@ryansgirl you've been bang on the money re Japan. Just saw that now after Olympics got officially postponed, Tokyo is about to get a lockdown, and cases suddenly spiked.
Thanks for your reply. Yes, it's outrageous what has gone on here. There was an early first wave of what was called Wuhan Virus and some actions like recommending online work, putting curbs on large scale events etc. However, if anyone tried to tell me that Japan simply did not have enough testing capacity as some Japanese people did, I answered no, sorry, Japan has the means to do it including a national health system that is funded by expensive payments each month from residents including foreigners.
The Government did not want any real testing - the proof is small cities in Australia have tested more people than the whole of Japan has done for its population including large cities like Tokyo that has 14 million in the Greater Tokyo area. Plus many accounts from both foreigners and Japanese who were refused tests including people begging for them as their lungs developed problems.
Some Japanese people then said to me that the Government did not want clinics and hospitals flooded by people who only suspected they had the virus. Again - if other developed countries could suddenly do pop-up testing places and other means of testing without having people rush the medical system, then why couldn't Japan? The answer is the Govt didn't want anything to spoil the Olympic party. Well, now the party has been postponed and surprise, surprise, we're hearing about spikes in numbers and the Governor of Tokyo Yurika Koike is threatening a lockdown.
I doubt a real one will happen and to tell the truth, I'm ambivalent about it. I think we do need to consider the business side of lockdowns including the despair of bankruptcy, unemployment rocketing and the social dislocation caused by it, talking about every country that is dealing with this bastard of a virus, plus mental health issues, vulnerable people including those at risk from violence, people with disabilities etc.
From what I've seen here, the complacency in March could have been dealt with promptly. While there's a lot of nonsense spouted about Japan in the media and by people who haven't lived in Japan or live here and have a habit of dissasociating themselves from unpleasant realities especially when they don't understand the Japanese language to any real extent, there is a cultural inclination to accept monitoring and lack of privacy for the community good still in Japan.
I don't like it usually because 'the community good' issue is often twisted for busybodies' purposes or police officers with too much time on their hands to give 2 examples, but the Japanese tendency to accept it could have been put to good use by telling the elderly to get off the subways/trains and just stroll around their local area if they want to get out. They could have got serious about telling families to control the schoolkids who took the school shutdowns as excuse to hang out in numbers in entertainment areas like Shibuya and Shinjuku. Likewise uni students should have been told by their institutions that they were expected to behave with intelligence and not use the time off to gather in groups in those and other areas.
There is a lot of co-dependence in this society and uni students for example have far more to do with authority figures at their institutions than their counterparts in western countries. This could have been done. Some employers made their employees work from home but others thought and think it's fine for their employees to pack crowded trains in the mornings and evenings. Some adjustment for flexi-time would have made a big difference.
And the whole mask wearing culture is creating a dangerous complacency. The Japanese got into the habit of wearing masks because they go to work sick. Wearing them in times of epidemics and pandemics seems great and responsible but masks are only as good as your careful use of them. Taking them off and putting them on uncleaned surfaces and then your mouth, wearing them next to coughers and sneezers so their aerosols gets on your mask and you touch it, are fairly common here. So are idiots breathing down your neck at supermarkets and stations etc even when there is space.
I told a stupid woman to get out from right behind me only the other day. We were in a supermarket at a time where she and I were the only people lined up. So what did this numpty do? She stood right behind me. I said in Japanese firmly but politely to please step back but she just exclaimed 'Mask, mask.' Yeah, whatever you do don't reply in a correct Japanese sentence although I am using your language correctly..... You wouldn't believe how this stupidity repeats itself around Tokyo and in Japan at the moment. There is a kind of psychological rigidity at work here - many Japanese don't really understand that crowding around other people even when there is space is quite dysfunctional.
Keep your head up.
