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.
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.