Japan's PM to ask all schools to temporarily close | Hacker News Reader

Japan's PM to ask all schools to temporarily close

www3.nhk.or.jp

378 pointsjdshaffer334 comments

I think what Japan really needs to do is to run a campaign to change the culture. One of the problems is that they put too much confidence in face masks. What they need to do is run a message that if you show any symptoms then stay home and avoid contact altogether.

Most of these masks are just toys and not air tight at all. One experiment you can do with the mask is go outside in cold weather, so that you can see the steam when you breathe. You will notice that when you breathe, most of air is actually escaping through the edges of the mask and around the nose.

Also, there is a culture of not staying home when you're sick. It's normal to continue going to work with a cold / other infection, or school or shop. Sick leave is frowned upon. Just put on a mask and you're all sweet, right? That has to change.

And provide soap at sinks in public bathrooms.

Is using the tap and soap of a public bathroom really reducing the chances of virus/bacteria infection? Or is it increasing them because the soap and tap carry viruses and bacteria themselfes?

Not sure if you've been to Japan but they have some of the cleanest public facilities I've seen in spite of all the traffic. I'm sure people are coming through multiple times a day to wipe down all fomites.

Maybe. But does that answer my question?

If you touch the soap and the tap, that will surely transfer germs to your hands that the person before you left there?

I believe I did answer your question. Washing your hands will always be better than not. Many modern buildings also have automated water/soap/towel dispensers. And you can always use the towel to open the door.

Yes, but on your way into the stall, you touched the stall door, and then you touched other things, including your clothing, which you didn't wash on the way out, only your hands.

Touching the soap doesn’t matter at all. You’re about to wash it all off your hands.

Soap and water definitely work to reduce infections, even when using a shared sink. Look up what happened in the 19th century when people finally figured this out and started hand washing regularly, infectious disease transmission in settings like hospitals dropped dramatically.

In the 19th century infections were cut drastically when hands were washed with water only. Imagine what soap can do.

They started from not washing hands between autopsies and surgeries though. Talk about low hanging fruit.

Germs probably survive better on your skin than on the cold metal tap in the bathroom. Food safe handwashing says use a paper towel to turn off the tap after you are done drying your hands with it.

Fomite - Wikipedia: A fomes or fomite is any inanimate object that, when contaminated with or exposed to infectious agents can transfer disease to a new host. E.g. tap, couch, bench, hat.

New word to me and I have a pretty good vocab, so

Not unless you go out of your way to avoid touching everything. The act of washing with soap and water removes your personal fecal bacteria and turning off the water replaces it with whatever filth is on the knobs. Ditto if you touch the door knob/handle on the way out.

Use a paper towel on the door knob to avoid infection.

Most public bathrooms have automatic taps now that I see.

Most public bathrooms also have automatic doors (if you wait long enough)

HN, where techies attempt to make logical arguments for why they don't wash after they shit

Why not HN, where techies try to understand processes which may seem counterintuitive once you actually start thinking about them?

Sensor tap + sensor liquid soap dispenser + automatic doors. No touching required.

And what about those hand dryers? Do they just blow droplets containing the virus around the place?

Air driers have shown to be terrible for hygiene. But they're convenient and save paper.

Convenient for me? No, I either stand there forever or leave with semi-wet hands. Paper towels work much faster and more effective, but the decision is made by facilities.

Your hands dry much quicker under a hand dryer if you rub them together. I see so many people who just leave their hands flaccid and it takes a lot longer

Air dryers also leave you with nothing to open the door with.

That drives me nuts... Need to always carry some paper towels on hand for times like that.

I keep wondering why bathroom doors aren't designed to swing outwards by default. Then you could open them without touching a handle.

I always assumed it was firecode

(i.e. a fire in the bathroom creates a vacuum which prevents the door from opening outward. maybe that’s idiotic)

I only know what the Internet says so this may or may not be correct.

1. Inward opening is probably less inclined to disperse bathroom air into the hallway outside.

2. You're probably less likely to smack someone with a door opening into a hallway. (Or course, someone entering might do it to someone exiting a bathroom but most people are probably at least somewhat trained to exercise caution under those circumstances.)

3. If anything, I'd think fire code would favor door opening out given that's the general rule.

I think doors on the emergency exit route always open outwards so that they can open in a stampede. You'd usually have push bars on them instead of a regular handle too.

Eh, all the studies I've seen that show some dramatic difference have been funded by paper towel producers and used poor methodology. I believe research by the Mayo Clinic has shown that air dryers and paper towels are roughly equivalent for hygienic purposes.

The Japanese solution is everyone carrying their own personal small towel.

Unfortunately it takes 2 weeks to show symptoms.

But luckily most of the contamination happens through cough, so that these people that don't show symptoms are also less contagious.

The Mybusters really do a great job of explaining contamination visually in this segment. https://youtu.be/k1j8bh8_O_Q

You don't want to be in the same building as a sick person, let alone anywhere near them in a smaller space like an office or restroom.

That video doesn't cover aerial contamination. The kind it shows is just hand-to-hand, then hand-to-face. Don't touch your face, and the germs stay on the outside of your hands, far from your mucus membranes. I've had very good results from this.

And some case studies of disease clusters have strongly suggested asymptomatic transmission. Asymptomatic individuals who spread it to a bunch of family members despite having no symptoms, then tested positive for the disease themselves once identified.

There's no containing it at this point, the best you could do is slow it down until there's a vaccine.

Then again, most people elsewhere dont wear masks at all and dont stay at home when they are sick. While there is definitely less stigma for staying home, people still dont want to do it and act offended when you complain about them being sick in work.

Yes, only certain masks will even do anything. But...

Even then you need to make sure the mask fits. In hospitals, they do tests to find the right fit for nurses and doctors to check airflow.

They can be a good tool in certain situations, but random people placing a bunch of faith in them over other solutions is probably not helping.

Aren't the main benefits of the mask the fact that you don't touch your face as much with potentially infected hands, and any sudden coughs or sneezes from the wearer are contained in the mask for others' benefit?

It's the opposite, when you are wearing one of those masks you touch your face more often. It also is a warm damp environment for bacteria. Now if you are sick and you are travelling to the doctors or something, then yes, a mask is a good idea. If you are healthy and trying not to be sick a mask is a bad idea, gloves and frequent handwashing with soap and water is a much better plan.

> It's the opposite, when you are wearing one of those masks you touch your face more often.

What?? How do you figure that?

People adjust the masks often. They aren't very comfortable and it's unpleasant to wear them for long, they can feel itchy which promotes face touching. The seal around your mouth probably won't be great unless you've been fit-tested as well so you'll be tempted to touch there.

All of those sound like issues that would be fixed by using better masks, that fit snugly and feel comfortable, and can be washed or even medicated, instead of the very cheap disposables.

Where are you getting your stories from? I don't see people keep touching to adjust. People in Japan are used to wearing them for the pollen seasons.

Why would you touch your face more often? At least you won't have a direct contact with your hands. Besides, why do you think putting on a mask and washing hands are somehow mutually exclusive?

To adjust the mask. You won't have direct contact with your hands, but the mask is a better environment for disease than your skin is, so touching it instead of your skin isn't any better.

If the masks don’t seal during regular breathing, how are they going to contain a cough or a sneeze?

They catch the water droplets.

...they’ll still blast out through the openings. That’s like saying putting a toilet seat down prevents fecal matter from coating your bathroom (it doesn’t)

If it's a fabric variety facemask, I bet it absorbs a lot of the droplets. Not perfect, probably better than a smooth plastic facemask.

Quantity matters. Both the size of the aerosol cloud generated from a cough/sneeze and the number and size of the droplets produced is reduced while wearing a mask.

Stopped completely? No. Reduced enough to be a useful measure in some circumstances? Yes.

If I were going out and genuinely worried about inhaling something, I'd skip surgical masks and N95 disposables and just wear a sealed half mask using P100 filters. They're way more comfortable than either of the disposables, and provide much better filtration. Since they use exhaust valves, they may not provide much protection to others from your own potential pathogens, although I would expect some droplet suppression simply from the redirection of any exhalation through a small valve.

If the mask doesn't fit properly, you are MORE likely to touch your face to adjust it.

