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The three reasons Japan has fewer death cases than Europe and the U.S.

By on May 19, 2020

Japan was expecting an explosive spread in coronavirus infection but it hasn’t happened. The number of  COVID-19 cases and deaths reported todate remains to be the lowest among the G7 countries. Japan’s case got many people puzzled despite what many critics say, is due to lack of pcr testing.

An earlier study posted on medRxiv, found that countries with mandatory policies on BCG vaccines used against tuberculosis resulted in fewer coronavirus infections and deaths than countries without those policies.

On May 14, Prime Minister Abe fielded questions from the press.  Shinohara Iwaki, TV Tokyo news reporter raised a question everyone is keen to know – why has Japan managed to keep the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths low? Is it the use of BCG vaccine or Japanese culture that helped?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that Japan was able to dodge the bullet through an approach that proved to be effective. He said that it was able to keep the death rate at 0.5 for every 100,000 cases, the lowest among G7 countries.

The answer to the question came directly from Shigeru Omi, Chairman of the Advisory Committee and currently President of the Japan Community Health Care Organization. He said there is no clinical evidence that BCG vaccine is effective in treating COVID-19. “I think Japan has done substantially better than Europe and the United States for three main reasons: one, generally speaking, Japan has an efficient medical system; two, the medical practitioners have generally taken a robust approach to cluster infections in the initial stages; and three, Japanese people’s high health literacy made a big difference in terms of results,” explains Omi.

Given that Japan hasn’t reached the end of this pandemic despite having avoided the worst-case scenarios, this is no time for complacency. Authorities warn that even if the state of emergency is lifted before the end of May, people need to continue practicing social distancing, telework whenever possible, practice good hygiene such as washing hands often, disinfecting homes and offices, and wearing face masks to help prevent a resurgence in cases.

 

 

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