Japan set to ban entry from the U.S. as early as next week | Hacker News Reader

Japan set to ban entry from the U.S. as early as next week

asahi.com

255 pointsafrcnc199 comments

With all these provisions: if you've decided it would be a good idea to do, why not do it now? If it's a good idea now, it's going to be twice as good of an idea in three days. And it's going to be four times as good of an idea in six. Etc. Over and over again the organs of governments announce decisions that would be a good idea today that don't come into effect until a few days from now. Which means that the harm done will be doubled/tripled/... by the time the rule goes into effect.

I mean I don't like this. I think Japan is great and I'm an American so this is a little embarassing. But if the Japanese have decided this is good to do, they should have done it yesterday. The next best time would be today.

(I do wonder if it's not quite a bit too late for restrictions like this to be effective. Japan already has 1200 cases, and I have heard they have a US-like approach to testing -- that is, it's shit. Unless they are magically different from every other country, the disease is already spreading in communities there. They will ultimately be forced to take the same steps that all other countries have taken to stop the virus, and that includes controlling the movements not just of foreign nationals/Americans, but also their own citizens, into and out of the country.)

>The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States.

That's probably the answer. Some amount of heads-up is owed to Japanese nationals. A Taiwanese friend was in a similar situation w.r.t. Taiwan closing borders. Uncertainty of timeline and parameters can be incredibly disruptive for citizens trying to travel back to their home country. They might not have permanent lodging in the U.S. (students, tourists, visiting scholars/scientists and more).

>That's probably the answer. Some amount of heads-up is owed to Japanese nationals.

Why not ban foreigners immediately, then ban nationals a few days later?

Because some of us foreigners live here.

There's still some groups of people you'd want to let in. For example, someone married to or in a long term relationship with a national who is outside the country right now. Or even foreigners that live there but are nationals yet.

Does the virus care about those groups? Either close the border or don’t. A family member can carry the virus end just as easily as a tourist. If the reasons for closing it are to prevent the spread, then having a bunch or exceptions defeats the purpose.

If it is small numbers, you can test for symptoms on arrival. The problem is leaving people in impossible situations abroad, overstaying their visa, not having the means to pay for accommodations (particularly if hotels close), etc.

You've got asymptomatic super spreades just like in the case of SARS. The impossible situations abroad could be solved through the embassy. My country is flying in citizens from abroad in military planes.

The virus is still quite rare in every country. Unchecked it has a growth factor of around 3 to 4 new infections per case but simply reducing the risk of infection by 80% is enough to eventually reduce the number of active infections as seen in South Korea and China.

The question is mostly what vectors of infections to allow vs eliminate. And in that context banning travel from high risk areas is useful but not that important after community spreading has started. However, this changes based on how widespread the disease is inside each country. Thus, the delayed ban.

PS: Japan is a very interesting case, with the number of new infections being fairly steady over the last 2 weeks.

But extroverted people that travel have a 3.14159265 times higher chance of catching the disease than those who don’t travel.

Can they ban Japanese citizens from entering the country? It would be against Charter rights (what people in the US may call constitutional rights) here in Canada. I would be surprised if it would be different in Japan.

Regardless, if they ban foreigners, it may become a moot point. With not enough people travelling to and from, flights get cancelled and people get stranded, unless the government provides evacuation flights.

EDIT: This was the gist of Canada's plea that everyone gets back home while they can.

> Airlines have cancelled flights. New restrictions may be imposed with little warning. Your travel plans may be severely disrupted and you may be forced to remain outside of Canada longer than expected...We recommend that Canadian travellers return to Canada via commercial means while they remain available.

https://twitter.com/FP_Champagne/status/1238876190460477442

https://globalnews.ca/news/6677983/coronavirus-canada-travel...

India did this two weeks ago, with a 48 hour notice and I was quite furious about it. Closing borders to foreign nationals is one thing, but closing borders to one’s own citizens is violating a fundamental right. I had my brother and mother visiting me and had to rush them to the airport and get them on the next flight back to India to ensure they get back home before the deadline.

Furthermore, the announcement was made by the minister of health on Twitter and hours later an undated announcement appeared on their website. As unprofessional as it gets. Decisions like these are usually made by the Ministry of external affairs, whose twitter account I was following in anticipation of something like this.

because some people hold dual citizenship or are married / have family in both countries in which case you'd probably not want to separate them.

Well at the very least you would leave 24h to account for people that are in a flight on their way to Japan or in a connection.

There are always corner cases like (1) a Japan-based non-PR/citizen professional who's on a work trip to the US who needs a couple days to get back to Japan, or (2) someone's partner who again is based in Japan but is currently in the US traveling temporarily for work/family/leisure. Typically spouses of citizens/PRs can tag along through travel restrictions but a romantic/domestic partner will not have this avenue available (also spouses traveling alone without their PR/Citizen partner)

I missed that bit in the announcement. Thanks for calling it out!

The article is somewhat unclear but it says the new measures apply to foreign nationals. The part about Japanese nationals seems to refer to an earlier restriction (14 day self-quarantine).

This restriction ("The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States.") isn't the restriction on entry that the headline is about.

This is an existing restriction which requires self-isolation:

The government had already started moving from March 26 to restrict entry for those entering from anywhere in the United States.

The restriction applies even to Japanese nationals returning from the United States.

All new arrivals are required to self-quarantine themselves for two weeks at their homes or hotels and other accommodation under provisions laid down by the head of the local quarantine office.

The new restriction applies to "all foreign nationals travelling on U.S. passports or who have been in the United States for the past two weeks."

> why not do it now?

I'm guessing to give people time to alter their plans etc.

> Unless they are magically different from every other country

They seem to be! Nobody really knows why, but even if their testing is inadequate you'd still expect to be seeing a lot more deaths if the virus was rapidly spreading. More info: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/20/national/corona...

That's a week old story. Now it seemed to be not the case.

> Unless they are magically different from every other country

Maybe being a conscientious nation-state, with a culture that prioritises the collective, cleanliness and mask usage, is close enough to magic.

Maybe, but SK, Taiwan, and Singapore all are as well and it wasn't enough in any of those countries. Widespread testing, border closing, and, at least in the case of SK, some measure of lockdown were also required.

Not sure why this is downvoted; Japan isn't significantly different from any of the places you mentioned

I would say Japan is a bit cleaner than SK. Also a lot of the cult-religions seemed to have played a big part in spreading the disease.

Some time ought to be given to people have a chance to get "home" before they close entry. Some countries have closed borders rather abruptly that thousands were stuck in transit.

It seems like you could close the border except to those returning home. It doesn't seem like a delay of implementation is required to accomplish repatriation.

Announcing a blockade with aircraft in flight could easily make things far worse.

Travellers, and carriers, now have at least a couple of days to change plans.

Anything is better than nothing and as far as the time frame goes... I'm sure they have bureaucracy like anybody else. Sometimes it takes time to get things done.

>they should have done it yesterday.

