Japan doesn't test staff for covid19 cause they cannot work if infected

Japanese disaster and emergency preparation is said to be the best on the world. On the ground level it probably is. They train, they have the plan, they have the gear, they are prepared.

When the disaster or emergency actually happens the system tends to collapse like a deck of cards. Everybody in charge is just trying to look busy instead of solving problems.

Fukushima disaster was a good example of this. Government officials didn't send messages or deleted information that was supposed to go to evacuation and health organizations because "information about radiation levels is unrealistic". Use of the word meltdown was forbidden so emergency response teams did not know there was a meltdown.

Ok, so at first China ignored and downplayed the situation. The numbers they report are too low. But they went all in with their lockdown and mask craze, temperature checks, you name it.

Despite all this, the rest of the world has their thumbs up their butts doing exactly what China did in the beginning. Downplay everything, pretend we might just be immune to this for some reason, or release statements that we're perfectly prepared when shit would hit the fan. My colleague returned from Beijing last week.

On the plane everyone was wearing masks, not so at the airport here. And everyone just took it off pretty much right after getting off the plane. I don't get it.

My anecdote: 2 weeks ago I have a conversation with the a C level in Japan about policy for work from home in case of Covid-19 outbreak. At that time there were less than 10 cases in my country (Vietnam) but I want to have a plan for the worst case: the whole company gets quarantined. The answers from him were disappointing, he didn't think much of that, that there is no work from home policy in our group and I should ask somebody else, it's not his problem. The answers from the local director was worse, he made it sounds like a crime to work from home ('checking email at home sneakily' = kinshi/forbidden). In short they didn't care about it, and had no plan for it either.

Now two weeks later and Vietnam has basically gotten the outbreak under control with only 16 cases despite being right next to China while Japan has more than 100 cases. And out group is scrambling to define a policy for working from home while stopping all the recruitment meetings. And I have told them all about that 2 weeks ago...

Sounds like the US.

I've had residents crawl into work in the middle of a enteritis, that I've had to force into a bed in the on-call room, shoved an IV in their arm, and told them not to fucking move until I'd gotten two boluses into them. They were entirely unable to work, and the question of infectiousness was well beside the point. We'd have no one to cover if they actually called in sick.

If someone comes in with the flu, we don't test at all. They get handed a mask and we go on with our work day.

I can only see this making sense if you adopt a defeatist attitude to your population getting infected, like you might with a garden-variety influenza outbreak.

Almost all healthy, working-age people won't die from corona. Many of them won't even really notice that they have something other than a cold. Some won't have any symptoms at all.

And you need workers (especially healthcare workers to care for the less fortunate people who do need intensive care).

Therefore, if you accept that people will get infected (which is, shamefully, also accepting that more old/immunocompromised/unlucky people will die) then it does make sense to avoid quarantining people that you really need.

The problem is that this isn't a garden-variety influenza outbreak; first of all it's a new virus, so you have the burden of this in addition to influenza, and second of all many things about it are still relatively unknown.

So some countries are fighting with prayers, now Japan goes in absurd denial.

I guess this crisis will demonstrate lots of countries failure so they can learn (at a cost)

Some passengers in the quarantined cruise ship said Japanese authorities forbidden the use of masks. Masks might be far from 100% effective but this looks like Fukushima all over again.

In some ways the real story is that the MoH cannot take a decision to let some staff keep working if they are found to bee infected - presumably because they are not easily replacable. It is easier for them to bypass the rule by not testing (or suppressing the results of tests) then having the autonomy to take such a decision on a case-by-case basis.

Seen in this light, this is depressingly familiar and universal. Seemingly strange actions basically necessiated because of bureaucratic inflexibility.

There's a Japanese music group I follow on the internet. Here's what they looked like when they met with audience members after a concert last week

https://twitter.com/st_luna_azul/status/1229236089170186240

Specifically in the case of the ministry of health this almost makes sense. If that becomes understaffed because people are sick, the rest of the country is in trouble.

Because what they work on is the world's most important job /s

Japanese logic has its moments.

begs for it: https://imgflip.com/i/3q1evo