I think we can learn a lot from what Japan did to limit the damage from the virus. I see 2 that get ignored from the discussion and were very important to the results now. 1) They took it seriously from the start and were ready to implement procedures that limited the transmission early on. 2) The citizens were ready to do their part too such as masks and social distancing. We need to keep that in mind.
It helps they had masks available in the first place because they were already used to wearing them.
So true, I constantly wonder why cities are not sending masks to everyone. It's cheap compared to the alternative of spreading the virus.
Making the wearing of masks a political issue has been a disaster
And the best is that Western people would laugh out loud at them for wearing masks any other day. But, irony, that was one of the biggest factor in this case. Considering that they have an elderly society I'd say they did an outstanding job.