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The story
In April 2020, during the first wave of COVID-19 in Japan, Hokkaido University professor (now a Kyoto University professor) Hiroshi Nishiura repeatedly urged the public that “reducing person-to-person contact by 80% would curb the spread of infection,” earning him the nickname “Mr. 80%.” An article in which he reportedly expressed regret while looking back on that period in a recent interview became a hot topic on 5ch. In the thread, users traded sarcastic remarks about how packed commuter trains were the one “exception” quietly overlooked at the time, debated the merits of the state of emergency and mask measures, and argued over excess-death estimates — opinions were split on whether the measures taken back then ultimately turned out to be the right call.
“It’s crucial that we reduce person-to-person contact by 80%.”
On April 15, 2020, as the first wave of the novel coronavirus raged across Japan, Hiroshi Nishiura (48), a member of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s expert panel and a professor at Hokkaido University (now at Kyoto University), stressed this point at a press conference held at the ministry.
Having repeated the “80% reduction” target at subsequent press conferences as well, Nishiura came to be known as “Mr. 80%.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Because the Cabinet officially decided commuter trains don't spread infection. A Cabinet decision beats everything.
Japanese-made trains are protected by some mysterious force, you see.
Sure, you catch it when you catch it, but that doesn't mean “no precautions at all” was ever the right call.
That's exactly the point being questioned now — whether grinding everything to a halt was even part of Fauci's strategy to begin with.
Over there, covering your face can get you treated like a criminal (anti-mask laws). Must be rough.
There were no legal penalties, but Japan was pretty similar in practice. In my city, you couldn't even get into the Coming-of-Age Day ceremony venue without proof of vaccination.
It's not that many — more like 7.8 times, tops. And that's not hugely different from a bad flu season's death toll either. In other words, elderly people were going to die whether we took measures or not, and the population decline would've happened regardless. If anything, the only real fallout was on the birth rate, since couples held off having kids out of fear they wouldn't get proper hospital care while pregnant.
Excess deaths topped 100,000 in 2022, but COVID deaths only accounted for around 30,000 of those. Which means…
Based on public data from MHLW research groups, Japan's rough annual excess-death estimates are as follows: 2020 — no significant excess deaths observed (essentially zero or not statistically significant); 2021 — approx. 15,000–26,000; 2022 — approx. 117,000–144,000; 2023 — approx. 109,000–114,000.
Really shows how people forget the pain once it's over, huh.
The doctors actually treating patients were honestly saying it was only a bit worse than a cold.
Hadn't Ken Shimura already died by then? As far as I remember, the reporting wasn't nearly that optimistic.
In the early days it was more likely to turn severe.
He was 72, I think. Seeing him hooked up to a ventilator, unconscious, at the end really made me think I don't want to go out that way.
Well, 72 is an age where you could just as easily die from the flu or ordinary pneumonia, honestly.
That's awful. Really rough.
It's just common sense as a national safety measure. You can say anything you want with hindsight, but as a response to an unknown virus, it was the right stance to take.
Fauci knew all along it was just flu-level, lol
Peer pressure here works like village ostracism (mura hachibu). It's a uniquely Japanese thing, which is why we ended up with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
It really was incredible how flu was completely wiped out back then. These days precautions are so lax it's spreading like crazy again.
It was amazing how flu cases dropped to almost zero. That said, it was also shocking just how infectious COVID turned out to be, given it still spread even then.
When tallying new COVID-19 cases, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare had been counting people with “unknown vaccination history” as “unvaccinated.” It's now come to light that the reported number of new infections among the unvaccinated was inflated beyond the actual figure.
https://www.asahi.com/sp/articles/ASQ664JT1Q65UTFL005.html
Re: #1
And even the third dose, which looks effective at first, ends up back on par with being unvaccinated after just two or three months.
Well, you can say anything with the benefit of hindsight.
Early on, young nurses were dying too, you know.
Kumiko Okae wasn't elderly.
Background and Points of Debate
Nishiura’s “80% reduction” figure came from a mathematical model calculation aimed at pushing the effective reproduction number below 1, based on the fatality rate and infectiousness of COVID-19 — which were still largely unknown at the time — and it became the basis for the request to refrain from going out under the state of emergency. At the same time, it was already being pointed out back then that situations like packed commuter trains, where reducing contact simply wasn’t practical, were effectively left out of the equation. The main point of disagreement in the thread was how to evaluate the excess deaths that piled up as a result. Because the yearly estimates vary in range and it’s difficult to separate out COVID deaths from other factors like the flu, some argued it’s premature to judge the merits of the measures based on a simple before-and-after comparison.
*This article is composed as excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Mr. 80%] Was It Right to Call for “80% Reduction in Person-to-Person Contact” Amid the COVID-19 Onslaught… Expert Who Led the Messaging on the Front Lines Now Expresses Regret.”
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