I just wanted to correct/rescind my above comments on South Korea. I forget what gave me that impression (perhaps I was looking at the wrong numbers), but I had mistakenly believed that the death toll was higher than it actually was. The larger point about how Japan's response is being ridiculed compared to (for example) New York state and other places/countries with a much higher casualty rate, I believe still stands.
Majestic said:
Oops, that didn't age well. As of today Japan's covid19 deaths unfortunately eclipsed South Korea's. Japan is at 256, and South Korea is at 236.
To be fair, the author said death
rate, not death
total, and given that Japan's population is roughly three times that of South Korea's, the point is still, in fact, correct. (1 death per 494,350 people for Japan, 1 per 217,205 people for South Korea.)
Now, granted, that probably won't hold for long, and South Korea certainly deserves a lot of credit for flattening the curve (certainly more than I gave them by lumping them in with New York in my original comment, which again, I apologize for), but again, given the degree to which Japan is being treated as an international laughingstock and disaster, wouldn't you expect the country to be showing dramatically worse numbers than that?
Again, I have no doubt that the numbers in Japan will get worse than they are now as new cases continue to emerge. I just don't see evidence that Japan is headed for some massive crisis, at least from infections and virus-related deaths alone (the economy, unemployment, etc. is a whole different story).
---
I still find it hard to express my thoughts about this because I feel like I'm in an extreme minority, so let me preface what I'm about to say by stating that I
by no means am saying this with the intent of minimizing the situation, and that I truly feel for all the people who have had family or friends get sick and die, and for all the medical professionals who are working so hard to fight this.
That said, just
personally and emotionally speaking, the situation still feels very surreal and I continue to have trouble coming to grips with it all. Seeing everyone talk about how isolating ourselves is an absolute virtue, and the best and most important thing we can do to save lives, seeing these memes about how you can "save the world by sitting at home and watching TV. Is that so much to ask?", etc. etc. I think of all my friends in the food and beverage business, tourism, etc. losing their jobs or entering very, very uncertain futures and can't help but wonder how they feel when the talking heads on TV are extolling the virtue of eliminating all non-essential human contact for god knows how long.
Perhaps some of it comes down to the inconsistent ways in which the standard is being applied. In this brave new world, you can't go out for dinner and drinks, see a movie, go to the gym, go to a concert or a museum, but you can take a still-relatively-packed train to your office job (fortunately, I'm freelance and don't have to do this, but it's just the principle of it). In Tokyo, bars are shut down entirely, restaurants have to stop serving drinks at 7 p.m. and close up at 8 p.m., and yet people can still line up for takeout at McDonald's (ugh) or eat out for lunch, etc. Is the virus only active at night? If it's fine for a coffee shop to halve their seating, have their staff wear masks, and serve people from 11 until 7, why can't my friend's sake bar do the same from 7 until 11?
In the meantime, Japan's current death toll of 256 people since the start of it all is less than the average number of traffic fatalities nationwide in a single month. (Again, I'm not saying this to minimize the situation, but just to put into words my own emotional disconnect in seeing this unprecedented-in-my-lifetime shutdown of society.)
My apologies for the rant, but I (again, just personally and emotionally speaking) really am desperate to find a silver lining in all of this. Considering that the numbers since the national state of emergency have not yet been reflected (and the current numbers reflecting the situation before that are, all things considered,
not catastrophically bad), I'm holding out hope that the number of cases and fatalities will begin to peter out, and we can return to some semblance of normalcy sooner rather than later.
(edited for clarity)
mainichi.jp
asiatimes.com
