change, I saw was that at some point they looked like they did not expect to be able to test everybody so planned to set them free without it. Seems they changed their mind or it was a mistake of the newspaper.

I keep asking people that question and always get downvoted!

The downvote must be related to the fact you seems to think Japan is some kind of medieval country not being able to transform military base / hospital / dormitory / ... in a proper quarantine facility in a couple of days if it want to. As pointed before even if removing the 3.711 in one go could have been troublesome that could have been achieved by wave.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

But the world has seen the rise and rise of the beaurocrat:this needs to be reexamined as a governmental model!

I agree. As I have also worked along side them for many years, I must say they are some of the most useless arrogant and disconnected bunch you will ever meet.

A start to purge and hold accountable would be to have 3rd party audits on everything they do, and how much pay they get, for what accomplishments. If nothing significant done, then they should be terminated. Just like it is in the civilian world.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I fully support him and his wife.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Great video and he is courageous as can be. On a side note, I wish more Japanese spoke English so well.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a store that sells masks. I guess if I get sick, I should expect the hospital to give me one.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Interesting comments. I've truly never read anything like this.

gaijin problem

turn the ship around

sack all the bureaucrats

CNN is courageous (made me laugh)

Dr. Iwata has a history of this kind of negative activism

Geez, I've never seen this kind of paranoia. Thankfully most people in Japan go about their daily routine.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

'Bureaucrats were in charge'

Whenever there is a disaster inevitably someone says the above in the negative sense. I sense it is repeated because it is true and because nothing changes when it should change.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

So what is Dr. Iwata suggest that they do? He seems to answer the biggest problem/question which is "inside the cruise, there was no way to tell where the virus is..." If Japanese government or any other government for that matter knew where the virus is, we wouldn't be having this problem. What does he recommend they do to establish green zone vs red zone? Should the passengers and crew change cabins or corralled into sections without the knowledge of who is or might be infected? I think its good that he's calling attention to inadequate response by bureaucrats but perhaps his "bruised ego" needs to be tended first before pointing fingers.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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