The visa waiver program was canceled a week ago, so in pratice there is a ban already. This doesnt change much.

I think there may be an important cultural difference in play here.

I got fucked by that indecisiveness. Couldn't get a visa extension in the country I was living in without my country of citizenship closing its borders.

Country of citizenship shut down national airlines but let foreign ones keep flying in and out, banned tourists from flying out, banned foreigners from flying in, instituted a quarantine for people flying in. Absolutely everything they could think to do other than shut the damn border. And they have the gall to have "dont fly" up in a big red notice on all of their travel shit. I didn't want to! You forced me!

Now instead of being at home getting meals dropped off at my closed door and being in complete isolation from the outside world the entire time; I've been in a series of public transports and crowded public locations, stuck in quarantine house sitting for a friend of a friend, with more temporary housing and transportation scheduled to take place in the coming weeks. I'll be more active and in more crowds during this pandemic than I was in the entire previous year. My previous lifestyle was basically "lockdown" anyway. But noooo they have to play games with the borders so some dingus that decided March 10 was a good time to take the wife and kids on vacation doesn't get a chance to kick up a stink in the media.

Kicker is that the country I was living in issued emergency visas to everyone still there a couple days after I left anyway.

> If it's a good idea now, it's going to be twice as good of an idea in three days.

If I had a crystal ball, six months ago we could’ve picked a good date. But that doesn’t mean I should have shut things down sixth months ago. We’re asking our governments to look ahead and make decisions.

Shutting things down six months ago would have had no beneficial effect. Closing national borders globally in January would have had an extremely beneficial effect, in that domestic economies could have proceeded normally while China eradicated the infection. At the current point, there's really nothing to balance. Every extra day you're open is an extra several days you'll need to remain closed, and an extra 1.2-1.4x lives lost. Closing later is strictly worse than closing now.

They've been quarantining US arrivals for some time already.

You posted this late Saturday night (article is from Saturday afternoon), "next week" starts Sunday (they don't mean in 7 days), literally 1-2 hours away. What much faster do you want?

I’m going to say it’s not effect immediately because it was severely impact people who are already in transit ?

I also think that while the case rate is on the up there, people were being much more careful then in other countries and everyone was wearing masks. I think the mask and hand sanitiser thing helps.

Japan seems to be making a rather large number of masks domestically (tens of millions) and has secured 600 million already, so it’s a luxury they can afford it seems. Here is the source: https://www.meti.go.jp/english/covid-19/mask.html

Edit: I’m going to go out on a limb and say, it seems very probable that wearing a mask is helping stop the spread of the disease pretty dramatically. We will find out in later studies I guess

I mean, I can't speak to how widespread the news is but Australia and NZ have already closed their borders to all foreigners. Europe has done the same, Peru etc etc. Should come as no surprise to anyone that Japan has done the same. If anything it has done it very late in the game.

Majority of the spread for unaffected countries is going to be inbound from the outside... In Australia, the inbound cases for corona from the US were like 50% of the total inbound. Which lead me to believe that the US is in more trouble than the US figures stated given the proportion and lack of testing.

Atlest they didn't close borders to their own citizens, that's what some countries have done, and I feel is a terrible thing to do, closing doors on one's own nationals.

That is good insight regards US numbers. I hope an estimate can be made of US numbers from the number of US arrivals in other countries who turned out positive.

Not too long ago a headline like this would be absolutely massive news. Now it barely even registers. Crazy times...

I like to think of it as a good indicator that people do often consider the circumstances rather than just have a knee jerk reaction.

I wonder if this pandemic will have long lasting effects on international travel. It seems possible that going into the future stricter health screening may become routine and certain travel restrictions may stay in place for a prolonged period of time. Same goes for certain other measures I guess.

Not that long lasting, at least for country/continental blocks. As soon as vaccines are widely available, I'd expect that the only thing that remains from the corona crisis is a visa/immigration requirement of proof of vaccination/immunity.

A basic rule-of-thumb is this is a 1 in 100 year event; because the last time something comparable happened was the Spanish Flu.

However, a hypothesis that international travel is the major enabler reduces this to more of a 1 in 20 year event (SARS, MERS, Ebola, etc, etc all were near misses that were a little less slippery). Swine flu was also pretty bad.

We might be able to afford this once a century. We can't afford to do this once every 20 years. It is quite possible that it makes economic sense to permanently cripple international travel by introducing mandatory 2-week quarantines on arrival or somesuch.

I'd say it makes more sense to lift poor countries/regions out of poverty and introduce basic sanitation/hygiene standards as well as to reduce mass animal farming and antibiotic/antiviral usage there.

Prevent stuff going bad at the root cause rather than trying to limit its effects.

As a potential counter point - pandemics are generally rare. And are hard to test at airports for until it's too late.

Also you can't test for every disease, especially new ones. The best you could do is a several week quarantine on all incoming travelers I would think?

Do you think it's going to be viable moving forward to quarantine as standard operating procedure?

not for any country where tourism is a significant source of revenue.

Tourism is incredibly popular and makes up something like 10% of the world GDP. An outcome that permanently ends international tourism is very unlikely, especially given the number of previous pandemics that haven't caused that.

Yes. With the 15 minute test and this being a major issues for years sans a vaccine? I imagine there will be LOTS of testing going on related to travel, work, and all sorts of things.

Some airports already checked your temperature on entry. It might become more common now.

With all we know about our citizens I would love to see a wordlwide pandamic prevention travel policy that isn't activated but rather part of the fabric of travel. It could be automatic to start screening and potentially banning travel from somewhere reporting an outbreak.

Instead we had to wait for all the dominoes to fall and the lethargic arm of bureaucracy to move into action.

With a more rapid and precise response we might be able to avoid huge shutdowns like we have been seeing.

I mean, it’s not like it’s because we’re going to war with them. They’re just trying to protect their people. A lot of whom are elderly.

If we were smart we would ban people from leaving and entering the US, instead of waiting for another country to ban travelers from here.

Banning people from leaving would be the true dystopian action.

Japan is not anywhere close to the first to do this.

Many countries in SE Asia have pretty much banned any foreigner from entering. If you are a foreign resident, you go into quarantine for 2 weeks.

The fact that Japan is only banning US travelers, instead of banning all foreigners, is pretty newsworthy.

Plenty of other countries are already on that list.

Nope. Over 30 countries are banned: https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restricti...

If anything, it's remarkable that US wasn't already banned together with Schengen countries last week.

I looked into additional entry ban countries since other posters here seemed to wonder about non-US countries.

"As of March 27th

Foreigners who have been in the following countries in the prior 14 days: Iceland, Ireland, [EDIT]Andorra, Italy, Iran, Estonia, Austria, Netherlands, San Marino, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Vatican, France, Belgium, Portugal, Malta, Monaco, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg.

Additionally, Hubei and Zhejiang provinces in China, as well as holders of passports from these regions.