This is just false. Humans touch their mouths and noses all of the time. The mask makes you less likely to touch your lips or nostrils.

> most of air is actually escaping through the edges of the mask and around the nose.

Why is that a problem? My expectation is that what matters is:

1. Air that you inhale comes through the mask filter. It's not necesarily the case that inhaling and exhaling have symmetric effects. When you exhale, you increase air pressure inside the mask, which pushes it away from your face and opens the seals around the edge. When you inhale, I expect it would seal tighter. You can exhale while wearing a swimming mask and bubbles go everywhere. That doesn't mean the mask isn't otherwise water tight.

2. Aerosol particles from infected people coughing and sneezing get caught by the mask and don't go into your airways.

3. You don't touch your face with your hands.

The masks aren’t fine enough to trap germ particles coming in. There are such masks (n95) but these are more expensive, and require fitting and training to use. The off the shelf masks people are using do nothing for healthy people.

"Well, Technically", 3-ply masks are fine enough to trap germ particles. They consist of a woven:non-woven:woven layer, the non-woven layer blocking nanometer particles. If you look at a n95 mask, it has the same woven:non-woven:woven layer structure.

The problem of 3-ply masks is that 10-25% of the air you inhale leak from the side/nose, bypassing the filter. n95 mask "fixes" the problem by tight(er) fitting, not by additional filtering layers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonwoven_fabric

> training to use

I keep hearing this but don't understand. What exactly needs training?

Common sense

Typically it's about putting the straps on correctly and properly adjusting the nose bridge. When you don't put it on properly (i.e. straps above and below the ear, nose bridge properly adjusted) it'll be much less effective.

See https://www.bu.edu/ehs/files/2014/08/N95-Respirators-Trainin...

#2 is only true if you get a proper mask and wear it properly. N95 or better. #3 is always true but it is of limited (near zero) value if you aren't also using other methods, namely washing hands.

#1 is not true at all unless you get a proper mask, with a filter, and use it properly. Most people are walking around with a mask they got off the shelf at Walmart that is acting about as effectively as a halloween costume.

N95+ masks are expensive. Currently $20 per mask on Amazon.

> N95+ masks are expensive. Currently $20 per mask on Amazon.

They're not that expensive. That's price gouging, and I'd be worried about them being counterfeit. I have no way of evaluating their effectiveness at home.

I bought a box of 10 3M N95 valved masks three days ago at Ace Hardware for $24.95.

I bought a box of 3 for $20 yesterday from an eBay seller with a good reputation. There's a chance I've been scammed, but I think lower than on Amazon.

Probably not counterfeit, just automated scalping/drop-shipping. Rampant on Amazon these days.

If there aren't counterfeits yet, they'll be coming.

You should be fit-tested with an N95 as well. I had a job where it was required yearly and different brands and sizes work better for different people.

The cheapest N95 masks are around $3 retail ($6 for a pack of 2).

The masks are going for $60+ per mask on eBay right now. And virtually impossible to find on store shelves.

Is that a problem? Yes... like I said and shown in my experiment that you can repeat yourself, most masks are like toys, not air sealed or fitted properly and a lot of air gets through the sides, doesn't matter if you breathe in or out, gaps are still there (you will notice cold air entering on the side of the mask when you breathe in, especially if you worn the mask for a while and it gets a little soggy).

Of course, don't get me wrong.. they do work to a degree if fitted properly with the right grade of filtet, but the problem that people are putting too much faith in these things, especially the ones you buy from the combinis..

Most masks won't filter the virus. N95 can only filter particles greater than 0.3 microns and the corona virus is around 0.16 microns.

The masks are more for stopping behavioral habits for non-infected people like touching your mouth and nose but then you could touch your eyes too...

The masks are more for the infected people who could sneeze and spread the virus particles much further than if blocked by the mask.

> N95 can only filter particles greater than 0.3 microns and the corona virus is around 0.16 microns.

The virus spreads in much larger drops of fluid.

>corona virus is around 0.16 microns

But virus particles aren't floating around in the air infecting people, it's spread mostly through respiratory droplets. Not saying that a surgical mask will protect you, but it's not because the virus is too small.

virus particles really are in the air infecting people.

I'm pretty sure N95 just tells you how many particles are filtered, and the sizes and for which size ranges it is more or less effective depend on the specific piece. Also, droplets are bigger than the naked virus particles and will get caught by the filter.

> Aerosol particles from infected people coughing and sneezing get caught by the mask and don't go into your airways

Even if the masks were capable of filtering out the virus, the above wouldn't matter. If the virus hits your eyes or tear ducts you've got it. This is why wearing a mask protects others but not yourself.

Masks in Japan are based on the desire of Japaneses not to infect others and not to spread their own germs. They won't filter the air coming in or out, but they'll catch a sneeze and a cough. They also make it so you don't put your fingers in your mouth or nose. It's the sick that wear them. You barely see them elsewhere because the idea of "wear something uncomfortable for the sake of others" is a hard sell in the west.

If you are sick enough to wear a mask in public, you should probably just stay home.

"According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average number of paid sick days often corresponds directly with years of service. Here are the averages for workers in private industry: Workers receive 7 sick days per year with 1 to 5 years of service. Workers receive 8 sick days per year with 5 to 10 years of service."

"For colds, most individuals become contagious about a day before cold symptoms develop and remain contagious for about five to seven days." / "If you have the flu, you'll be contagious one day before developing symptoms and up to five to seven days after becoming ill."

One cold would take up all your sick days. By following your recommendation, someone falling sick more than once a year would have to quit their job.

Doesn't sound nice true.

How do you transmit the flu to others without symptoms like sneezing/running nose?

There exists a metric ton of other possible vectors for viruses to spread. It depends on the virus though.

We don't yet conclusively know what vectors this virus can use to spread.

I read on on alot, thank you.

The concept of "paid sick days" baffles me. It implies that when the doctor says you're too sick to work and hands you a certificate, you won't get paid by default or that it should even be legal to not pay you. No wonder Americans are so reluctant to see the doctor, if both the doctor is expensive and also they won't get paid if they're sick.

In most EU countries you are not allowed to work and your employer will get into trouble if he lets you work when you've got a sick cert. Your employer obviously also has to pay you and is not allowed to fire you for getting sick[1].

If this outbreak causes the US to update its workers protections for the 21st century, at least something good will come out of it.

[1]: in some countries you can receive a reduction in pay after being sick for X months in a row, usually to ~60%.

The service industry such as fast food has virtually no "paid sick days", and conveniently are jobs with lots of people interaction, poor pay, and poor if any health insurance.

So you "might" have the cold or coronavirus - do you go to the ER (costs hundreds even with insurance) and lose out on your pay? (Not to mention you'll likely have your hours cut as "punishment"). Or do you tough it out and keep making money that you need to pay for your rent?

Once worked for a Wall Street firm that had a "no sick days" policy. I came in every single day, sick as a dog or not, and as far as I can recall, everyone else did, too.

It's not just the poor--some of this really just is our (crazy) culture.

If that's the case, make sure you make the coffee / drinks / etc for as many decision makers as possible so they get the gunk from the glass.

As someone who has worked in the service industry as a server, manager, and eventually part-owner, why should we burden the business owner with the responsibility to pay when someone is sick and unable to work? This is compounded by the fact that service industry often requires physical presence, which translates to the business having to pay both the sick worker and the worker's temporary replacement.

Doesn't this fall to the government to create some kind of aid? At the very least, the gov could offer a tax break for wages paid sick workers.

> why should we burden the business owner with the responsibility to pay when someone is sick and unable to work?

Is it really such burden to the business owner to see to the well-being of their employees?

> At the very least, the gov could offer a tax break for wages paid sick workers.

I like this idea, tbqh.

Wages paid are deductible business expenses already.

> Wages paid are deductible business expenses already.

Up to how much? I can't imagine wages paid are 100% deductible. Otherwise nothing's stopping people from starting businesses and paying wages to friends to reduce tax burdens...

Up to any amount, provided they are: Ordinary and necessary, Reasonable in amount, Paid for services actually provided, Paid for or incurred in the tax year. And the "any amount" has a limit beyond which you are found to not be operating a profit-seeking business.

(Those are the fairly standard tests for all business deductions, only the third is at all specific to wages.)

