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Do you think the Japanese government lifted its state of emergency for the whole country too soon?

24 Comments
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How can you lift something you never had control of to begin with?

24 ( +30 / -6 )

Japan never had a "lockdown" in the same sense as other countries that legally enforced it, relying upon the responsible actions of the public. Naturally as it was not enforced, there were some who did not comply. However the vast majority did comply. Sufficiently enough to contain spread.

19 ( +22 / -3 )

Its way too early for Japan to act in this way, subsequently SO called 3 steps procedures to control is not going to be effective. Each steps should last at least 2-3 weeks but here a week duration of each step might be that helpful to control this pandemic.

12 ( +16 / -4 )

The short answer is "yes".

It's also the long answer.

8 ( +16 / -8 )

@Paul Laimal-Convoy

If you are going to make a refutation, at least use academic sources, and not news papers, blogs and youtube videos.

Here are some academic sources to corroborate the first statement about lockdowns:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-is-the-evidence-for-social-distancing-during-global-pandemics/

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/can-social-prescribing-support-the-covid-19-pandemic/

Here are some academic sources to corroborate the second statement about the mortality rate and danger of the virus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1.full.pdf

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3609493

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Every expert in the world had said the same thing: There will be a second and even a third wave. The second wave is much more likely to be worse than the first wave. There is no way to protect people until a cure or vaccine is available or we have herd immunity. None of those has happened. People need to stay home if they can and continue social distancing and practice good hygiene. It is too soon to be out and about and return to our normal lives.

4 ( +14 / -10 )

Second and even third waves are suggested, based on the flu virus model. Covid-19 does not behave like the flu viruses.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

nothing to do with actual data about the situation so how can it succeed at all?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

It shouldn't have happened in the first place! It's just another illness to cope with. Although, I personally didn't change my habits during SOE and made precautions against the virus, like wearing masks optional at my business. I know of some people whose workplaces became hell after all this CCP virus nonsense.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

The whole thing was nonsense to begin with.

Vulnerable groups should self-isolate. The rest of us should get on with our lives.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Tough choice but I voted No. A state of emergency would have eventually had damaging effects on me personally. Where I live (in Japan), the numbers of cases are extremely low so the perceived risk is seemingly low, but all it takes is one infected person for this coronavirus to spread like a wildfire.

If people are cautious, then this should help to reduce the spread. For example, where I work it's mandatory for everybody to wear masks in order to reduce the risk of spread. However, I'm still nervous about going to restaurants, cafes, etc., where people have to remove their masks.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

Of course things were reopened too early... gotta make everything seem fine to keep those Olympics!

1 ( +6 / -5 )

This is getting old. There’s no reason for healthy people to restrict themselves anymore than they would during flu season. The country should never have been “locked down” in the first place.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

This is a widespread illness with a high count of asymptomatic people, and that for most of the population is going to have mild symptoms at worse.

These kind of measures have never been used in any influenza like virus pandemic before, and there is just no evidence that any of these measures work in the first place to control it.

Most of the clusters of people with the virus, all around the world, focuses on nursing homes and hospitals, these are the 2 main environments that the effort should be focusing on, but tragically, there has been very little effort put on these, specially nursing homes all around the world, with this over focus with social distancing and lockdowns, which has made the situation in nursing homes grim.

Not only that, in the case of Japan, this virus has been less deadly than the flu, even thou Japan has a big population with vulnerable people. The reason of these wide differences on the mortality rate by country is not well understood, but thought to be a combination of cultural, and probably immunological differences between the countries (There is a theory that the BCG Vaccine, which was widely used in Japan, may create some kind of resistance against SARS-CoV-2), but it is very clear that they have little to do with the response from the government.

Not only that, but the best estimates for the global IFR (Infection Fatality Rate), including estimates from seroprevalence studies, and even the CDC estimates, put the virus with a IFR or 0.1%-0.4%, and if we divide it by age groups, the virus has an IFR lower than that of the Flu for people under 14, about the same for people from 14-65 years old, and it is only on the older than 65 years which we see an increase of the mortality rate over the common flu.

This put this virus in the "very nasty flu season" category, specially for older people.

In resume, there is no evidence that measures like the ones Japan took, or most of Europe took with things like lockdowns work in the first place, we already know that the virus is not as deadly as thought when these measures were taken in the first place, and in Japan the virus has killed way less people than the flu, so no, there is no way it is "too early" to stop doing things that probably do not even work to stop something very tame.

0 ( +8 / -8 )

It's not too soon. Despite its lower number of cases and deaths, Japan's reopening criteria are already much stricter than those of many other countries. For instance, Germany is reopening nationwide and progressively while its daily cases still amount to some hundreds.

Although spikes are likely to happen rather sporadically, we shouldn't lose our perspective and sense of balance.

0 ( +8 / -8 )

Yup! Mind you, in Japan the whole thing was lip-service to begin with.

0 ( +6 / -6 )

The short answer is "yes".

> It's also the long answer.

I agree

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

@Luis David Yanez

You stated:

"In resume, there is no evidence that measures like the ones Japan took, or most of Europe took with things like lockdowns work in the first place..."

Incorrect:

~

"...Now, three weeks later, even as the Italian government has locked down the entire country, Codogno is almost free of the virus, recording just a few new infections each day.

> Thesharp fall in new cases in Codogno and surrounding towns in the heart of the outbreak—from an average of about 100 new cases per day in early March to an average of under 50 per day in recent days—is an early indication that the drastic containment measures that have since been imposed across Italy and elsewhere in Europe could be beginning to work.

Codogno’s experience “tells us that if you introduce social distancing earlier, you will have a lower spread of cases, and if you have a lower spread, you will have fewer deaths,” said Melinda Mills, a professor of sociology at Oxford University who co-wrote a paper on the transmission of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus..."

(Source: - https://www.wsj.com/articles/lockdown-of-recovering-italian-town-shows-effectiveness-of-early-action-11584391837 )

~

"...Spain has been on national lockdown since March 15 and is planning to remain as such until April 29, per Spanish outlet El País. During these past few days, the nation has seen a decrease in the number of fatalities, reaching its lowest daily death toll since March 26, according to El País..."

(Source: - https://swimswam.com/spain-begins-lifting-lockdown-some-non-essential-services-allowed/ )

~

"...France’s lockdown, in place for more than three weeks, has helped contain the spread of the new coronavirus but the time to lift the restrictions has not yet come, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Wednesday...

> “The expansion (of the disease) is slowing so much that we might soon reach a flattening of the curve (…) and that’s most certainly due to the lockdown’s effect”, he said...

> [While in the UK]...Data gathered from 2 million people in Britain using a new COVID-19 symptom tracker app suggest lockdown measures are slowing the spread of the disease, according to researchers..."

(Source: - https://www.metro.us/french-lockdown-helped-slow-2/ )

You stated:

"we already know that the virus is not as deadly as thought when these measures were taken in the first place, and in Japan the virus has killed way less people than the flu, so no, there is no way it is "too early" to stop doing things that probably do not even work to stop something very tame."

Incorrect:

~

"Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has similar symptoms to the flu. They also spread in similar ways. So it's natural to want to compare the two. But Covid-19 is very different, in ways that make it much more dangerous. And understanding how is key to understanding why we have to take it so seriously..."

(Full facts in video link here: - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FVIGhz3uwuQ )

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

 There will be a second and even a third wave. The second wave is much more likely to be worse than the first wave.

Nope, the dice can roll either ways in which the virus can mutate to a more inert or a more toxic type.

Only god knows for now.

-8 ( +2 / -10 )

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