Nearly a month after Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared a state of emergency, many experts believe the country has beaten coronavirus disease (COVID-19) without implementing stern measures.
According to Mikihito Tanaka, a science professor at Waseda University and a member of a public advisory group of experts on the virus, Japan has less than a thousand fatalities from the virus and cases in Tokyo have dropped to single digits in the past few days.
The country, Tanaka said, was able to achieve this without closing down businesses, creating a tracing app, and launching massive testing. The government will push through as well with lifting the emergency status in a few days.
“Just by looking at death numbers, you can say Japan was successful. But even experts don’t know the reason,” he told Bloomberg News.
READ ALSO: Japan says Tokyo Olympics may be postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic
Exports said in interviews with Bloomberg News that some of the possible reasons for its success include its early contact tracing (which they did as early as January), highly trained medical experts, as well as easy-to-understand social distancing messages.
According to said Norio Sugaya, a visiting professor at Keio University’s School of Medicine in Tokyo and a member of a World Health Organization panel advising on pandemic influenza, the country’s response has been amazing and has yielded better results compared to other nations.
“If you look at the other Asian countries, they all had a death rate that was about 1/100th of Western countries,” Sugaya said.
An expert named Suzuki, from Hokkaido University, said that Japan has also politely sent messages that encourage residents to practice social distancing—urging them to avoid “Three Cs” including closed spaces, crowded spaces, and close-contact settings.
“Social distancing may work, but it doesn’t really help to continue normal social life. The ‘Three C’s’ are a much more pragmatic approach and very effective, while having a similar effect,” he told Bloomberg News.
However, other experts theorized that the flattening of the curve may also be because the country has a less dangerous strain of COVID-19 as compared to other countries.
READ ALSO: COVID-19 infected man who planned to spread virus dies in Japan
