Japanese public health experts cite three factors that allowed the nation to weather the coronavirus pandemic without huge losses of life or lockdowns: an early emergency declaration, fast dissemination of information about the virus to citizens, and special contact tracing.
“In a characteristically Japanese way, we have all but brought this epidemic under control in the last month and a half,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
The country, with almost 127 million people, saw its first case of COVID-19 in mid-January and has had 16,724 infections and 894 deaths.
The United States, in comparison, has had more than 100,000 deaths despite far more restrictive measures to contain the virus, such as stay-at-home orders, the shutdown of all nonessential businesses, and the limiting of groups in some states to only five people.
The reasons for Japan’s success, according to experts cited by the Financial Times, include a program of contact tracing that not only tries to determine who infected patients were in contact with but also tries to find the place where a patient was infected and monitor everyone who was at the same location.
“Most other countries adopted what we call prospective tracing,” said Shigeru Omi, head of the expert panel for Japan’s coronavirus response team. “The cluster-based approach uses thorough retrospective contact tracing to identify common sources of infection.”
Abe also declared a state of emergency at a time when the virus was still able to be contained.
Japan knew early about the dangers of the virus because of its proximity to China, which helped the country prepare for it, said Satoshi Hori, an expert on infection control. The public reacted quickly to information on the virus and started wearing masks, washing their hands more, and social distancing even before the government advised it.
The Japanese government never forced its citizens to stay home and had relatively little testing. People were only tested if they showed symptoms for two to four days and would be admitted to a hospital if they tested positive, said Dr. Tomoya Saito, director of the department of health crisis management at the National Institute of Public Health.
Since it was admitting anyone who tested positive to the hospital, Japan avoided mass testing, so the hospital system didn’t get overwhelmed, the New York Times reported.
Cases in Tokyo spiked last week, and there is concern a second wave of the virus could hit the country, according to the Financial Times.