Also a bunch of regions in South Korea (大邱広域市，慶尚北道の清道郡，慶山市，安東市，永川市，漆谷テグケイシヨウホクドウチヨンドキヨンサンアンドンヨンチヤンチルゴク郡，義城郡，星州郡，軍威郡ウィソンソンジユグンウィ)

And lastly, passengers on the Westerdam cruise ship.

Source: Japan Ministry of Justice -- http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001316538.pdf

I’m a bit surprised they are letting people from China in at all. Wouldn’t a blanket ban like they are doing with the USA just be easier and more reliable to implement?

My understanding is that new cases of the virus in the coastal cities of China are quite low, and that they have a heavy handed testing/monitoring system in place with personal accountability given to the party reps stationed in each residence complex.

Also, Japan-China will always have trade and geopolitical considerations, for better or for worse. Lots of Japanese companies have offices and manufacturing plants in China that they'd like to continue operating as well as they can.

They’ve shut off zhejiang, which is the richest coastal province and the heavy weight of trade...not to mention it abuts shanghai. I’m guessing that travel between japan and China is effectively disabled along with the rest of the world, given that even if a Chinese wanted to visit japan, they are looking at a 2 week quarantine on the way back, perhaps also on the way there.

Ah good point sorry about that.

You're right about 2 week quarantine when a traveler gets back to China. Also I believe inter-province travel is quite restricted right now adding to said difficulty of travel.

Japan had invalidated all travel visas given to China.

It is a ban, just not in name.

> Foreigners who have been in the following countries in the prior 14 days: Iceland, Ireland, Angola, Italy, Iran, Estonia, Austria, Netherlands, San Marino, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Vatican, France, Belgium, Portugal, Malta, Monaco, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg.

Thanks for the list. Angola looks an outlier, though. Would it be Andorra instead?

Yes, it says "アンドラ公国" which is andora principality.

Darn it I even looked it up but spelled it as "Andola" (Who'd have thought that I'd make a classic Japanese L-R mistake!) which didn't register a result on google.

Thanks for the correction!

Part of 3 Blue 1 Brown's excellent latest video simulates travel restrictions and suggests they're not very effective: https://youtu.be/gxAaO2rsdIs?t=777 . However, that was only for cutting travel between all communities by a factor of 4, rather than completely banning travel between two particular communities / countries.

Do you mind giving a tldw on what effective measures look like?

Watched it, no surprise regarding effective measures:

- Good hygiene, especially after going to relatively crowded areas, ex. your local grocery

- Reduce the frequency of commute to said areas

- Social distancing

The video is worth a watch though, I would recommend it if you can spare the 25min.

It was a great video and I agree with your conclusion. However it’s important to note he specifically states not to generalise his findings as he’s not an epidemiologist and human interactions are often much more complex. I personally don’t see how they would be effective in this instance, but they may have indirect/occult effects not obvious to those without the extra data The Japanese have.

Anyone know what Japan's policy is regarding U.S. military service members stationed / on shore leave in Japan?

That seems like a potentially serious back door for covid-19 spread. Especially given the tight quarters on naval vessels.

"Pacific Fleet orders 14-day gap between port visits for 7th Fleet ships during coronavirus outbreak" [1]

See PDF file titled "CNFJ Liberty Restrictions effective March 25, 2020". Looks like liberty is limited to on-base. [2]

[1]: https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacific-fleet-orders-14...

[2]: https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrj.html/

I have been watching the Cuomo NYS briefings for the past two weeks. This is what leadership looks like. He fucked up early with the "we won't shut down the economy" bit but has come around. Similarly, Gov. Pritzker of Illinois has been on top of this, apart from his fuckup of allowing the primary elections to to go through putting people on top of each other to maintain a regular election cycle.

Mike DeWine has been the gold standard in kicking the primary election down the road. Elections should be held by mail-in ballot, I have been doing it in Illinois since 2004. Why Illinois decided to have a bunch of people crammed together in the Lincoln Park library last week boggles the mind and will be a stain on Pritzker's and Illinois otherwise reasoned response to this health emergency.

Cuomo is what talking a big talk looks like. Leadership is SK, Taiwan, S'pore, and yes, even China. Solving problems is leadership. Posturing is something else, and it's what Cuomo's been doing.

He is responding to the crisis in his state. He is:

1. Publicly acknowledging the factual state on the ground. 2. Explaining what his administration is doing to combat the crisis, including his asks from the Feds for his foreseeable needs. 3. Calling up retired healthcare workers to address a soon to be overtaxed medical situation. 4. Attempting to prevent panic as NY state and NYC are the U.S. epicenter of this emergency by calling in federal resources to address the apex of cases in his jurisdiction.

What counter examples can you cite as a better response to this issue?

> What counter examples can you cite as a better response to this issue?

The ones I cited in the comment you replied to. China, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea.

Like, I honestly can't think how Cuomo could do worse without actively trying to. He is observing the situation and doing all the obvious things any right-thinking person would, if they were totally unable to make any predictions, had no expert advisers, and were limited to reacting to only a point in time snapshot of reality.

The only reason he doesn't look like the biggest disaster of governance in the history of the state is because both the guy above (Trump) and the guy below (De Blasio) are even more foolish. Anchoring effect at work, nothing more.

Results matter. And the results are that this state already has nearly twice as many cases per capita as Italy, which is a widely acknowledged catastrophe. And we're way behind them on implementing lockdown.

Apart from those examples cited:

1. Are relatively homogeneous populations, unlike say NYC. 2. Have a long term behavioural and a culture of wearing masks in public due to pollution and recent experiences of epidemics such as SARS or MERS. 3. Are relatively authoritarian societies unlike the free-wheeling freedoms that U.S. citizens experience.

Why would you use them as counterexamples to what the U.S. population should adapt to in short course? It is almost as if you picked the populations that are accustomed to social controls and regular mask wearing, which is very effective, and use that as a dig against a novel approach being applied to the U.S. or indeed the rest of the world outside Asia as being the norm.

NY will probably end up being the most severely affected by this virus out of any state/province-level governing region in the entire world. We will cross 3k cases per million residents tonight and growth is still climbing. You are simply not going to be able to convince me that the guy in charge is doing a good job, no matter what kind of reasons you bring up r.e. homogeneous populations or whatever. That's post-hoc rationalization as far as I'm concerned. Results matter and that's all there is to it.

> relatively authoritarian societies

Relatively authoritarian societies like Taiwan that switched parties in a recent election, or SK that impeached their head of state not too long ago.

the only metric that seems to differentiate any country that has "done well" vs "done poorly" is how quickly they acted.

The actions overall follow the same trend - it's how quickly you took those actions and how sever you made them that matters.

Cuomo projects confidence. But he doesn't have enough means to solve it. He can ask, but it is not within range of his power to make that significant.

What US currently lacks in its response to COVID-19 is coordination, every states are sending different even contradictory message.

That leadership has to be from top down.

No surprise here; Americans aren't taking as seriously as they should while Japanese people are very clean and highly protective of their health. Hopefully people are still allowed to go back to Japan if that's where their home is and only travel for pleasure or business is banned.