There's no way to "make money" by incurring additional expenses and deducting them. If you have $100 in deductible business expenses and your marginal rate is 35%, you are paying $100 in expenses and getting back $35 on your taxes, so you're still out of pocket $65.

"There's [usually] no way"

It’s 100% deductible just like most other businesses expenses given you only pay taxes on net profits, if it weren’t tax deductible you would end up with a higher tax burden than what your business makes and therefore can pay.

Paying family/friends wages counts as a business expense to the company and taxable revenue to the employee. The business can also incur additional overheads for having employees like payroll taxes, super, etc.

Not trying to argue the other side, but there are people who claim to be sick when they just want to be paid to not work. So an ideal system should also deal with that possibility.

There is a limit around where I live here in Eastern Europe. 15 days per year but there are exceptions such as pregnancy and whatnot. Plus they abolished a particular law so now the employer can fire you while you are on sick pay.

The business as an organization has a responsibility to value the humanity of the laborers they employ, which includes understanding that the greater benefit of paying wages is that now everyone has more money to spend on the business (assuming the business is actually good). Similarly, the business should be investing in making sure people are not coming into work sick, especially in the service industry! Spreading sickness to ones customers is a horrific idea. And lastly but not leastly, being able to treat people as humans actually saves the business money in turnover/training costs!

That's what insurance is for.

There is nothing unique about American businesses that means they cannot pay sick pay. In the UK there is mandatory minimum amount that must be paid an employee is off sick for more than 4 days. So how many low paying jobs the statutory minimum is what they will get but many employers will offer your full-time wages for a certain amount for example the first 15 days or 10 days of sick per year. However if you are long term sick then you will eventually end up on statutory sick pay. But even that is better than nothing. And you should remember the many American companies that operate in the UK also offer this to their employees. Of course perhaps that is offset somewhat by not having them pay healthcare insurance for their employees (although there is National Insurance to pay for the NHS)

> As someone who has worked in the service industry as a server, manager, and eventually part-owner, why should we burden the business owner with the responsibility to pay when someone is sick and unable to work?

Because pooling risk results in more robust social systems.

The business owner can take the risk of losing a worker for a week much better than a worker can take the risk of not getting paid.

Because it aligns incentives properly.

If you don't get paid for not working while sick, and you need the money, you'll show up to work, and get other employees and customers sick. If the business has to pick up the tab for sick days, though, they are now incentivised to keep sick workers at home - lest they infect others.

I'd much rather have robust systems, with good public health incentives, then I am to see business owners pocket a few percentage points of profits.

I think their point was it should be paid from a public fund instead of by the individual business, although I suppose most businesses must have sick pay insurance to pay this, do they not?

You have not addressed why this is not a burden that should be shouldered by government versus business owners.

> I'd much rather have robust systems, with good public health incentives, then I am to see business owners pocket a few percentage points of profits.

For many small business owners, it can be the difference between paying yourself that week or not.

Although there are a number of socially related reasons - there are likely some significant immediate commercial reasons to do so.

If you're in a service related industry - do you want staff coming to work if they are (or recently) suffering from digestive illnesses? How would an outbreak of people getting sick after being at your facility look? It could potentially result in very very bad publicity - to the point of destroying your business.

If you're running a smaller business / facility - do you want an employee coming in and spreading the illness to your other workers in the early stages of being sick (and then later taking time off)? This could result in your business lacking sufficient staff to open if you can't use labor hire staff.

The reason why it might be good for businesses to provide an incentive (like sick pay) not to work when sick is that it reduces the risk of negative outcomes to the business.

In this thread about Japan, why are you ranting about the US? I think most people (at least Americans) have heard this before, and it would be more relevant and informative to describe the situation in Japan rather than the US or EU.

It's really fun to think about how Covid-19 will do in a country where the average worker has too few sick days, and where the cultural norm is to "just bear it" and continue working/attending school/being in public even when sick.

* applies to the US. And less developed nations.

This is sad, but luckily, a lot of people in our industry can just work from home on sick days (even though, normally, working remote for them wouldn't be an option). On my team specifically (as well as my old team), you would be pretty much turned away and asked to stay home if you were sick, which is something I have come to heavily appreciate.

> sick enough to wear a mask in public

As I understand it, the bar is really low on that. If you're coughing or sneezing, you should wear a mask. It doesn't matter if you otherwise feel fine. I don't think it's necessary to stay at home simply because you're sneezing, and I doubt it's a valid excuse to skip work or school.

> They won't filter the air coming in or out, but they'll catch a sneeze and a cough.

How can both parts of this statement be true?

Coughs and sneezes are mucous suspended in the air. The face masks don’t stop “true” airborn infections, just ones where the infection vector is mucous.

It'll catch most of the large droplets.

Most of the large droplets fall to the ground instantly without a mask anyways, though.

It's the aerosolized smaller droplets that travel far and end up infecting others in your vicinity.

When you sneeze or cough any mucus or other fluids are projected forward and into the inside of the mask. When you exhale, the air pressure in the mask increases and air is forced out the sides.

No, these masks are not bio-safety level 4, but they're probably better than nothing. At worst they prevent a portion of your sneeze and cough ejecta from landing on surfaces around you.

Visited Tokyo last week. At least 95% of the people were wearing masks. Probably closer to 99%.

Way over exaggerating.

Was in Tokyo last week and this week.

Depending on the day my guess was that 40-70% of people were wearing masks - more on public transit.

I assume that you mostly were at the Airport or public transit/other huge venues - otherwise I cannot really explain our different experiences.

Makes sense. That highlights the difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures. But if the measurable, scientific benefit of wearing a poorly-fitted mask is minimal at best, masks are pandemic security theater anyways. And I'm unsure if collectivist cultures consider that. Why bother doing something for the group, if the thing has no actual benefit other than appeasement.

A minimal increase across an entire population becomes relevant.

You're forgetting that it's a season for the pollens and so many people have allergies against that, many people start wearing masks at this season. But the Corona has pretty much wiped masks off the shelves and those who need are having a hard time getting one.

And of course, much like the drug supply chains, I'm going to assume that masks are largely manufactured in (wait for it) China and factory lines are probably shut down.

Even if they weren't, the whole Just In Time(tm) inventory system will hammer you.

Nobody is going to staff up to make more masks because everyone knows that you will make lots of money for a couple months and then the demand will crash afterwards when Coronavirus has passed.

Yet I see people grab their mask and pull it down to let a huge sneeze or cough out into the open, unprotected, all the time. I’ve even had convenience store workers pull down their mask to cough into their hands right before handing me something. Not to mention guys (not sure about women) pretty much never wash their hands with soap and water after using the toilet. Most train station bathrooms, excluding the Shinkansen stations, don’t even have soap—and I’ve been to plenty of doctor’s offices and restaurants that have no soap in or near their bathrooms.

Basic understand of disease spread and hygiene is lacking here. Changing into slippers when entering a building and wearing decorative masks are all about appearances, and that’s what’s most important in Japan. It’s even more evident with that sham of a quarantine on the cruise ship before letting infected people off.

I don’t think what you’re describing is specific to Japan.

I regularly see all of the unhygienic behaviors you have described in public in Europe and in the US as well.

Other countries have problems, but they’re not praised for their perceived cleanliness. I’ve also never had trouble finding soap in any other bathrooms, and no soap in the bathrooms of some medical clinics indicates a much deeper problem.

Idk about Europe, but in my 10+ years in the US, I haven't seen a single bathroom (whether public or in someone's home) that didn't have soap. And that's across both coasts and a bunch of different states.

Check out a cash only gas station the next time you need to fill up and ask to use the restroom.

It's often cleaner than one in the cool, hip, vegan-only, fifty-craft-micro-beers-on-tap establishment I occasionally eat at.

In what country? I can't remember the last time I saw such a thing, so I think it's at least been multiple decades. If I did, I would, you know, probably not even attempt to use the restroom.

Arco and Valero in California are two chains that are effectively cash only (they take debit cards but charge a fee that's high when pricing it into the cost off gas). I no longer live in the US, but still visit family every year and I've seen those on every visit.

Oh. But those are big chains, so I probably would expect the bathroom to be decent.

