Yes but there is more to it. There was zero testing for all of 2020 and very little for at least the first part of 2021. Japan simply did not have any testing capacity until the end of 2020. Instead, it relied on diagnostic measures more inline with how all other diseases are diagnosed in the US, which if followed in the US would have…
Yes but there is more to it. There was zero testing for all of 2020 and very little for at least the first part of 2021. Japan simply did not have any testing capacity until the end of 2020. Instead, it relied on diagnostic measures more inline with how all other diseases are diagnosed in the US, which if followed in the US would have drastically reduced the number of cases. At the end of 2020, testing became available but at great cost to the individual being tested, so the number of people who tested was very small. Of these, most were tested at private clinics who reported the results to the person paying for the test and to no others. Testing costs came down and more people began getting tested and more + results reported before the vaccines were available here. So we saw an increase in cases before the clot shots were rolled out. But the highest numbers of cases and deaths seen here were the 7th and now receding 8th waves. During this, the way of attributing deaths as covid deaths has changed to wider definitions closers to what the US and others have used. If Japan had stuck with their original diagnostic measures, the olympics could have been held with spectators. But they too decided to count as many people as covid cases as they could.
Yes but there is more to it. There was zero testing for all of 2020 and very little for at least the first part of 2021. Japan simply did not have any testing capacity until the end of 2020. Instead, it relied on diagnostic measures more inline with how all other diseases are diagnosed in the US, which if followed in the US would have drastically reduced the number of cases. At the end of 2020, testing became available but at great cost to the individual being tested, so the number of people who tested was very small. Of these, most were tested at private clinics who reported the results to the person paying for the test and to no others. Testing costs came down and more people began getting tested and more + results reported before the vaccines were available here. So we saw an increase in cases before the clot shots were rolled out. But the highest numbers of cases and deaths seen here were the 7th and now receding 8th waves. During this, the way of attributing deaths as covid deaths has changed to wider definitions closers to what the US and others have used. If Japan had stuck with their original diagnostic measures, the olympics could have been held with spectators. But they too decided to count as many people as covid cases as they could.