Japanese people are also not taking this very seriously. People in Kyoto and Tokyo were out in large numbers last weekend, no social distancing measures visible.

Doesn’t logic dictate that all international travel time and from all countries be stopped for a few months?

Even for foreign nationals and those with a legal right to residency? Many nations have thousands and thousands of citizens spread all throughout the world for all kinds of different reasons. Some are on humanitarian missions, some are journalists, some have families abroad. Should they be denied a right to return to their legal country of citizenship, even if they submit to quarantine measurers? A comprehensive ban on international travel is perhaps more aggressive of a measure than it seems on its face.

You can have legal rights, but doesn't mean airlines should offer you a seat.

One improvement over a full travel ban would be mandatory government-run 2-week(?) quarantine every time someone arrives from abroad.

Australia is now requiring a 2 week hotel isolation

Except the hotel is in the middle of the city, and there are other non-quarantined residents living in the same hotel who are almost certainly going to get sick. I think the correct solution is what Vietnam has done -- convert military barracks into a quarantine centers so that suspected cases cannot infect the general public.

This is also much better than the self-isolation policy that they had until a few days ago (because food and other basic services are provided to the isolated people, so there's no risk of people coming into contact with others when trying to get groceries delivered).

Australian here: It’s not a given that the other hotel residents are going to get sick.

The quarantine residents are bussed in directly from customs / border control and isolated to separate parts of the hotel.

Their rooms are locked down (they don’t get the key), they don’t get in room cleaning (they can get their laundry and fresh supplies dropped off / picked up in a controlled way from outside the room periodically), and they get room service delivered / picked up outside the room. Staff have/are being trained in performing those duties.

All paid for by the government, too. It’s not ideal for anyone, but for the community at large it’s the best possible policy given how many new infections were coming from inbound travellers.

It also works well for the hotels which have very high vacancy rates due to lack of tourists.

I'm also Australian. I was referring to the previous decision to put everyone from the Norwegian Jewel into the Swissotel right in the middle of the Sydney CBD[1]. The brand-new policy you're referring to was announced only slightly before I posted my original comment (I wasn't aware of the change at the time and thus wasn't referring to it).

[1]: https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/cor...

That's Japan's current policy for American travelers - they're upgrading it to a ban.

Seems normal since we are now the epicenter. I welcome it since this sort of decision might wake up our decision makers on where we really are.

if i was any given country i would have banned entry from all other countries 14 days ago!

airports, shut!

They have people pulling the emergency button on the subways if someone if coughing.

I would think the only people traveling to Japan these days are Japanese people. I wonder if the ban would also include people with Japanese passports.

I was due to fly to and from the UK in April with a ticket purchased months ago, I won't have been the only one.

As a Canadian I think there's a pretty strong possibility that we get the virus under control while it still rages in the US for quite some time. I'm not really sure what that will mean.

I have seen this mentioned, but I'm honestly now sure why Canadians think this.

What special measures did Canada take early on? What makes Canada exceptional compared to the US who at least banned some flights?

The only difference is that the media doesn't absolutely despise Trudeau, but we're effectively the same. The US is actually surpassing us in testing at this point and some of our most populous provinces have multiple day backlogs in their testing. Our population isn't quite all Florida, but Vancouver very much acted like the Florida of Canada up until just recently. Sure, we can smugly point to our healthcare system, but our healthcare system hasn't scaled to anywhere the capacity the US has in regards to testing.

Don't get me wrong, I hope you're right, but I am not sure where the Canadian smug exceptionalism comes from in this case. From a policy perspective we're basically the same as the US.

I'm actually kind of worried we'll get it worst here because in January we were in active denial: "the real pandemic is racism" mode. In February we were shipping PPE from our own reserves to China to help them out. In March, we took the "enhanced" screening measure of giving travellers a pamphlet in the airport. We are so comically behind the curve that our only consolation price is to look at the worst of the US media for consolation that maybe we won't have it so bad.

It wasn't until the global markets took a nose dive that Canada really realized this might actually affect them.

> The US is actually surpassing us in testing at this point and some of our most populous provinces have multiple day backlogs in their testing.

The US testing numbers are largely due to NY and WA. Per capita the US is still behind most countries. States like MI that are turning into a hot spot are way behind on testing. Florida, our 3rd most populous state with 21 million residents, has tested only 40k people.

https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/12440163161276620...

I don't really understand this either. As someone who's in Seattle, it seemed like BC lagged 2-3 days behind every action taken in Washington (e.g. closing schools).

I keep seeing Canadians say their response was magnitudes better but I don't see why.

I don't really see Washington being a problem, it's other US states. Plus I see the provinces as being way easier to isolate than US states.

Even if BC lagged Washington by 2-3 days in Earth Time (so to speak), this likely translates into faster-than-Washington response with respect to where they were at on the virus incident growth curve.

Because orange man bad

I would say Canada has seemed to avoid so far what is a really large outbreak like in NYC, which is starting to look pretty grim. With more outbreaks starting in other areas like say Detroit (and compare that to south Detroit) I think the US could be battling this for some time.

Canada has a massive backlog of testing, similar to the US. The current number of cases doesn't reflect reality.[1]

[1]https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/03/27/ontario-has-m...

Seems like a logical decision. Japan has managed to avoid a massive outbreak so far.

Not anymore. Tokyo is already [edit: entered the hockey-stick part of] an exponential trajectory as of around 5 days ago.

https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en

Every press conference ending with Koike (Tokyo governor) or Abe (PM) babbling along with no material countermeasures being announced has been making me feel all the more dreadful. They needed to have already shut down everything long ago. We will be joining the world's other major outbreak cities in a week or two.

All countries started on an exponential trajectory.

The interesting thing is that like many people, they guessed that a lot of people would be contaminated during the 3-day weekend a week ago (great weather, cherry blossoms, and last carefree moments for people who will start their first job on April 1st). It's not innocent that Abe called for postponing the Olympics just before that weekend. Koike could have asked the parks and popular venues (department stores) to be closed a week ago, but instead only asked people to refrain from going. What was poised to happen happened, and the number of infected people exploded half a week later.

We haven't even seen the numbers from last weekend.

It takes on average 5 days for infected people to show symptoms, and they only test once you have fever for 3-4 days (I can verify this first-hand), then 1-2 days for the test results to come back. That 9-11 days average.

We will see a spike later this week based on last weekends warm weather and hanami.

I am currently in Japan and I can tell you it's like nothing happened. Today is especially a nice sunny day and the park I'm at is crowded with people enjoying their annual Hanami picnics. I am being told that since people are wearing masks then it should be OK. Although it looks like the majority aren't wearing them, probably because they are impossible to buy now.

We will find out the results after 2 weeks I guess.

I’m also in Japan. I’m shocked at how complacent people have been. It’s like city after city worldwide, people know what’s coming down the tracks but think it doesn’t apply to them. If we dodge this bullet it will be an absolute miracle.