I think these places are franchises so cleanliness and maintenance depends on the owner.

Is there some rationale for the lack of washing with soap? And is this just after men use the urinals, or also after they use the stalls?

Stalls and urinals. At most, I see guys wet the tips of their nails with water, usually followed by fixing up their hair quick.

I wonder if one is supposed to carry one's own soap/hand sanitizer, as it goes with tissue paper (many Japanese bathrooms will not supply it).

And most bathrooms don't have towels to dry your hands. You're expected to bring your own towel, leave with wet hands, or use the electric blow-dryer and scatter germs all over the bathroom. For a country as obsessed with bathroom hygiene as Japan is, the lack of hand towels seems bizarre to me.

I’ve lived in America and Japan and have traveled the world. There’s absolutely no question that Japanese people have a much, much higher awareness of personal hygiene than most people elsewhere. Whatever axe you’re grinding here, the premise that Japanese people in particular are just robotically going through the motions is utterly inconsistent with my personal experience. During this Covid-19 episode, every single person who visits my home goes directly to the sink to wash their hands, unprompted. Masks are a precaution, not a cure. If nothing else, they’re a reminder that we’re in a heightened state of vigilance. If anyone were to sneeze or cough in public in Kyoto right now, you better believe that everyone is going to notice. It’s tourists that are visibly breaking the rules of hygiene as far as I’ve seen. (Your example of a conbini worker is funny since they’re generally foreigners.) The first signal that this outbreak was serious was when I noticed all the Apple Store employees were masked up. They’re the front line of dealing with foreign visitors.

People also rarely touch each other. No hugging, no kissing, no handshaking. All of this is important at times like this. Riding the subways here and in Tokyo recently, I notice that no one is holding a strap or pole any more.

Funny that you mention foreigners, because trying to get an STD test in this country is hell. Doctors will grill you and ask if you’ve had sex with foreigners, and if not, why worry? There’s no way you have an STD. Unless you’re leaking blood, doctors will argue that you don’t really need an STD test. They say that to me even though I’m clearly foreign, but I guess I’m not one of those foreigners.

I had to visit a few clinics until I finally managed to get one to give me a test. Even then, I had to argue with them to do more than test only chlamydia and at least include gonorrhea. Syphilis and HIV weren’t included with any degree of persuasion, since they said only certain foreigners from certain countries have it, so there’s no chance of having that. That’s in the midst of a syphilis outbreak in a country that offers unprotected services with prostitutes. It seems like a pattern of fundamental misunderstanding among doctors.

I also once had pinkeye and went to an ophthalmologist. The doctor was calling people in one by one during allergy season and examining people in an open office setting so it was possible to see them be person before you being examined. The doctor wore no gloves. The doctor didn’t wash his hands before seeing me. After touching my eyes, he said he’d get me some eye drops, told me I was good to go, and immediately called the next person over.

I’ve also frequently been prescribed kanpou/traditional Chinese medicine and had to go to another clinic to get real medicine.

These are my experiences with medical understanding here. There’s a big problem with blaming “foreigners”, but the only people I’ve seen washing their hands with soap have been... foreign tourists.

The syphilis thing is true. I've watched a few NHK health programs teaching Japanese people what syphilis looks like because most don't know how to ID it.

Also, I have had doctors just look at me, feel my throat and look into my eyes then give me the all clear at a physical. Like, how do you know I'm even okay just taking a glance?

Kanpou is something I have tried with limited success. I think it works on a placebo effect rather than actually curing you.

> Also, I have had doctors just look at me, feel my throat and look into my eyes then give me the all clear at a physical. Like, how do you know I'm even okay just taking a glance?

From my experiences in a bit less than a dozen countries in the US, Europe and East Asia, that unfortunately seems to be a worldwide standard. Unless you're showing very obvious symptoms, it's on you to proactively request tests/medecine.

This is why I'm bullish on AI doctors, free from the negative incentives of an overbooked practitioner's schedule.

You're not wrong, but it's more complicated than that. Some Japanese wear them for fashion reasons, just because everybody else is wearing one. Some (usually women) because wearing a mask means you don't have to wear lipstick in public, which means you can get out the door faster in the morning. And a lot of people (wrongly) believe that a mask helps keep you from getting sick. If only the sick wore them you wouldn't see nearly as many as you do on the streets in Tokyo.

if you sneeze into the mask you walk around rest of the day with a wet mask with phlegm in it?

makes no sense to me.

> Also, there is a culture of not staying home when you're sick

That's been my experience in the US, but in Japan? While briefly living there, I was shocked when my 22 year old neighbor stayed home because of a common cold.

I suspect it is more company/occupation specific. High paying white collar workers are probably much more likely to be able to stay home. Low pay workers, likely have much less vacation benefits and all and must come to work. Me specifically I have over enough PTO with no prior vacation commitments that a week off it not a problem.

"High paying white collar workers" or even mediocre paid white collar workers are more likely to be working from home when sick.

I have never had a job where I felt comfortable and able to take a sick day because I had "just" a cold, but since I've had an office job where working from home was allowed, I would also not feel comfortable coming into the office sick.

Masks are also worn for privacy and social anxiety. They can be fashionable [0].

And, it's sad to even have to mention this, but as an added bonus for the dystopia we seem to be headed into, they also hinder mass surveillance. Apparently there are/were attempts to ban masks during the unrest in Hong Kong.

I recall this video [1] where people say they like how masks keep their faces warm, and they can feel free to sing to a song in public without feeling embarrassed. :)

[0] https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=face+mask+fashion

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW67Hd7RJgQ

Social anxiety? They'd make communication more difficult not less.

Social anxiety manifests differently for different people. Some prefer to stay as "invisible" as possible, some don't like other people focusing on their face.

Unfortunately Wuhan experience showed that home isolation doesn't work. Caretakers will get infected. People also have needs that will make them or their caretakers go outside.

How did you reach the conclusion that home isolation doesn't work? Seems quite hyperbolic.

It works and is part of the whole solution. A clear downside is caretakers/food delivery can get infected, but it is much harder to spread.

The data shows that isolation is helping [1], China minus the outside world shows diminishing new cases in China.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/

That is the point: China does not do home isolation. Wuhan had no choice but to try that in the beginning and it did not work. Things only started to improve when Wuhan were able to collect patients into quarantine sites.

Ebola is closer to what you're describing. 2-21 days to show symptoms and you're only contagious after symptoms arise. Isolation 100% works.

Corona is closer the flu/common-cold in terms of transmission.

Quarantining patients is too late. The viral point is the 14-21 day incubation period where patients aren't showing symptoms yet very able to spread the disease, which is the whole reason why it's so scary and affecting the world markets.

If Wuhan removed home isolation and everyone was allowed to go back to the old way of life, the virus would spread again.

I'm not sure how you can argue against home isolation. I haven't been convinced of what you claim; that it isn't helping.

Incubation is typically 4 to 7 days. Home isolation depends on compliance. Patients and their families will be hard pressed to comply if their medical and other needs can not be met.

I'm surprised this a top comment on such a popular submission.

To give this reply a little perspective, I'm from Taiwan and currently live in Vancouver.

It is very disingenuous to conclude what's happening in Japan is because of (the mask, and sick leave) culture. It is what makes me nervous about North America's preparedness. I'm assuming you are from NA since US CDC keeps telling the public that masks aren't effective. IMO they're just saying that to not cause a panic of people grabbing masks. Plus, they have a point. Most North Americans just aren't used to wearing one, so might make the wearers touch their faces even more. This is not true in a lot of Asian countries.

The general public in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are all very accustomed to people wearing masks in public places, especially on mass transit systems. The density is just night and day compared to most of North America except maybe New York. Some wear it to stop the spread of disease, other comments have mentioned being a substitute for make-up, or also common: as a face shield when riding bicycles or scooters in the winter (much like a ski mask). Anyways, the point is that it is extremely common place. If you've worn it a couple of times you won't keep touching it.

> One of the problems is that they put too much confidence in face masks.

The mask is just the first line of defense. No one thinks masks are the be-all and end-all solution. After the outbreak in Iran, I'm seeing more and more Middle Easterners wear masks on the street. I'll bet you money when it starts spreading locally in North American communities you are going to see more people wear masks no matter their skin color or 'culture' (if they can get any). Check out the Italians wearing masks. [1]

> Most of these masks are just toys and not air tight at all.

