I can't help but wonder if Japan is being honest about their Coronavirus numbers, and if they would hide the truth to keep the Olympics there when the time comes. After all, this is a country that fed dolphin meat to school children, which had 10-16 times the acceptable mercury level for consumption. If you see the trend of other countries it just makes you wonder what the truth is. I just find is sketchy that a country of over 126 million people has gone from 6 to only 716 Coronavirus cases in six weeks. Here are some comparisons of other countries in only half that amount of time. The following numbers are only for 3 weeks time: USA 331 million people (12 - 2,794 cases) Germany 83 million people (16 - 3,795 cases) France 65 million people (13 - 4,499 cases) Spain 49 million people (3 - 6,391 cases) Italy 60 million people (79 - 21,157 cases) It's amazing how Japan, with over 126 million people crammed into a country around the size of Spain and Italy has contained the spreading so well compared to other countries. I can't help but wonder if their numbers are far bigger than they may know or reveal.
They are lying through their teeth. And they do very very few tests anyway. No need to wonder it is obvious. There are more "miracle" countries out there who have "contained" the virus. Russia, Turkey etc...
I do wonder about the Olympics, I think it is impossible to tell now what they will do but I'm not surprised that as of right now their stance is it will still go ahead as planned as nothing is gained by canceling it right now. I'm sure if we're still talking about canceling events by the time July rolls around then we have much bigger issues than the Olympics anyways.
They've already said they are going to make a decision in mid-May. It's not going to be based on if Japan has tons of the virus - it's going to be based on the global spread of the disease. What is your theory here? That they are going to pretend for 2+ months that it doesn't exist in Japan? They'll just hide thousands of deaths? And if it exists throughout the rest of the world, they'll say "hey, all you other countries that have infected people, come over to Japan for 2 weeks!!" ? This conspiracy doesn't pass even a basic smell test.
Japan has everything going for it here: It's geographically isolated so it's easy to manage flow of people in and out. You see their rates as more similar to Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, etc as opposed to Europe, mainland US, etc. It's a naturally extremely clean society, with everything from bathrooms, subways, and even streets being kept spotless. It's a naturally socially-distancing culture, especially amongst the older population. Its culturally not "rebellious". If the government tells them to stay inside, people listen more than they do in the west. They have experience in this stuff from previous things like this that hit Asia hard. Experience with SARS, H1N1, etc has been credited with other Asian countries getting on top of this more quickly. If there's anywhere in the world that you'd expect to have a lower infection rate than other places, Japan is it.
Some of that may be true, but Japan has more people than Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii combined.
I'm saying the numbers seem a little unrealistic for a country so highly populated compared to most that has been dealing with the virus for a lot longer than most countries outside of of China. They also haven't banned entry for foreign travelers from other hot spots in Europe other than Italy, and that was only done yesterday.
Yeah - but I don't see how that fits an Olympic conspiracy. It's not like they are going to hold an Olympics if the numbers are low in Japan but high everywhere else in the world.
The thing that you are missing is the cultural difference between Japan and China. The Japanese government is quite different than red China, and a conspiracy on the level you are suggesting is unthinkable. I will buy lower case level related to potential low testing levels, but Japan never had the multiple outbreaks we see in some countries, and didn’t have the single mass outbreak you had in South Korea.
If Japan was hiding a lot of cases I think it would be difficult. If the infection rate and severity were similar as other countries it would be obvious in Japanese hospitals. As other posters have noted Japan isn't the same as the PRC. It has a lot of advantages that the PRC doesn't have but also the press and international scrutiny is more prevalent there than the PRC especially a 2nd tier city like Wuhan.
How it doesnt fit? If Japan actually tested people, and had a similar number of cases as SK the Olympics would already have been cancelled. But now that they have so "few" there is still hope.
Japan kept sanatoriums open 30 years after a cure for leprosy was found and every other developed country had long closed them so as the ministry of health could get money.In the meantime they also were killing all the babies.
No they wouldn't have. Nobody has cancelled anything over 4 months out. The olympics are are the singular hardest event to reschedule or postpone. Given the global finances tied up in it, nobody wants it cancelled. There's certainly a chance that by mid May, it will appear that the situation has stabilized and we will have a timeline that makes late July safe. Or maybe it hasn't, either way there's no need to slam the door on them yet.
No one has cancelled things in July yet. There's simply no need. They stated a month ago that they will make the decision in May.
So the fact that an event is June is about to be cancelled is evidence that Japan should already have cancelled an event at the end of July weeks ago? Nothing is gained by saying "Olympics are cancelled" today. For all we know, a vaccine or anti-viral will be developed by May and life will return to relative normal. We simply have no idea right now.
Well I sure hope so but that doesnt mean that Japan doesnt have a billions of dollars incentive to hide the truth. Again unless Japanese people walk around wearing hazmat suits it is simply impossible that Japan doesnt have tens of thousands of cases. Good luck to Japan with the oldest population of the world. Lets see how many deaths they can keep hiding since they refuse to do any detection and hardly any containment.
