Anecdotal, but after almost ten years living in Tokyo I've probably seen less than a tenth of men wash their hands after using the bathroom. Half just walk out. Other half puts a finger under the faucet for half a second, no soap, and done.
This article is from May and the number of cases has steadily increased again. Tokyo now gets more cases per day than during the state of emergency. It just seems that it's a different section of the population (more young people, fewer older people), which appears to be the reason there is no new emergency declaration yet.
Even when you look at the disparity in cases across the United States, it’s a little bit of a head scratcher to me, but it has to ultimately be behavioral.
Here in the Northeast, I’d say the majority of people (but certainly not all) are well intentioned and OK at following mask and social distancing guidance. From what I’ve seen and heard of family down in Florida for instance, there’s little to no fear or change to their day to day. Is it possible that Japan is just that much better at wearing masks, pinching the metal nose piece down, and adhering to distancing guidance that it’s actually bearing out in the data?
"No lockdown" is misleading. The government asked people to stay at home and the vast majority of people did. Many non-essential businesses closed. I walked through the usually bustling downtown area of my city on a Friday night and it was absolutely dead. It was like an apocalypse film.
That said, life has broadly gone back to normal, and if you look at the graphs [1] you can see that coronavirus has gone back to work just like many service industry workers.
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Here in the Northeast, I’d say the majority of people (but certainly not all) are well intentioned and OK at following mask and social distancing guidance. From what I’ve seen and heard of family down in Florida for instance, there’s little to no fear or change to their day to day. Is it possible that Japan is just that much better at wearing masks, pinching the metal nose piece down, and adhering to distancing guidance that it’s actually bearing out in the data?
Japan already had a culture of 1) mask wearing when you are ill and 2) not putting upon others.
So, it was an easy sell.
They also don’t have a culture of questioning science and rampant entitlement but 1 and 2 made it easy.
That said, life has broadly gone back to normal, and if you look at the graphs [1] you can see that coronavirus has gone back to work just like many service industry workers.
[1] https://covid19japan.com/