Plenty of others corrected you on this so I won't go into it much. Basically, it's to block droplets (from leaving you and attached to other people and places like handles on buses etc.) It's not filtration. It also acts as a barrier if you are in close contact to someone who is sick.

> Also, there is a culture of not staying home when you're sick.

This annoys me the most. Us working in the technology sector have generous sick day policies, or even better remote work policies. But most people don't. There are plenty of people of all ages and colors and backgrounds that cough openly during my morning commute. This culture HAS to change but it's definitely not limited just Asia, let alone Japan.

1. https://www.gazettenet.com/Italy-rushes-to-contain-Europe-s-...

What's worse is that they take their masks off to sneeze so they can continue using the same mask.

For those of you curious about the state of COVID-19 in Japan, I created an open source tracker that has gained a lot of momentum.

Source Code: https://github.com/reustle/covid19japan/

Tracker Itself: https://covid19japan.com

Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/reustle/status/1229313493808992257

(copied from another thread)

Wow this is awesome, I would love for this to be a global thing. Are you aware of any ports for other countries?

Not aware of any ports, no, but I'm sure there are others working on similar projects. Feel free to fork if you think it would be helpful!

Beware, we're removing mapbox because it's costing me big $

Here's a global tracker: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

There's a global map and charts at https://outbreak.cc

Also the /r/coronavirus subreddit has a daily post with changes per country.

you should avoid the r/coronavirus subreddit, a pro-china mod has taken over and is actively suppressing China-related news and signal-boosting news on other countries. The head mod recently started an AMA with the stated purpose of banning "troublemakers". It's effectively a pro-china messaging operation at this point.

China is very worried about this, it represents a potentially existential threat to CCP's political control of the country. That's why they were jailing doctors who reported the outbreak and so on. Maintaining media control of the narrative is important and in 2020 that of course includes social media like Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bannedfromcoronavirus/comments/f3uv...

Or, read it if you want, but be aware that it's going to be downplaying the China situation and playing up the situation in other countries to make China look better. Treat it like reading RT or something.

(and on a more general note, Reddit's system for choosing moderation is terrible. They just give control to whoever is first to register some obvious brand-name or whatever, and there's really no system to appeal it, unless you want to try and start your own subreddit using some different name. And like domain names, there's really only so many reasonable permutations of a given name.)

There are many, but I personally follow this one:

https://covid19info.live/ (formerly wuflu.live)

Here’s a list of other similar websites/apps/telegram/whatsapp groups:

https://github.com/abuuzayr/coronavirus-apps/

Glad they provide a log scale. Shows China growth slowing down but the rest of the world is exponential.

If you trust the reported numbers, and agree that the number of tests being performed is adequate. In Japan, for example, the number of tests is far too low (2,000 only so far).

Adding this metric to the tracker tonight, actually.

Local news source says death count is 8 now.

Any chance you could change the map to cases per capita? As someone who is not from Japan I don't know if each area on the map has 1 or 1 million habitants.

Thank you for this.

Sorry to change the topic but I'm really struggling with a decision to fly from Tokyo (where I live) to the USA tomorrow for a wedding.

One of my closest friends is getting married. She says to come! Wedding is Saturday. Day after I'd fly to another state to see mom. A few days after that I'd fly to another state to see brother and dad. After that was supposed to be GDC. May still go to SF or just stay with dad but current flight back is after GDC.

I don't really want to miss my friends wedding and was really looking forward to seeing family as I only get to seem them once every other year or so and parents are healthy but ~80 so no so many chances left.

So, what do I do? Go and cross my fingers I don't catch it? Pray that I'm not a carrier? No symptoms ATM. I currently work from home so haven't been commuting in typical Tokyo rush hour trains but have been out at non-rush hour 2 out of 3 days a week.

Is it selfish to want to go? Is it selfish to not want to go? Is it irresponsible to go? Is it stupid to be worried?

I'm from a non-Hubei Chinese province.

I won't go if I were you. Although the chances are small, but there are several cases in my home town, where people came back from Hubei province (where the outbreak initiated), without any symptoms, turned out to be carriers. One graduate student infected > 10 family members while maintaining normal body temporature, made local news right away.

Based on your experience, are people fully recovering from Coronavirus? How long does that take usually?

My dad works for the local CDC so I was following the development pretty closely. It really depends on the person themselves, most people do recover without obvious squelae. It can take up to 21 days, tho most people show symptoms within 14 days.

Thank you for this - stay safe and healthy.

I'm going to say go for it. If this event holds enough significance for you that you will regret not going, then I say go. With the caveat that you maintain good hygiene, wear a mask and take any appropriate steps.

I am interested in hearing the counter argument though.

All the proper hygiene in the world won't prevent you from being infected if there's an overnight explosion in cases while you're in contact with hundreds of people in airports, airplanes and social gatherings.

Even if you did manage to avoid getting sick, there's a chance you could get stuck in quarantine in Japan, the US or both as countries become more aware of the virus' dormancy.

Anecdotally, I have several friends who have cancelled non-refundable trips. If it were me, the desire to go on the trip wouldn't outweigh the stress of worrying about being infected, being held in quarantine, or traveling while a global panic sets in.

Thank you for this! I'm starting to lean towards a recommendation of not going.

> there's a chance you could get stuck in quarantine in Japan, the US or both as countries become more aware of the virus' dormancy.

That's the key point for me. My personal risk calculus has me staying in my own country: while I think it's extremely unlikely that international travel to non-hot spots would lead to infection, I'm not chancing entry / exit / in place quarantines.

IMO don’t put your family at risk. We already know there’s asymptomatic transmission of the disease and that it’s much more injurious and deadly to people over 50. If you’re young and healthy, yes, you’ll probably be fine, but run the risk of exposing others in a more precarious state.

In the absence of any clear data or guidance either way, I don't think either decision would be terrible or irresponsible of you. If it were me...I probably wouldn't go, but I really don't know. Your parents ages is a factor on both sides, honestly.

Whatever you decide, I applaud you for at least asking the question and thinking about the risks to yourself and others, instead of so many who want to stick their head in the sand and insist that everything is fine.

I just cancelled my trip _to_ Tokyo this morning at the last minute because I was worried about unwittingly bringing the virus back to the states and getting friends and family (children and immune deficient) sick.

Just wondering, were you able to get a refund of the paid expenses?

No refund on the flights so we ended up paying a ticket change fee and rescheduling for september! Some of the lodging was less flexible unfortunately :(

Personally I would probably go if I felt I was relatively low risk as you seem to be. But, then, I'm planning on taking off for a couple of weeks of conferences within the US on Monday. But it ultimately has to be an individual decision.

For what it's worth, a Japanese work collaborator of mine had plans to visit me in the US next week. Just today he wrote me to cancel.

He mentioned an additional concern: that air travel might be disrupted, and that he'd be unable to return home.

Yes, having the return ticket canceled would be my real concern. Seems like an easy way to get into a hotel and travel visa mess.

On the one hand, I'd worry less on a work trip. Whatever expenses are associated with having to hang out in a foreign country and dealing with visas isn't on me personally.

On the other hand, do I really want to expose myself to unanticipated foreign quarantine for my job?

It seems like you're relatively low risk. Japan has several hundred cases in a population of 126 million.

It's still good to be cautious though. The negatives: air travel could be disrupted while you're here, there's asymptomatic transmission, you need to pass through a busy airport in a country with unknown infection routes, and (most importantly) the virus is much more dangerous for your parents. If I was in your shoes, I'd probably cancel and plan a trip to see everyone in a few months.

Correction: several hundred confirmed cases. They're not testing the whole population every day. It's dangerous to assume the confirmed cases is close to the number of transmissible people.

If you're younger than 50. I'd go. Take basic precautions but don't worry.

If you're older than 50, still go but take extra precautions. And take any symptoms very seriously.

Take the precautions either way.

Also consider wearing thin knit or cotton gloves to remind you to not touch things by default.

Not op but I’ve been wondering, if symptoms appear what can be done apart from go home with the flu and hope it’ll pass and not kill me??

