Lessons from Japan on Battling COVID-19: A CSR Podcast Episode

By Christine Parthemore The United States has now tragically
reached more than 210,000 people killed by COVID-19. These victims
are among more than 7 million infected---including the President,
many from the White House staff and Congress, and military
leadership. Just as so many people across the country are working
hard to bring down the transmission and mortality rates, many of us
are working to understand what has led to the current situation in
which the United States leads the world in total deaths and known
cases.   Understanding the situation will take time, but
drawing lessons on what has worked in limiting the pandemic and
what has worsened its trajectory must begin now---both in case it
can save lives from the current COVID-19 pandemic and for
preventing future biological threats from growing to pandemic
scales. One rich source of such lessons can be countries that have
done relatively well in limiting the devastation from this
pandemic. Japan is one of them. According to tracking by Johns
Hopkins University, as of October 6th Japan had just over 1,600
known deaths and fewer than 87,000 known cases, despite the
country’s large population and density of some of its major cities.
In recent months, I’ve spoken with friends and experts in Japan to
try to learn more. Today, we’re sharing the first of two recorded
podcast discussions on Japan’s response to COVID-19. The discussion
features Dr. Tomoya Saito, who is the director of the Department of
Health Crisis Management at Japan’s National Institute of Public
Health and has deep experience in emergency preparedness and
response, health surveillance, and biosecurity; and Ambassador
Nobuyasu Abe, who served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General
for Disarmament Affairs and as a Commissioner of the Japan Atomic
Energy Commission, and who we are honored to have as a Senior
Advisor at CSR. They shared several factors involved in Japan’s
response that appear to have contributed. Japan focused heavily on
early detection. The country also worked early to understand
clusters of COVID-19 and how focusing on them could help limit its
transmission. We also discussed communications and transparency
between the government and the public, including via Japan’s “Avoid
the Three C’s” campaign to urge the public to avoid closed spaces,
crowded places, and close contact. Straightforward steps like
widespread wearing of masks have also been embraced in Japan.
Looking ahead, we also discussed the importance of creating
pathogen early warning systems, and the danger of narratives that
authoritarian regimes have handled COVID-19 best (evidence for
which can be seen in democracies such as Japan being one of the
world’s leading countries in containing the pandemic). News outlets
and other experts have provided additional ideas on what has
contributed to far lower case and death rates in Japan. The nation
has been using its Fugaku supercomputer (rated as the fastest in
the world) for modeling how to minimize COVID-19 transmission in
public places. Its high-quality, universal healthcare system is
surely also an important factor. As close allies, Japan and the
United States have long collaborated to share lessons from crisis
response experiences and work together to prepare for emergencies
from all types of natural and manmade hazards. CSR will soon share
a second conversation with Dr. Saito that explores Japan’s response
in deeper detail. We hope these conversations are just the
beginning of continuing dialogue between our countries to
understand our different experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic in
the hope of successfully halting future biological threats as they
emerge. Click play below to listen to our first podcast on lessons
from Japan’s responses to COVID-19.