That's more cases for sure over the last few days, but it's not exponential growth (yet). Sure, it's likely going to grow like that, but the recent data isn't evidence for it.

My only question is: "Why hasn't the world done this two weeks ago?"

The US is failing to test on a massive scale, and the outbreak has been growing exponentially, week after week. Control measures are being taken, but on an inconsistent, fragmented basis.

Every good idea should have been done before it was done. Better late than never. At least testing has ramped up in the US considerably now.

As someone in the US, I wish we would implement a lot more in the way of domestic travel restrictions right now. If we’re not willing to do that, then who can blame other countries for restricting us?

The SF Bay Area did. We are 12 days into lockdown here. In a week or so we will know if it worked.

A lot of bay area tech companies implemented work from home policies a week before that.

The US is currently testing ~100k people each day:

https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/

The failure at the beginning was not to have capacity ready. The huge US medical system and its very, very large medical industry has finally gotten pointed in the right direction in regards to testing.

The testing capacity is good now but the response to the actual pandemic is a disaster. If you have the president talk about packed churches on Easter you can soon save yourself the testing because it's going to be hard to find someone who isn't infected

It's important for the president to communicate the message that lockdowns are bad and they're trying to get people out of their homes as soon as possible. I don't think anyone believes the president is actually going to pack churches on Easter if there's still a large outbreak at the time, but that'll be 4 weeks after the national stay at home initiative started, so it's pretty in line with the durations other countries have set.

> It's important for the president to communicate the message that lockdowns are bad

Why? I think we can all figure out by ourselves that lockdowns aren't fun. The people losing their jobs don't need to be told that - they have better experience than anyone else.

Leadership means communicating difficult truths and convincing people to do the right thing even when it's unpleasant.

In order to effectively communicate difficult truths and convince people to do the right thing, you have to acknowledge their pain and present a plan for ending it. To just say "you have to lock down, too bad so sad" would be incredibly cruel and ineffective.

Some countries have said they’ll re-evaluate around the middle of April. Generally in the sense of potentially easing very strict lockdowns of the ‘“don’t go outside your house except to the supermarket unless you’re essential personnel” variety. Nowhere else but the US is claiming that as an end date, as far as I know.

Every national government I'm aware of has officially set a hard end date for their lockdown measures, even if they're unofficially pretty sure things will be extended. Even Italy and Spain.

So from a legal point of view, in democratic countries, it would not be feasible or wise to say “you’re shut down indefinitely”. The normal practice is to say “til date X, but restrictions will remain beyond that and we might extend”. Nowhere but the US is anyone promising an end date (and even there it’s just the wacky clown-President; in practice the civil service is implicitly contradicting him).

Not an end to the lockdown, just the end of the validity of the current State of Emergency declaration, which can then be renewed.

Here in Portugal, they've already stated the lockdown will remain in effect at least until the end of May, and haven't given any hard end dates.

I was tested this past Thursday and came back negative yesterday. Two weeks ago I was exhibiting the classic symptoms. Last week I had five days of noticeable shortness of breath, lethargy, sinus infection and a dry cough. I wanted to get tested a week ago this past Monday but did not meet the criteria. Now I am awaiting the availability of serological tests to see if I have the antibodies. I pulled the kids out of school on March 10th, ahead of our local district closing on March 13, and we have been self-quarantined since then. If I had the virus, the recent testing would likely not measure me as a positive case due to low viral expression.

The fact that the U.S. did not have widespread surveillance testing since mid-January is criminally inept. China bought us eight weeks of ramp-up time which was bungled by our Executive branch who was more worried about the economy and stock market reaction than people's lives.

Historically, this will likely go down as the largest failure of public health management in U.S. since our founding. After this passes, there needs to be large scale accountability for the CDC, FDA and the Executive branch that has brought us to the collapse of public health which will likely cost millions of U.S. lives.

To add fuel to the fire, you could have mentioned the initial response from the executive branch: "It's basically like the flu."

Over two weeks ago I was correcting people who are otherwise intelligent but "executive branch supporters" to use a potential euphemism, to get their elder parents outside of the city.

One of these friends has someone close to them in the ICU on a respirator as I write this. Are they any less supporters of the executive branch? I think you already know the (depressing) answer.

China bought us eight weeks of ramp up time? Was that before or after suppressing information about the issue for almost two months including getting WHO to claim there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission in January?

The experts in charge should not need a formal news release from China before taking action. While China may very well be at fault for an initial coverup, using that fact as an excuse for inaction is inexcusable.

You may have the right of way walking across the street, but if a car runs over you, you're still dead regardless of what your "rights" are.

China fucking up and being slow to react does not excuse everyone else doing it too. And, yes, eight weeks after China stopped lying.

After

Reliance on the WHO is insanity given their kow-towing to Chinese political pressure. The U.S. intelligence agencies were on this in January.

See https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/25/coronavirus-worst-intel...

We had 56 days (8 weeks) to prepare. To ramp up masks, gowns, ventilators and possible treatments such as hyrdoxycholorquine/Z-pak as a treatment despite the lack of double blind peer reviewed data. This is an unmitigated disaster brought on by a failure of national leadership.

On that note, I am watching Dr. Who "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" on PBS in self-isolation to distract me from the unfolding horror that is our hospitals.

It took a very long time to get started. Check the history using the news headlines as your timeline. The Federal government rejected non-US tests/guidelines, while the CDC worked on a test. The test didn't work. The U.S. State of Washington had a solution, but the Federal government rejected it. Meanwhile some countries were conducting tests like crazy and were able to do some initial containment. In The U.S. we continued to go to the beach (Trump country), we went to farmer's markets (DNC country), and neither U.S. political culture made any effort to involve the authority figures to force citizens to stay apart.

Because Freedom.

Nice job, U.S.

I write this holed up in the U.S. city with the most infections and deaths at the moment.

Stay safe. This too shall pass.

> The US is currently testing ~100k people each day:

Given how many people are still sharing their stories of "I am symptomatic, and I can't get tested, because I'm not literally dying in hospital", I daresay, we are not doing a good enough job of it.

It's way too late for widespread testing to stop the initial big spread. We missed that window thanks to lapses in leadership, technical mistakes, and bureaucratic nonsense. Statisticians and doctors estimate that 600,000 to 1,200,000 are already infected.

Control measures are supposed to take place on an inconsistent, fragmented basis - American states have significant independent sovereignty.

And far different densities, demographics, levels of travel, airport accessibility, etc.

As lamentable the initial response has been at the federal level, I have take some solace in seeing more local leadership successfully emerge.

This is a cross-state issue. Unless we close state borders, inept handling of the outbreak by one state endangers the rest.

There's no option available with zero danger. The question is how we want to weigh reducing the danger against compromising our values, and state sovereignty is a very important American value.

What they don't have, though, are significant resources. A US state might have ideas on how to deal with coronavirus, but it would struggle to pay for it without significant federal aid, so would need to wait on the federal government. They're in a very different situation to, say, an EU country, where nearly all revenue goes to the member state, not the EU.