Right now they'll probably want to test and actively quarantine you, if you really are showing symptoms.

In a more mass-spread scenario, where they can't really handle all the cases with high attention - follow your symptoms each day closely and if you're getting noticeably worse from one day to the next after the early symptoms have appeared (after the first several days), go to the hospital and seek treatment. It doesn't appear to be much different than having the flu in this regard, it's that the mortality rate and virality appears to be far higher (and a far higher percentage of patients are requiring intensive care).

There was an excellent 'inside the hot zone' article posted here on HN a few weeks ago, that interviewed a doctor in China that had directly dealt with many early cases of Covid. His input was that the people that died turned hard south in the second week after symptoms presented, and would often die in the third week. That pattern tended to repeat for patients that died. Seeking treatment at a hospital as soon as possible if you see yourself turn for the worse in the second week, appears to be critical.

The pattern you describe should be everyone's standard practice already.

If symptoms are getting worse, particularly acutely, seek medical attention.

Importantly, if you think it might be something bad (like COVID-19 or another contagious disease) make sure to make that known to the first and primary medical contacts you make as you seek treatment.

I'd go to the wedding and skip the rest of the trip. GDC is certain to be canceled (Facebook F8 was just cancelled)

There is no good answer, but, if I were you, I would probably go but keep a close eye on symptoms.

Be aware, that you are probably likely to get hit with a quarantine if everything goes pandemic.

And, if things do go pandemic, you probably want to have seen your parents.

Skip GDC, though. That's just asking for trouble. And it's likely to be cancelled, anyway.

Go, the media is beating it up ridiculously. A few magnitudes more people are being hit by lightning outside of China than dying from COVID19.

Can we get some actuaries in here please?

n.b. This is being described domestically as 要請, which is “ask” in the sense of “The IRS asks that you not lie on your tax return.”

Are all the schools in Japan controlled or funded in some way by the government? I'm guessing this is an "ask" to private school and the public schools have it as a direct order.

In many parts of the world, the government still has regulatory power over private schools in many ways. I wouldn't be surprised if Japan can pretty much shut down all schools for health emergency reasons.

In most parts of the world the government has authority over everything once they declare an emergency.

Does that really mean voluntary, strong suggestion or mostly mandatory?

Yes.

(source: I live in Japan)

...the GP didn’t ask a yes or no question. :P

“Is it” was the core of the question, which can be yes/no. ;-)

I assume he's saying, in a tongue in cheek way, that it's ostensibly "voluntary" (but not really).

Yep.

Once we asked if club activity were mandatory at the local school. We specifically asked about the mandatory aspect. The answer was "everybody does it".

Yes I did. ;-P

(Face saved.)

Situation: :-/

Answer: Hahaha. :-P

Several years ago the Abe government "suggested" corporations issue dividends at about 30% of their profits.

Now: nearly all corporations pay dividends at about 30% of profits as policy.

Japan may not be reactive or proactive, but it does voluntary unity pretty well.

Yes, this is one incredible things about the country. They might lag 10 years (or decades) on a social issue, but once a decision is taken, even radical, it will be applied in a couple of years.

This is interesting to me. It appears "Abenomics" coincided with the creation of the Nikkei 400, which is a selective index with preference for high-dividend-per-share equities. And your claim is correct, in 2015 average dividend-per-share for Nikkei 255 was 15%, and it has since risen to 30%

But was this a short-term gimmick to encourage investment? Did it work? My understanding is that high dividend payout represent weak reinvestment and overall lower growth.

I am not a native speaker, but it seems a "要請" from the government is basically something like a government order, even though it seems "polite". For example, I see usages of "政府からのデータ要請", "request from the government to hand over data", which is well, as we know, people have to comply with. So I am guessing this wording is interpreted as an order, even though it means "request".

IANAL, much less in Japan, so take it with a pinch of salt.

EDIT: Seeing the other replies, I guess it can be interpreted both ways: people "listening to the advice of the government", or "government asking people listen to them". Again, IANAL.

The AP article said it was a non-binding order, but they are expected to follow it.

The US IRS can and will jail you if you do lie, so that might not be the best analogy.

They can jail you for a mistake, let alone a lie.

No, they cannot jail you for a mistake if in fact you honestly think you did everything right. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheek_v._United_States

That's not quite right. The case you cite does support your position. But, the bar for jail time is a higher hurdle for the gov't to surmount than that. You merely have a good faith belief you did not violate the law. Therefore, if you are handling a gray area and you know the IRS could take a different position, you can still rest easy about jail time so long as you don't intentionally deceive/lie/etc. This is not legal advice

The IRS even has a way for you to tell them "I think the law says this".

Also, if you and they don't find a mistake for a few years, there is a statutory limitation on them even collecting money. I don't remember exactly, but it's less that I'd thought.

That was the point, it's "ask" in the sense of "we're not really asking."

It’s a good analogy. It explains the word “ask” in this case means “requires”.

In terms of expressing the linguistic point being made, it seems like a fine analogy.

The point is, apparently, that "ask" is a euphemism for something that you are effectively obligated to do.

You're reading much too far into it.

Sounds more like he wasn't reading far enough into it

As an English person I am finding this thread very confusing because I encounter very few situations where "ask" doesn't mean exactly what patio11 is describing.

This is especially true when the dialogue is between two people (or entities) of different social status or power, but it's also pretty rude to not oblige when you are close to the person.

The only time it is truly voluntary is when there is no relationship and nothing to lose by declining.

If the IRS would "ask" me about income in the same way that I "ask" my wife to pass me the peas when we're having dinner, you can be sure I wouldn't be paying any taxes...

re: IRS, they _do_ call it "voluntary compliance" after all

Our county school system has a remote learning platform in place that is used for bad weather days. It keeps the schools from needing to do make up days. I wonder how long it could be effective. It seems like an ok way to handle lessons and coursework for a few days but I wonder if there would be a wide gap in student achievement if it needed to go beyond that limited scope.

Just curious, how extreme weather do you get where you live? We have some rough weather at times, but I've never heard of closed anything due to bad weather.

No snow days? I weep for your childhood.

Most of the winter we skied to school. :-)

In large swaths of the US, schools (especially grade school and high school) typically close for some number of days each year due to snow. There can be other weather events too but snow's the common one.

Most schools in the midwest US actually build a school calendar that is 7-8 days (or so) longer than is actually necessary. That way if they have to take snow days, they're not going until July; alternatively, if they don't take snow days, everyone gets excited to be let out early. . . when it's really the legal time to be out of school.

I've never heard of a school actually letting out early though. Last year my son had to go an extra week though because they used more than the planed days off.

I can't speak for the op, but in Minnesota (in the northern part of the US), there are days in the winter when the temperature gets as low as -30F (~ -35C) with very high winds. This can make for very dangerous travel. Occasionally there are snow storms that make the roads impassable for part of the day.

On these sorts of days, the schools are sometimes closed to keep people off the roads.

> sometimes

Well that settles it, I'm not moving to Minnesota

You have to be prepared for the normal. I have friend from MN who lived down south. It took them a long time to get used to the idea that everything shuts down from a cm of snow on the ground - something that would barely keep us at the speed limit (as opposed to the whatever over most people do...). While we do have practice in ice, I expect (without looking up) more people in MN go in the ditch when there is a cm of snow than people in southern states as a result of their paranoid.

In MN though (this applies to many other areas of the world that get a lot of snow/ice/cold) if we shut down that often we would get only have 1-2 weeks of travel between November and April and so it obviously isn't possible to play is safe. So we deal with it by having warm coats, boots, and other infrastructure.

I grew up in Montana, same latitude as MN. The entirety of my K-12 schooling was done there. We never once had our schools close for snow, but we did have 2 closures due to extreme cold. Once it was so cold, the school's boilers couldn't keep up heating the buildings. The other, the boilers were going so hard they actually managed to start a fire in the ceilings.

That said, there were days where snow prevented me from getting to school and days where the drive home was treacherous (the only way to tell where the road was the highway reflectors sticking out of the snow). I also learned how to chain up the first year I had my license. Nearly every day in December that year, I had to chain up to get home (water on ice and ~14% grade on the first hill up to the house).

