Corona Pandemic in JapanRyoichi Imai

Kyushu University

1

Timeline 1

• 3 January - A resident of Kanagawa Prefecture in his 30's who had previously travelled to Wuhan, developed a fever.

• 30 January - Two Japanese nationals who came back from China via Haneda refused further testing. Later the two allowed them to be tested.

• 21 February - The Diamond Princess' passengers disembarked.• 5 March, Japan announced new quarantine restrictions to be

enforced for all visitors coming from China and South Korea.• 27 February, Shinzo Abe requested closing all elementary, junior

high, and high schools to curb the spread of the infections from 2 March to the end of spring vacations, which usually conclude in early April.

2

Timeline 2

• 16 March – The Japanese government planned to expand entry restrictions to (selected areas of) Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.

• 20 March – the government announced that school closure would not extend after Monday 23.

• 21 March – Entry restrictions were extended to all the Japanese citizens and foreign visitors coming from Europe.

• 22 March – The IOC announced that the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, originally scheduled to take place between 24 July and 9 August 2020, would be rescheduled to later dates.

• 22 more than 55,000 people flocked to a cauldron with the flame that was in display at Sendai Station in Sendai on Saturday.

• 22 March, A K-1 Grand Prix martial art event was held despite authorities asking the organizers to shut it down.

3

Timeline 3

• 23 March - Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike warned citizens that a lockdown may be necessary if infections surge in Tokyo.

• 26 March – Entry restrictions were extended to the North America.

• 30 March - Famed comedian Ken Shimura had died at the age of 70 from complications of a COVID-19 infection. This marked the first major death from the pandemic in Japan's entertainment industry.

• 7 April - Prime Minister Abe proclaimed a state of emergency from 8 April to 6 May for Tokyo and the prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka. He also said there would be no lockdown like in other countries,

4

COVID-19 and Influenza

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237027356314869761?s=20

• The United States was optimistic about the Colona pandemic, reflected on the tweet by President Trump on March 9.

• But the US declared a National Emergency on March 13. 5

Border Control Measures

Anyone who has boarded an airplane or ships arriving at Japan from • China or Republic of Korea at or after 0:00 on March 9 (JST), • European countries, or Egypt at or after 0:00 on March 21 (JST), • United States of America at or after 0:00 on March 26 (JST) , • Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Viet Nam,

Malaysia, Israel, Qatar, Democratic Republic of the Congo or Bahrain at or after 0:00 on March 28 (JST)

is required

• to stay 14days at a location designated by the quarantine station chief and

• not to use public transportation in Japan.

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/newpage_00032.html

6

Government Policies

• Government declared a “State of Emergency” on April 7.• Seven prefectures are requested to plan specific regulations

based on the guideline made by government:• Tokyo• Saitama• Kanagawa• Chiba• Osaka• Hyogo• Fukuoka

• Hokkaido, Aichi, and Kyoto are not included, although they have large urban area, and their prefectural governors request the government to select them as state emergency zones.

7

「要請する」「自粛する」

• PM Abe said that there would be no lockdown like in other countries.

• Japan’s approach toward Corona prevention is unique in the sense that government “does not force” but “suggest” people to observe regulations.

• 「要請する」means between “suggest” and “request”.

• Government promotes the “social distancing” not by forcing but by creating consensus among people on self-restraint 「自粛」.

8

Avoid Triple Cs「三密」

• Youriko Koike, Tokyo prefectural Governor, suggest people to avoid Triple Cs:• 「密閉」Confined spaces (with poor ventilation)• 「密集」Crowded places (with many people nearby)• 「密接」Close contact (with people)

• Government has reported many infection cases (or “clusters”) with characteristics as above. • 「クラブハウス」Narrow music clubs, serving food and drink. • 「クラブ（キャバクラ）」Night Cabaret-clubs, with pretty girls

entertaining wealthy guests.• 「院内感染」Hospitals and care houses for elder people.

9

Tracking “Clusters”

• Government organizes a special committee “専門家会議”Medical Advisors for Government on Corona prevention, consisting of medical experts.

• MAG played a very important role to prevent Corona infection.

• It spends a lot of efforts to track infection routes connecting many patients through interviews, down to initial sources of infection.

• Tracking clusters approach was so effective to put down “outbreak” at the early stage of infection.

• However, increasing missing clusters is going to make tracking cluster no longer effective.

10

Infection Waves

• The first wave came from China in late January.

• But corona spread then was so slow that government had enough capacity to track down the clusters.

• The second wave came from the west in late February.

• European countries took very strict quarantine measures like “lockdowns”, which seemed initially not be so effective to put down the outburst.

• The US followed Europe in early March.

• A lot of Japanese citizens returned to Japan away from Europe and America, which prepared the second wave.

11

Time to change

• Low population infected has been enabling Japan to focus on tracking clusters.

• Facing a sudden rise in infection, however, Japan needs to switch to alternative policies.

• Japan has been criticized by some western countries for taking a strategy to intentionally report low numbers of the COVID-19 infection.

• However, such a conspiracy theory has provided no concrete evidence.

• Even with still low population infected, the current acceleration of the spread suggest time to change to come.

12

Modelling Pandemic

13

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/covid-19-economic-crisis-recession-economists

Tradeoff between Pandemic Peak Cut and Economic Loss

• Government needs to avoid medical disaster caused by soaring mass of the patients.

• If it takes a stricter policy to put down the peak, it needs to endure deeper economic recession.

• The optimal policy is to find the best combination of health of people and steady economic growth.

• The UK originally placed larger emphasis on the latter.• PM Johnson sought to minimize and economic loss under the

constraint that the medical capacity would not be broken by the increasing medical treatments.