As an example, Ireland and Alabama have about the same population. Alabama's revenues are about $10bn per year. Ireland's revenues are about 80bn EUR (90bn $) per year.

A couple of weeks ago, Ireland announced a shutdown of everything but essential businesses, with a package of financial supports (chiefly paying minimum wage to everyone put out of work, plus supplementing up to 450 euro per week of the salaries of temporarily laid off workers where the employer continues to pay them) which will cost ~4bn over a 12 week period. In addition, it made extra resources available to the health service social services and so on which may come out costing about 3bn. And the government has signalled that this is really only the start; more billions will be required. In practice, this will be paid for in the short term by issuing debt.

Alabama, by contrast, couldn't do this sort of ~full shutdown without federal support; at a cost of $8bn it would be almost its entire annual revenue, and US states have very limited means of raising debt. US states really had to wait for the federal government to move before they could take serious measures (or else risk total economic devastation).

Japan has had a low infection rate because of their strong mask-wearing culture. Western countries are experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 infections compared to Asian countries because of the West's aversion to wearing masks. Please help me spread this message http://www.maskssavelives.org/

It seems more likely at this point that they have a low infection rate because they aren’t testing.

Their positivity rate (5.1%) suggests otherwise.

I don't know how many times this is going to come up on these page but this is unsupported by any study for the kind of masks people actually wear and for a non-clinical setting, and anyone who has spent any time here will know it's rubbish.

Just last night my wife was telling me about a conversation with her work colleagues about masks. She wears one per day, one to work and the same one for the way home - this is already going outside the bounds of any study I've read. Her colleagues told her that she must be rich to use that many masks, they use the same one for two or three days in a row.

Just one of the many anecdotes you can hear and confirm with your own experience if you're ever here. I have others, the ones about coughing and sneezing behaviour in public will make you shudder.

If you claim "these specific details aren't supported by studies" that's compelling evidence if studies have been done, or would have a reason to be done, or if there's reason to believe the other studies that support similar conclusion are sufficiently different to not be relevant.

Studies haven't been done that support the claims that "masks work in non-clinical settings like a train or a street when used by a wearer who is not under supervision and is has not had training and is probably using their mask again for the nth time"

When that study comes out, let me know. The studies that have been done on surgical mask wearing show a very low and variable effect anyway. Would you like to see the one I saw on here from the other day that said wearing masks was more effective than handwashing?

No one's going to switch handwashing for a mask though, are they? ;-)

It's obvious that wearing a mask helps.

> Don't wear a mask because they don't work

> Doctors and nurses need masks because they work

> ???

If anything, it prevents/reduces asymptomatic people from spreading.

You can tell me in 2 weeks time if that's true when the number of actual cases is impossible for the government to deny any more.

As to the masks, in a clinical setting:

- clinicians will likely get much closer to someone

- patients are much more likely to have an infection

- masks are worn properly

- masks are disposed of properly

- the wearers have had extensive training and experience

They don't, as a salaryman might, pull down their mask to talk to you, or to sneeze so they don't have to use a new mask in the afternoon.

Edit: formatting, I always forget (sorry).

> clinicians will likely get much closer to someone

> patients are much more likely to have an infection

Most of the spread is from people that are asymptomatic.

You don't know who has the virus or not.

So if the argument here is that doctors and nurses are at higher risk, and need more protection, then my counter argument is that you don't know what the risk is simply because people can be asymptomatic.

Secondly, masks a very effective at preventing already sick people from spreading the disease. Given the vast majority cases are asymptomatic and the infected don't even know they are sick, if everyone had masks it would dramatically reduce spread from the asymptomatic.

Even an improperly worn mask is better than no mask.

It's not about achieving 100% perfect protection, it's about some protection.

Even if somebody pulled down their mask to sneeze, if everyone else had masks on then it won't be as big of a deal.

> Even an improperly worn mask is better than no mask.

You can supply the study for that too. From what I've read, and I've been reading as many as I can, it's not true.

> verroq 4 minutes ago | parent | on: Japan set to ban entry from the U.S. as early as n...

Even an improperly worn mask is better than no mask.

It's not about achieving 100% perfect protection, it's about some protection.

> Even if somebody pulled down their mask to sneeze, if everyone else had masks on then it won't be as big of a deal.

This is also not true. You have to prevent transmission all day not just in one event or it's meaningless.

Less efficient face masks (e.g., surgical or medical) also decrease exposure to aerosols of droplet nuclei to a lesser (8–12 fold) degree than N95 masks (36), and they provide protection against larger droplets. We did not determine the type of mask worn by the passengers; presumably, individually acquired masks represented a mixture of N95 and other less efficient masks. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23968983/)

Can't really tell if those people "improperly" wore the masks but most people prior to COVID-19 wore standard surgical style masks.

As I stated in my previous post, doing things to limit transmission is not a binary act. Just because you can't limit transmission all day does not mean that you should not try at all. Just because we can't completely eliminate Covid-19 doesn't mean that we shouldn't flatten the curve.

Yes, I'm reading the actual study too. It proves nothing which is why they conclude with:

> We recommend a more compre- hensive intervention study to accurately estimate the pro- tective effect of face masks for preventing influenza virus transmission on long-distance flights.

accurately being the operative word.

> Just because you can't limit transmission all day does not mean that you should not try at all.

I have not suggested not to try, only to do things that actually work and are evidence based. Would you suggest wearing an amulet? They wear those in Asia too. They have a modern version in the shops in Japan, I forget its name but it's a little bag of something you wear round your neck that they claim prevents flu transmission.

> Just because we can't completely eliminate Covid-19 doesn't mean that we shouldn't flatten the curve.

That's a poor comparison, of course we should flatten the curve using methods that are shown to be effective.

> I have not suggested not to try, only to do things that actually work and are evidence based. Would you suggest wearing an amulet? They wear those in Asia too. They have a modern version in the shops in Japan, I forget its name but it's a little bag of something you wear round your neck that they claim prevents flu transmission.

Ironically, this is probably how we got into this mess in the first place, because some Chinese medicine cure prescribed eating wild bat meat.

Bill gates was recently talking on TV about how the virus could have mutated from anywhere... there's also swine flu, bird flu, mad cow disease, yet Jewish and Muslim people don't go around blaming Mexican/American people for their swine consumption sins (at least they shouldn't).

Blaming it on the fact that Chinese people ate Bat meat is as bit culturally prejudicial as calling it the Chinese virus.

Chinese medicine has a lot of costs for little if any benefits. Disease from live animals is just one of them, but then their is the medical resources wasted on not really cures, hospital profiteering, and not to mention causing entire species to become endangered or even extinct. Peer review and control study the stuff that works and call it normal medicine, the rest of the folk cures might as well be homeopathy.

Blame Mao for calling this junk Chinese medicine in the first place, before he pushed forward the concept to make up for a lack of real medical resources, it was all just a bunch of disparate folk cures in and around the country.