Also in Montata. Our school has closed for one day in 30 years due to weather. This was due to busses not being able to travel the town roads. Our kids would have been at school since they don't ride the bus. They've failed to get to school one day when my plow truck ended up stuck sideways across our road.

Presumably you don't live in the Midwest. Over the course of K-12 I had school days cancelled for: snow(probably 12x, maybe more), extreme cold (2-3x), freezing rain(2x), and flooding (1x). And that is the days it's actually cancelled. There were about as many days where school was started 2-hours later or let out early due to snow, extreme cold, or occasionally dense fog.

Reasons why school was canceled in places I have lived: snow, hurricanes, floods, wildfire (smoke and danger of burning down), and weather related power outages.

Are you me? This is just NYC & SF! :)

I'm in Georgia. Anything that results in ice on the roads is treated as extreme. Sometimes they just push back the start time of the school day but if they think ice will be on the road throughout the day, they'll do a remote learning day. I think they're more likely to err on the side of caution now that remote learning is an option. Flooding also has been cause for remote learning days. I've never received a good answer to the question of how they handle students without the appropriate equipment at home for the remote learning days. It's an affluent county with many tech workers so maybe it's not much of an issue.

I'll agree that learning is (hopefully) the main point of school, but we can't dismiss the effect that having kids at home means there needs to be one adult at home as well (up to some age at least).

Curious which software platform your school system uses, if you can share.

https://itslearning.com/us/

Oh no, that platform was a horror show 10-20 years ago, and I'm not sure it has improved...

I teach high school English. We have a similar system. It is fine for the odd day here or there, but it significantly limits the level of intervention that is possible when students run into problems with their work. IMO - We would have a hard time maintaining our current level of expectation if my school had to rely on our remote learning program for an extended period of time.

very interesting! the replies make me wonder if doing more remote schooling would help improve the existing software and tools.

I don't see comments on this yet but I'll says some of that is because of the Olympics based in Tokyo this summer. I heard the other day about how there's kind of a cutoff point in May determining if it needs to be postponed, pushed, or moved. The Olympics is still huge and if your country is hosting, I can see them wanting to close schools to try anything to stop the possible spread for people to trust and want to still go and compete.

You can't move olympics. They can only be cancelled or they can do something without spectators/locals only maybe not to loose trucks of money on broadcasting agreements etc. Travel to Japan is pretty much banned on all orgs/companies so good luck with organising anything in this conditions.

Why it can't be +1 year tentatively? I see no showstopper, all contracts remain. A lot of pain locally, but better for everybody rather than just cancelling.

There is a very full worldwide calendar of lower-tier events that take place in the other 3.75 out of four years when the Olympics aren’t happening, some of which would have to be canceled to accommodate. There’s also the issue of clearing all of the massive hotel room blocks needed, and re-working the schedules of all of the Olympic venues.

It could probably be done, but it will be very painful.

Not +1, but +2 is possible.

But then you end up delaying the Olympics AND cancelling the World Championships. Better off just canceling IMO.

Does the situation in Japan even really matter when you're making that call? If the virus is still rampant in the rest of the world, surely they're still going to cancel.

I wouldn’t count on Japan acting logically after the way they handled the Diamond Princess quarantine.

e.g. letting people disembark because they tested negative and then spent weeks in quarantine. [1]

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/23/coronavirus-wo...

I honestly wonder why any country would want to host the Olympics. It costs an enormous amount of money, and I'm pretty sure that it's been found that the host country never really recoups that "investment"; instead the taxpayers fund the construction of a bunch of big facilities that are never used again. The world would be better off just having 2 permanent locations for the Olympics (summer and winter) and reusing them every time.

Prestige. For country, state, city and all the associated organizers/politicians/etc. The idea of permanent locations is perennially suggested and never goes much of anywhere.

The original Olympics certainly didn't move around

Not just the hosting country but TV business globally. They have other big events later and can't afford to have them all go over each others.

This is surprising given this epidemic seems to mostly affect people over 30. Not saying it's wrong, I'm not a public health expert. Just surprised.

Is it because they might be likely to carry and spread it without ever showing any symptoms?

2 of the 15 new cases in Japan are children. Seems like a reasonable precaution as children have a lot more physical contact than adults (example, lice spreads in children more easily).

Children can spread to adults that’s why

are elders still living with children and grandchildren ? or is it a cliché .

Over ~60 really, but schools are still amazing in terms of spread (to everyone), even if most of the kids would be fine after 2 weeks at home.

70-90. And the DJIA just dropped 500 pts.

Closed at down 1190.

Quarantines apparently are a way to stop spreading it. Now imagine a school with 800 kids, with parents and siblings from all kinds of backgrounds. One kids with the virus can spread to a lot of people who can then do the same...

Also tons of kids in Japan walk, take the train or bike to school, so having kids stay home would actually cut down on a chunk of possible vectors that go back and forth to busy places like train stations and schools. If this keeps up in Japan, the Tokyo Olympics are definitely getting postponed..

More like canceled. There is just no reasonable way to reschedule an event like that.

There's a good discussion on today's episode of the Daily podcast (Feb 27). Basically the theory is that children often get the 4x regular coronavirus strains and this provides a bit of protection against the new coronavirus strain. Therefore they tend to get subacute cases of coronavirus but can still spread.

Here's an unintended consequence of closing schools though. Who often takes care of children when schools are unexpectedly closed? Grandparents. So in a way, they could be making this worse.

I believe in Japan most married women stop working when they have children (https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04601/japanese-women-fac...) but in other countries where both parents are working, closing schools would be very disruptive.

You are correct, my view is very North American centric. I've never been to Japan so I don't know about childcare and parenting.

Kids staying at home with grandparents means far smaller groups of people though.

When my daughter started preschool... boy did she ever bring home every type of disease known to science. We ended up pulling her out and just having her grandparents look after her, which worked out really well, because I kept getting sick and missing work myself.

But those preschools build immunity.

Being "immune" just means your body can fight the infection effectively. It doesn't mean you don't get infected and can't spread the disease for a short amount of time.

>Kids staying at home with grandparents means far smaller groups of people though.

No, it means smaller groups of kids, but not for those seniors. They still go about their day, visiting with friends etc.

They can choose to not do that. Kids can't just take care of themselves on their own, they need an adult to take care of them. And seniors are a lot better about washing their hands and other things than young kids in big groups are.

> Basically the theory is that children often get the 4x regular coronavirus strains and this provides a bit of protection against the new coronavirus strain.

If that is true, that would seem to imply that one could improve one's resistance of COVID-19 by deliberately infecting themself with one or more non-COVID-19 coronaviruses. (Not that I suggest anyone try this.)

Children grouping together for school is a massive transmission vector no? I don't think this is necessarily about protecting specifically kids and rather reducing transmission.

think please! How old are parents of children?? Children can give the virus to their parents..

transmission is bad, as they might carry it to more vulnerable people, but also it gives the virus more opportunities to mutate, which could hinder vaccine/treatment progress

Vietnam, who has only had 19 cases (and very few new ones lately), closed their schools a few weeks back.

Last I heard that may be extended to the end of March.

It's good that they're on top of it. Better to be too cautious than make 2020 another list of pandemics wikipedia entry rounded to hundreds of thousands of dead. This one is especially bad because the carriers are asymptomatic while spreading it, and then suddenly most older men are being admitted to the hospital fighting for their lives.

It was a bit easier for Vietnam, since the schools were closed for Lunar New Year and we just kept it closed. However the government is discussing whether to open it again next week... Potentially bad timing to do so.

Good luck with that in the US, where school is often used as an alternative to childcare.

often? alternative?

I expect that our School ALWAYS care for my child. :P

Childcare meaning daycare or babysitter, as an alternative to parents watching the children. Parents often can’t take time off work to watch their children.

I pay for pre and post school childcare at my kids school, provide by my municipality. I also think School is a kind of childcare.

The care of the kids has always been the priority of great teachers in my experience

I expect if schools get called off most business will tell their people to stay home. They will watch their kids while working.

Of course the poorest will be least likely to be told to stay home (grocery stores will still need to be open - and probably need extra staff for sanitation)

What a strange way to phrase it. It sounds like you're suggesting the reason students go to school is because parents don't want to deal with childcare.

How is school "used" in other countries, then?

