Japan's First State of Emergency

The Land of the Rising Sun Dance

Since Japan has reported far fewer Covid deaths than almost all other developed countries with large elderly populations, various people have attributed this to Japan’s pandemic response (see Kuniya). The aim of this series is to show that whatever the reasons for Japan’s low Covid death rate, non-pharmaceutical interventions are not one of them.

The First State of Emergency Declaration and the Sun Dance Effect

Japan’s first State of Emergency (SoE) was declared in Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, Kanagawa, Osaka, Hyogo, and Fukuoka on April 7. The figure below shows cases reported in those prefectures the day before the SoE was declared.

It was expanded across all 40 other prefectures on April 16 after Professor Hiroshi Nishiura of Hokkaido University presented estimates of up to 850,000 severe cases leading to 420,000 deaths unless contacts between people were reduced by 80% [1]. During this time, businesses deemed non-essential were closed, events were suspended, and schools were closed.

Looking at the number of daily reported PCR positives, the SoE would appear to have been effective at reducing infections. However, this graph doesn’t take into account the 10-14 lag between infections and reported PCR positives.

(Figure from Shimizu and Negita)

When looking at data for estimated date of infection, the effect disappears. Infections had already peaked and were going down anyway.

[Figure by Hiroshi Nishiura (yes, the same one) from https://jbpress.ismedia.jp/articles/-/60539)

In short, the SoE was as effective at flattening the curve as sun dances are at making the sun rise in the morning.

To see if the earlier SoE had any noticeable effect, the below graph compares average weekly reported cases per 100,000 between the seven prefectures where the SoE was declared on 4/7 and the nine other prefectures where weekly case rates exceeded 3 per 100,000: Hokkaido, Gumma, Toyama, Gifu, Ishikawa, Fukui, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Kochi. [Data from https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/special/coronavirus/data/]

Well, at least I got to spend more time with the family.

[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/04/15/national/japan-virus-deaths-420000-social-distancing/