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Comment by Raphmedia | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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