• However his hard-landing policy was soon abandoned because it was severely criticized by media and the leading medical scientists.

14

Sweden

• Most European countries took containment policies, no matter how it destroys their economy.

• However, Sweden was a unique country that does not take containment approach against the COVID-19.

• Sweden does not request citizens to “stay home” or “close shops on the streets”. On the contrary, it let people engage in usual economic activities under the loose regulations.

• Sweden’s unique approach was harshly criticized by European media, and blamed for its free-riding on the other EU countries’ effort to reduce infection.

15

South Korea

• Corona infection appears to have ended in South Korea.

• Corona control in Korea is characterized by rapid PCR testing and isolation of infected persons.

• At first, Korea's countermeasures against corona caused a rapid increase in the number of people with positive infections, and there was concern that medical treatment would collapse.

• However, Korea overcame the corona infection ahead of other countries and ended the curfew in early May. It can be said that the settlement of three months after the spread of infection is a remarkable achievement.

16

Remaining Problems of the Korean Solution• Korea's swift response is based on the lessons of the earlier

spread of MERS and SARS.• Learning from the past experience, South Korea has integrated its

infection control organizations, and installed automated mass inspection equipment.

• However, South Korea's response is not perfect.• Although South Korea's measures were able to end the infection

relatively quickly, it is considered that the proportion of antibodies held by the entire population is low.

• In other words, since the collective immunity has not been acquired yet, if a new corona-infected groups come from abroad, a second infection boom may occur.

17

Japan

• Japan is criticized by international community for its low PCR testing practices to detect the COVID-19.

• There are several hypotheses to explain Japan’s seemingly low rate of infection by the COVID-19.

1. BCG: Thanks to general injection of BCG (Bacille de Calmette et Guérin) to young people, Japanese adults are less vulnerable to the COVID-19. Even though they are infected by the virus, the disease does not develop so severely as in the west.

2. Wearing masks are more effective to prevent the virus than being considered so as before.

3. Several cultural reasons (being silent in temples, not shaking hands )

4. Public sanity customs (washing hands often, taking shoes off in house)

18

“Stay Home”

• Government proclaimed a state of emergency on April 7th.

• Then each regional government strongly suggest local people not to daily commute to their job places by public transportation, and stay away from urban center area.

• Local governments also suggest business to temporarily close.

• Western governments took similar policies by compensating for business loss.

• However, the compensation scheme by Japanese governments are too weak to persuade business owners to close.

• But careful comparison between Japan and the west is needed.

19

“Telework” and “Online Class”

• Some white colors are now working at home by connecting their computers to the companies’ host computers online.

• But majority of jobs are not able to be transferred to online work.

• Students are requested to stay at home to watch professors’ lectures online.

• However, all students are not provided with full-fledged digital equipment.

• Elementary, junior-high, and high schools are closed.

20

Regional Autonomy Revives

• One of the characteristics of Japan's measures against corona is that the central government decides the outline and local governments formulate concrete measures.

• For example, the central government decides to reduce the contact between people in downtown areas, but the specific content of instructions to business is decided by the local government.

• When requesting a holiday to a restaurant, the shopkeeper cannot easily comply with the request unless promised to compensate the loss during the holiday period.

• However, the central government does not provide the local government with the financial resources necessary for loss compensation, and the local government transfers the usage of the multipurpose budget to realize the leave request.

• As a result, various types of leave support measures have been adopted, and local governments each have their own method of contact control.

21

Compensating for loss

• The contact control policy entails suspension of the service industry in general. As a result, sport gyms, entertainment and restaurants were closed.

• A business owner who is forced to take a leave pays the employee a leave allowance. In that case, the government will subsidize a certain percentage. This is called an employment adjustment subsidy.

• However, many sole proprietors and freelancers lost their jobs without any compensation. For example, concerts and plays have been called for to stop because they invite crowds of people. This has left many musicians and actors in debt while losing their income.

22

The center of corona infection has now shifted from the West to emerging countries such as Russia, Central and South America, and India.

23

https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

Mobility Change across nations

24https://media.moneyforward.com/articles/4855

• According to the data collected by Google, mobility change brought by each country’s “lockdown” policy varies drastically.

• Even though Japan did not force people to stay at home by law, mobility in Japan was reduced by 50%.

• Neither Sweden nor Brazil took a formal lockdown policy, mobility in Brazil was reduced by 60%, while mobility in Sweden was reduced by 40%.

• Mobility reduction was the highest in Italy.

25

The larger reduction of mobility seems to be associated with the larger number of deaths by the corona virus infection, which might have given the rise in the claim that the lockdown is not effective to reduce the infection.

The effect of a request for closure on the food and beverage industry varies greatly depending on whether or not the company offered alternatives to in-store food and drink, such as take-out.

26

https://twitter.com/OTE_WALK/status/1270651204511559680?s=20

27

https://www.dir.co.jp/report/research/policy-analysis/regionalecnmy/20190910_021021.pdf

• Over the past decade, the dependence of the lodging industry on foreign tourists has increased from 4% to 17%, but overall, more than 80% of the users are Japanese tourists.

• Then, recovery of tourism crucially depends on the willingness to travel of Japanese guests.

Purposes to travel

28

https://www.dbj.jp/topics/region/industry/files/0000029022_file2.pdf

• With the declaration of a state of emergency to prevent corona infection in early April, work-at-home became widespread, especially in large companies.

• At the same time, most domestic and international business trips were cancelled.

• There are concerns about the impact on the travel industry for the time being,

• At present, the share of business travel is about 17%.

• The recovery of tourism is still essential for the revival of the tourism industry.