I did some research on bats vs pangolins. It seems that pangolins are illegal in China and sometimes used for medicine (though I'm not sure if consuming them raw is a part of it). I think the practice of illegal animal trading of pangolins is a separate issue altogether from just consuming non beef/pork/chicken food that we're used to.

However from what I can tell the consumption of bats, while uncommon, is just as a normal food source: https://www.quora.com/Do-Chinese-eat-bats?share=1. Though some consider wild animals in general as aphrodisiacs.

> Peer review and control study the stuff that works and call it normal medicine, the rest of the folk cures might as well be homeopathy.

Chinese medicine is also practiced in Taiwan, and while the system differs from the West, it's based on tradition. If you believe in evolution, then you should believe that in general only methodologies that have some effect would survive over time. That's the basis of traditional medicine at least, and just because it's not quantified and understood in the Western way does not mean it is all fake.

> hinese medicine is also practiced in Taiwan, and while the system differs from the West, it's based on tradition. If you believe in evolution, then you should believe that in general only methodologies that have some effect would survive over time. That's the basis of traditional medicine at least, and just because it's not quantified and understood in the Western way does not mean it is all fake.

This is a very anti science way of looking at the world. The west has pseudoscience also: homeopathy and faith-based healing, crystals, witch craft, etc...

I don’t believe in evolution: I believe in the strong evidence that supports the theory of evolution. Lots of things have stood the test of time that are complete bunk with no supporting evidence what so ever, eg all religions. China can’t afford to push pseudosciences, neither can the USA, it does more harm than good.

So why are hospitals making home-made masks or using surgical masks when tending to covid-19 patients?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716618

Because, to repeat myself, there is evidence that surgical masks used by a trained (in the use of masks and in proper behaviour around the sick) clinicians in a clinical setting do have efficacy. These trained people in an entirely different setting than the ones your are advocating their use in by untrained people will also:

- not reuse masks

- remove masks correctly and at appropriate times

- dispose of masks correctly

- engage in several other related behaviours that will prevent transmission

World of difference.

> It's not about achieving 100% perfect protection, it's about some protection.

But it might not even be 10% or 1% protection, especially outdoors outside of a sterile hospital environment. Is it worth wearing them for a some small amount of protection, or is the false sense of security they provide more dangerous than their benefit?

Surgical masks are pretty leaky compared to N95 masks we wore during crazy bad air days in Beijing, but the latter are so uncomfortable that they cause people to touch their face more, doing more harm than good in this context. That’s why all the videos we see in Asia just have crowds wearing flimsy surgical masks, I mean, they are super easy to wear, so why not, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking they are doing much good.

It's not just about protection, it's also about preventing people that are sick and asymptomatic from spreading.

>but the latter are so uncomfortable that they cause people to touch their face more

The logic just doesn't work here, you can't touch your face if you have a mask on and N95 respirators aren't as unconformable as you claim, if anything they are often higher quality and the cheap elastic bands on surgical masks are more uncomfortable on the ears.

>That’s why all the videos we see in Asia just have crowds wearing flimsy surgical masks

It's because they can't get N95 masks. No one wears a mask for comfort.

I’ve worn many N95 masks and have constantly been touching my face to adjust them while being worn, they also irritate your skin around your face where they try to make a seal (this wasn’t even a pandemic, just a 700+ bad air day). They are super uncomfortable. Surgical masks are easy to wear in comparison, but they are also basically noops.

Surgical masks are roughly 6 times better than nothing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23498357

I have also worn N95 masks and they aren't as uncomfortable as you describe.

Nobody uses the same arguments for handwashing, even though they would apply. It sounds like education is what's lacking, aside from masks.

Handwashing is shown to be effective in a non-clinical setting though, and there are plenty of efforts to educate people how to handwash even though (I hope) everyone does it every day. Again, the same is not true of masks.

Even if a mask doesn't protect a person sneezing into your face from transmitting the virus to you, that hardly means that it is 100% ineffective otherwise... and hospitals wouldn't be clamoring for them if they were ineffective (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-would-...).

With just a bit of common sense you can reason that masks absolutely do help prevent the spread of the virus:

1. A strong mask culture in dense areas means that even sick people will be incentivized to wear masks, which is known to be effective in limiting transmission. Studies on airplanes have shown that a sick person wearing a mask can stop the transmission on a plane. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23968983/)

2. The mask prevents you from touching your mouth with your hands, and reminds you to not touch your face.

3. Many people in Japan wear masks to prevent stuff from their own mouths going into other peoples' faces, and not for the commonly assumed selfish reasons for wearing one that Americans keep focusing on.

4. The effectiveness of masks is not binary. Recommendations against using masks probably come because

a) people are probably doing other things that are already higher risk than not wearing a mask and

b) there is a shortage of masks.

Some more tidbits cited from the study: Less efficient face masks (e.g., surgical or medical) also decrease exposure to aerosols of droplet nuclei to a lesser (8–12 fold) degree than N95 masks (36), and they provide protection against larger droplets. We did not determine the type of mask worn by the passengers; presumably, individually acquired masks represented a mixture of N95 and other less efficient masks. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23968983/)

I'll take this in parts which I always think looks aggressive but I assure you it's not. We're all concerned and want the best :)

> that hardly means that it is 100% ineffective otherwise

It may not be 100% ineffective for a single event, it needs to be effective over the entire period of use.

Point 1, yes, sick people should wear masks. This is already known. Most people aren't sick.

> 2. The mask prevents you from touching your mouth with your hands, and reminds you to not touch your face.

If you've worn one or watched people on the train in Japan or across Asia you'll know this isn't true at all. People are forever readjusting it.

> 3. Many people in Japan wear masks to prevent stuff from their own mouths going into other peoples' faces, and not for the commonly assumed selfish reasons for wearing one that Americans keep focusing on.

They wear them for many reasons, and they're people so they're just as selfish as Americans or anyone else, and that's certainly my experience.

4b is certainly true. 4a is partly true because if people aren't going to use masks correctly - and they don't - then there really is no point to them other than to deny people access to them by those who really need them, and in settings that studies really have shown a positive effect.

> Point 1, yes, sick people should wear masks. This is already known. Most people aren't sick.

> Most people aren't sick.

How do you know this given the vast majority of cases are asymptomatic.

I'm going by what is known now, or else how would I ever be able to comment on anything?

The whole point is to prep for the future, if you target the present you’re always going to be one step behind.

This isn't a student debate on epistemology, but if it were I'd begin by asking how you prep for the future without knowledge of the present situation.

As it isn't a student debate on epistemology I think we can leave this conversation here.

> > that hardly means that it is 100% ineffective otherwise >It may not be 100% ineffective for a single event, it needs to be effective over the entire period of use. Point 1, yes, sick people should wear masks. This is already known. Most people aren't sick.

I don't see the logical reasoning behind why it has to be effective over the entire period of use. The whole rational behind curve flattening is that we do as much as possible to reduce transmission. So being partially effective will still reduce the number of transmission and the chances of transmission.