It's not that parents don't want to handle childcare. It's that American work culture and lack of social support makes childcare impossible for parents who don't have a stay-at-home partner/employee to rear the children.

In other countries is it still expected that one parent gives up their career in order to raise children? In America that went out of fashion after WW2.

I think some US employers still took the attitude that women who took significant time off to have a baby were not wanted back as late as the late 70s/early 80s. Like, I was told, the State of New York.

I'd argue that US parents are so keen on schools staying open because often their jobs depend on it. I expect it would be similar in Japan as well.

Maybe it seems like daycare because, in a sense, it does serve the function of allowing parents to work. That doesn't mean it's an alternative to daycare. The parents want their kids to have an education, but they also count on school to be able to work.

Even here in Canada, if a school has a snow day and an employer doesn't, it can be a little tense if you don't have anywhere to put your kids. People with relaxed employers and good leave options are fine, but many people don't have that.

>I'd argue that US parents are so keen on schools staying open because often their jobs depend on it. I expect it would be similar in Japan as well.

Why would it be similar in Japan? In Japan, children walk themselves to school (using public transit if necessary) as young as 6 years old. It's not like the US where parents can be thrown in jail for "child neglect" if their children don't have 24/7 adult supervision. I imagine that Japanese schoolkids can just stay at home if the schools are closed.

This is not the case everywhere in the US. E.g. in Montana there is no minimum age to leave a child unsupervised. In our town young kids walk and bike to school. Probably not aged 6 but certainly by 8-10.

Not everywhere, but Montana has a tiny, tiny fraction of the total population, and no large cities at all. In much of the country, for most of the population (which mostly lives in urban/suburban areas), it is as I described.

In the US public schools also commonly only the only way a large portion of school aged children get breakfast and lunch.

Without schools providing breakfast and lunch many kids will not get enough nutritional meals a day.

When the Chicago public schools "closed" during the teacher strike, the non-union staff were still working to keeps the schools open just to provide meals and a safe place for kids to go during the day.

This is so funny because, as any US parent knows, US schools love to close for any possible, however remote, reason.

And today Seattle area high school is already closed due to suspicion of coronavirus:

https://www.foxnews.com/health/washington-high-school-closed...

I think next will be universities (we already cancelled a conference in mine). Japan has taken the issue too lightly since the beginning, it's good they finally start acting on it.

Not sure if the universities will close, unless things get much worse. The universities here are already on Spring Break -- the semester / year ended at the start of February and the new school year won't start until the beginning of April. So, it's most likely they universities will just stay as they are and wait and see.

IF things get worse, I'm not sure what the universities will do here.

It’s spring vacation for undergrad students only, not researchers, grads students and administrative staff. Also contrary to Europe most service are running at least minimally (libraries, a cafeteria, etc.) so there is still some activity on campus.

So, if the virus keep spreading I hope they’ll close or that we can chose to stay at home, which is OK for most of my job anyway.

In Japan who would typically take care of children in a situation like this? In the US, because of the difficulty for parents to get off of work, I would expect most of the children to be in large group settings anyway (day care, staying with friends, large extended families, etc). It might limit spread a little bit compared to school, but not a lot.

Mothers. Japan is actually known for having very poor child support options outside of family. The percent of married woman with children that work is quite low.

According to a government survey from 2017 or so, the number of single parent families was hovering around 1.2 million. This is almost exactly 1 percent of the population which doesn't seem much until you compare it to the number of children under the age of 14 which is 15.53 million people. Now their ratio gets closer to 8 percent.

That doesn't seem very low to me.

Seriously though. That guy who comes into work sick to show us all he is 100% committed is completely bonkers. WORK REMOTELY if you need to flex how big your dedication is. Maybe throw a Calvin and Hobbes sticker on your car windshield while you're being so insecure and putting peoples health at risk.

Actually the pressure is a bit on the reverse... if you call off sick for anything less that super-ill, it looks like you're not committed, and your boss and co-workers will not think that favorably of you.

Even at the university I work at, as a teacher, there's a subtle pressure not to call in sick or miss meetings or take a day off. I can only imagine how much STRONGER that peer-pressure is in an office setting.

Remote work hasn't been a thing all my life, but now that (and where) it is, I've never seen people act like that, so I don't know why you're declaiming against it.

Announced just about an hour ago, taking the country here (Japan) by surprise. Most JHS and HS are in the middle of final exams, and public High School entrance exams are next week. (Most university entrance exams are just finishing, though).

A hopefully good move, but might have been nicer to have given teachers and students more time to prepare (i.e., announce it a week earlier, perhaps?).

shrug Just my $0.02

>Officials say 2 of the 15 new cases are children under 10 years of age.

>The latest cases bring the number of confirmed infections in Hokkaido to 54, the most in Japan.

How were they supposed to know last week that this would happen? Or are you proposing be can stop the spread of the virus for a week to give people chance to get ready??

No, I simply mean it would have been nice last week to let the schools know he's considering cancelling schools. By making this a sudden announcement he's caught all the schools on the hop, you might say. Today (Friday) is the one and only day left to wrap up the school year (school years end in March and start in April here). So final exams will be cancelled, maybe graduation ceremonies will be cancelled, students have to empty out their desks (they don't have lockers here).

Basically, teachers and students have to finish up the school year TODAY, with no advanced warning or time to plan.

So, I completely agree with Abe-san's desire to curb the spread of the virus, but being in the education system myself (and having 3 kids affected by his decision), a bit of an advanced warning would have GREATLY helped the schools, the kids, and the parents.

shrug But as I said, it's just my thoughts and hopes and desires as a father being affected by it! :-)

I have the opposite opinion. As long as you know it is the good decision, do it. Even preventing one class contamination could be crucial for preventing the epidemic to spread.

He announced it late in the afternoon but I even consider irresponsible to make that from next week and let the schools open tomorrow if you consider the situation so dangerous as to warrant school closures.

Japanese Source: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200227/k10012304751000.ht...

They plan to close them until spring holidays late next month. We can expect much of the US to do the same if the virus comes in during the winter season.

This is a big reason why the stock market is dropping.

> This is a big reason why the stock market is dropping.

That's.. a gross over simplification. The market sees a lot of perceived risk, whether that's school closures or factories shuttering temporarily, disruption in travel or other effects.

The move towards investing more in gold bullion is both reactionary and indicates the market perceives a heightened risk of crash. Note that the market perceiving something doesn't make it true or inevitable, anymore than your aunt Jill perceiving she's allergic to bad chakras.

> We can expect much of the US to do the same...

Maybe. That depends heavily on how any given local body is willing to admit the problem exists, federal pressure on them one way or another, and general population beliefs. I'd expect California to close a few schools if they see more cases, but I wouldn't expect Alabama to.

"The move towards investing more in gold bullion is both reactionary"

The market seems to be moving towards US Treasuries too.

More than 900 cases of infection have been confirmed. Damn, that's alarming.

But, as the rest of the sentence mentions, more than 700 of those were from the cruise ship.

I think you really need to keep that in mind when considering the Japanese infection count.

too late to do that now? it's already in the community

The point of epidemiological containment is to reduce the R value such that R<1. Once this is done, eventually, inevitably, the epidemic will burn out.

Yes, more people will become infected, yes, some will die.

But the level of person-to-person transmission will have fallen below the level necessary for the epidemic to sustain itself, and it will slowly decline and fade out.

Perfect containment, 100% effective vaccines, 100% vaccination rates, (neither of which apply here: there is not yet a vaccine), 100% travel and contact curtailment, 100% sanitation, 100% filtration, are not required. Only sufficiently effective methods to reduce transmission.

Of which, strong, effective, and widespread gathering and travel restrictions within or from epidemic zones are a very sensible tool.

I can't find any relevant data, but I wonder what effects previous quarantines (eg during Spanish flu) had on other infectious agents (eg common cold, norovirus, etc). Nobody was being quarantined for those other diseases, but I'd think a general quarantine would have had an effect on them as well. Maybe there ought to be a monthly quarantine every year, kinda like the Jewish year of jubilee.

One goal is to slow the infection rate, so hospitals are not overburdened. Never too late to do that.

Somewhere, a demonic Japanese child's spell has finally succeeded.

This is Japan. Parallel schools would appear :)

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