‘Toothless’ Japan Lockdown Sees Tentative Signs of Success
‘Toothless’ Japan Lockdown Shows Some Tentative Signs of Success
(Bloomberg) -- With Japan in its second week under a state of emergency, the latest data suggests that a “lockdown” without legal power has still been able to contain citizens’ movements somewhat, offering some tentative encouragement for the country’s bid to slow the coronavirus.
From GPS data to train station usage, the latest figures show people’s movements have slowed since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared a month-long emergency in Tokyo and six other prefectures. While infections are still on the rise, with cases now totaling around 8,000, the nation has so far still avoided the “explosive” surge seen in some other countries. Mortality from the virus remains puzzlingly low.
The number of new cases reported in Tokyo have also been ticking lower, with 149 daily cases reported Thursday, the fifth day that’s been below the record 197 on April 11. That rate of cases means the city of 14 million people is one of the least-affected global hubs worldwide.
But Japan continues to conduct testing at a much slower pace than other countries, making the picture frustratingly unclear on whether the nation is headed for a slow containment, or is on the cusp of a major outbreak.
Japan’s state of emergency has been criticized as toothless for lacking punishments for those who don’t follow stay-at-home requests. Some bars are allowed to remain open. Still, data from Apple’s Maps application shows a drop in routing requests in Tokyo.
The same trend is repeated across the areas that have declared an emergency. On Thursday, Abe was set to expand that to include the whole country, reports said, as cases began to spike in areas not covered by the initial declaration, some of which had independently declared their own states of emergency.
Numbers from rail companies show the footfall of people passing through ticket gates in stations across the nation is massively down from a year ago, showing how the emergency declaration is impacting rail commuters.
GPS information from mobile apps compiled by Agoop Corp. show marked declines in people’s movements at major transit hubs in Tokyo, using April 7, the day before the state of emergency went into effect, as a baseline. But the drop was less than 40% in some areas including in the vast Shinagawa transport hub, indicating more needs to be done. Abe in his emergency address urged citizens to cut contact with others by at least 70% or 80%, warning infections in Tokyo could surge to 80,000 in a month if current rate holds.
And one encouraging but puzzling data point remains Japan’s low overall mortality, by far the lowest in the Group of Seven countries. Compared even to nations like Germany that have earned plaudits for their response, the number of deaths in Japan is minuscule. While various theories exist, there’s no consensus to the underlying reason behind this number.
“It’s not just one factor, it’s multiple factors,” said Yoko Tsukamoto, a professor of infection control at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido. “I don’t think Japanese medical care is better. Compared to the U.S., we do have universal insurance, so people don’t wait to go to the hospital.” She also pointed to lower obesity rates as a possible factor, and highlighted the unexplained lower mortality rate in Japan during the Spanish Flu a century ago.
Kenji Shibuya, a professor at King’s College London and a former chief of health policy at the World Health Organization, also points to healthcare access. But he says the lack of testing is leading to many undiagnosed pneumonia cases and that Japan is still in the early phase of the outbreak. “Testing is not catching up” and Japan is still at the point where it can manage the control of the outbreak, he said, saying the country has “more to come.”
Not all signs are encouraging. While central transport hubs have cleared out and businesses have voluntarily closed, many neighborhoods in Tokyo remain busy, far from the empty thoroughfares seen in other nations. Even as the virus claimed more than 100 lives, including a national celebrity, many in the country of more than 120 million have yet to see firsthand the impact of the virus.
And that complacency may be the biggest risk. If no measures are taken, the nation-wide death toll may rise to around 400,000, Japan’s health ministry estimated, as reported by Kyodo News Wednesday. The report doesn’t represent the official view of the ministry, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.
Government officials are hoping that voluntary compliance will be enough to both reduce the spread of the virus and keep the economy afloat, and that Japan won’t have to resort to draconian lockdowns like in other countries. The country had yet to see an “overshoot”, or explosion in the number of cases, Abe said in parliament Tuesday, insisting that containment measures hadn’t been too late.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.