If that truly were the case, it would show up clearly in excess mortality. Yet AFAIK it does not, which would be evidence for japan as a whole not having bundled its covid response, at least nowhere near as much as europe or the US.
Now, this may not be due to Japan's government; more plausibly, there is a higher level of pre-existing resistance to the virus, since all the nations of east Asia (including Australia and New Zealand) are doing better than all the nations of western Europe. But it doesn't point towards an especially bungled response.
The pandemic response isn't just about case numbers, there is almost zero social welfare here, the economic is getting crunched, zero help for people with mental illness, elderly people are locked inside homes and can't go out, businesses are closing down constantly.
There is also a major shame culture here around being infected, if you're infected, you can be bullied to the point where people have had to move homes. People choose not to get tested for this reason. I don't think if people do die here, they actually are tested unless the family requests it, most don't because of the shame of it.
The only difference between Japan and most other countries is that people voluntarily wear masks here for some inexplicable reason, thank god, because without that, it would be ultra ugly.
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352.full?ijkey=NDYZgh6...
> Nevertheless, a reasonably consistent picture is beginning to emerge from high income countries. Reports suggest either no rise in suicide rates (Massachusetts, USA11; Victoria, Australia13; England14) or a fall (Japan,9 Norway15) in the early months of the pandemic.
> There’s a three day lag in the data
Do you truly need deaths as they happen by the minute?
Many people have cautioned against using mortality figures in the US as a measure of Covid spread, because these figures have a lag measured in weeks before they're considered accurate. Imagine the doctoring being done on those numbers!
We should envy them, not drag them down to our level.
It’s really hard to describe how hard the Japanese Government has bungled the coronavirus response. It’s actually quite perplexing.
They really know how to keep the population guessing, it’s hard to get tested, the numbers all are dodgy and conveniently changing. There’s a three day lag in the data. It’s seriously mind blowing my bad.
Peope don’t feel comfortable because no one knows what’s really going on in Tokyo and to add to all the confusion, there’s a domestic travel campaign ongoing nation wide which encourages travel...insane.