Plus by normalizing mask usage more sick people will be encouraged to use masks because it is socially acceptable. A lot of people don't use masks even if they are sick because 1) lack of testing to confirm coronavirus and 2) embarrassment over using a mask because it is weird. It's easy for someone to decide to wear a mask or quarantine if they know they have Covid-19, but if they are just sick or mildly sick, or even asymptomatic, the decision to wear a mask or quarantine is much harder because they have to balance their other needs with the chances that they may just have the common cold.

> If you've worn one or watched people on the train in Japan or across Asia you'll know this isn't true at all. People are forever readjusting it.

Seeing as how there is a physical barrier over your mouth I don't see how you cannot use common sense to see that it is true. Not to mention my cited research study uses it as a potential reason why the masks were shown to be effective.

> They wear them for many reasons, and they're people so they're just as selfish as Americans or anyone else, and that's certainly my experience.

I guess this is a matter of opinion, so I can't really argue that you don't believe it.

I know this is outside the usual way of arguing what's true, but: the studies are wrong.

They're underpowered and poorly designed. The smart money is on masks working, at least when used in a widespread way by the population as a whole. Benefit to individuals is much harder to show, hence why studies have failed to show it.

The chloroquinine drug, or whatever it's called, I bet that will turn out to be effective as well. Studies so far have been not powerful enough to show it definitively, but have you noticed the stuff has been selling out long before Trump opened his mouth? And it's not just idiots who will eat fishtank cleaner without checking the dose or the other ingredients that are buying it, it's nations, and doctors.

Did you know Parachutes have never had a randomised controlled trial to determine whether they are effective?

There are many things that there are good reason to think are true, that science has failed to show definitively yet.

Masks is one of them. I think people will eat their words on this one, and anyone reading this should take their trust in randomised controlled trials down a notch. They are designed to have a low false-positive rate. But their false-negatives are through the roof.

> Did you know Parachutes have never had a randomised controlled trial to determine whether they are effective?

Because people used them and it was obvious when they worked and when they didn't. That's not the case for masks.

We need #masks4all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDwXwZXsDI

An actual data scientist looks at research he was able to dig up.

Countries without "mask-wearing cultures" like Switzerland or Germany are doing exceptionally well compared to others in Europe.

But above all, there's no scientific basis to what you're saying.

No they're not. They have high per-capita case numbers and no better success at slowing the growth rate than others.

I have a very bad feeling that Japan is going to be ravaged by this pandemic.

https://mobile.twitter.com/motokorich/status/124383121986899...

"Abe: “If an explosive spread of infection is already occurring right now, we cannot tell immediately. By time we have numbers in 2 weeks time, speed of rise in number of patients could no longer be controllable.” Yet he announced no specific measures to prevent this scenario."

Downvoters might want to read that full Twitter thread. You may not appreciate the potential gravity of what I've italicized above, but there are comments in the thread from people who do.

Reconsidered my opinion:

I agree with a reply below. The primary determiner of how well a place responds to Covid seems to be their experience with SARS, and possibly other infectious respiratory diseases like TB.

People are probably downvoting you because it's generally frowned upon to make baseless "just-so" claims, especially in something as difficult to make credible claims in as geopolitics, and especially when it asserts the superiority of some groups over others (or appears to.)

That all being said, there have been studies of how "meritocratic" different societies are (albeit I don't know how that is operationalized) and there will be very quantitative measures of how well each country weathers the pandemic; someone could certainly (when the data is in) check to see how those features tend to relate.

I'm not sure how you came up with this, Singapore and Hong Kong meritocratic? They're both oligarchies where all the land and influence in the city is owned by a few powerful families. Also the fact that excluding Vietnam all of these countries are either islands or have a single land border (don't think a lot of people are coming into South Korea from North Korea?) probably makes controlling the disease a lot easier.

Previous experience with SARS is a better candidate for "primary determiner."

How do you even define "best people"? Any how exactly are these people "rise to the top" for the leaders to follow in these countries? Some more details examples would be helpful.

It is far, far too early in this pandemic to start grading the efficacy of any jurisdiction's approach.

Okay... but why specifically the United States? Shouldn't they ban entry from just about every nation right now? Did the article just fail to mention existing travel bans for other nations?

The US has a very high number of confirmed cases, but it still pales in comparison to many other nations in terms of percent of population. Banning international travel is a reasonable precaution, but why specifically the US?

I can't help but feel like many politicians around the globe have been focusing more on political chess first and the wellbeing of their citizens second.

International travel is already effectively disabled around the world, this ban is just preventing a few stragglers from going.

> but why specifically the United States? [...] but why specifically the US?

Possibly because, as it says in the second line of the article, the US now has the highest number of confirmed cases (more than 124,000 currently, from around 660,000 confirmed worldwide).

I addressed that.

> The US has a very high number of confirmed cases, but it still pales in comparison to many other nations in terms of percent of population.

From https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restricti...

As of March 15, Japan has banned entry to foreign travelers with Chinese passports issued by Hubei and Zhejiang provinces, as well as those who have visited regions in China that have been affected by the virus, South Korea, Iran or Italy within the last 14 days.

On March 18, Japan added two provinces of Switzerland, four states in Spain and the entire country of Iceland to the list. The ban will become effective at midnight on March 19.

The government said that starting March 21, travelers from 38 countries would need to self-quarantine for 14 days in facilities approved by the Japanese authorities.

Those countries include the 26 members of the European Schengen countries, as well as Ireland, Andorra, Iran, Britain, Egypt, Cyprus, Croatia, San Marino, the Vatican, Bulgaria, Monaco and Romania.

Thanks. I wish the article provided that context.

This would've been a good idea before Chinese New Year for those coming from China but the Japanese government, in its infinite wisdom, didn't want to miss out on the money all those tourists bring.

At least they've done well suppressing the true number of cases until the Olympics was cancelled. Even if it should've been bloody obvious they have been lying, most of the rest of the world - as per usual - decided that the Japanese government is trustworthy because Japan football fans take their rubbish home, or anime, or some other nebulous reason.

Any sources/links indicating that the numbers are VASTLY different than communicated on the news?

The numbers would surely come out in a study later in the year, if not next year, as they do for other kinds of cover up here[1][2] or simply because it's hard to find out as it's happening in such a short time over such a large area during a pandemic. Personally, I'm basing it on:

- The propensity for cover ups to happen (even on a small scale, it's part of the culture of maintaing wa)

- The strange lack of testing while the Olympics was still a possibility

- The ease with which deaths could be covered up given the system here and things like the already mentioned kodokushi deaths

- The many anecdotes of people being turned away for tests[3]

- The knowledge that Japan and the Japanese are not special, so their position as an outlier must have some reason beyond "they wear masks" (how did wearing masks help in China?) while there are barely any measures to prevent transmission in place

- I like Ockham's Razor

[1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/kodokushi-in-agi...

[2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/31/national/crime-...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusJapan/

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