Reply to: Covid-19 deaths UK vs Japan

[Old Greg]

That was a fecking joke.

From the statements they gave at that time it made it clear the head public health officials and politicians spend too much time in VIP/Corporate boxes plus never took primary aged children to school.

To be fair to the PM, it's hard enough to keep track of how many children he has.

[SueEllen]

Yes the UK was late to the lockdown party. Too much dithering, not enough decisive leadership. Remember Cheltenham et al?

That was a fecking joke.

From the statements they gave at that time it made it clear the head public health officials and politicians spend too much time in VIP/Corporate boxes plus never took primary aged children to school.

[Scoobos]

Yeah, it's still going on now, people will say "Remember universities".

All this talk of children going back to school "no matter what" - because they are not as vulnerable, less likely to spread etc etc - but lets put thousands of tech savvy ADULTS (18+) into shared accomodation from all around the country , into what are already hotspots (Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Durham) etc. They can all be remote learning.

It's all transparently about the money. Meanwhile 120bn is still getting spent on HS2.

[Old Greg]

Bit late to the party, but adding to this - I was privy to some detailed comparison and analysis of this a few months back and I was surprised to find that they had a UK style lockdown.

It is thought to be the speed of implementation that resulted in the outcome.

When the UK were making the excuses of why our death toll was so much higher, they used terms like "Population Density" "Age demographics" "busiest Airport" etc.

Both things are "worse" in Japan, everyone of those factors is higher in Japan.

They just took it seriously after the WHO 30th January Public Health Emergency of International Concern announcement. (after the human to human on the 24th actually)

When Boris was giving his "coronavirus panic" PM speech in Greenwich on 3rd Feb , Japan was already 3 days into its response - with 20 cases on the board.
Everything was closed, with testing, tracing and isolation in place , and quarantine for international travel by 27th Feb. 186 cases.

Wiki isn't bad for this either - seems pretty impartial and unbiased:
COVID-19 pandemic in Japan - Wikipedia

Yes the UK was late to the lockdown party. Too much dithering, not enough decisive leadership. Remember Cheltenham et al?

[Scoobos]

Bit late to the party, but adding to this - I was privy to some detailed comparison and analysis of this a few months back and I was surprised to find that they had a UK style lockdown.

It is thought to be the speed of implementation that resulted in the outcome.

When the UK were making the excuses of why our death toll was so much higher, they used terms like "Population Density" "Age demographics" "busiest Airport" etc.

All "worse" in Japan, everyone of those factors is higher in Japan.

They just took it seriously after the WHO 30th January Public Health Emergency of International Concern announcement. (after the human to human on the 24th actually)

When Boris was giving his "coronavirus panic" PM speech in Greenwich on 3rd Feb , Japan was already 3 days into its response - with 20 cases on the board.
Everything was closed, with testing, tracing and isolation in place , and quarantine for international travel by 27th Feb. 186 cases.

Wiki isn't bad for this either - seems pretty impartial and unbiased:
COVID-19 pandemic in Japan - Wikipedia

The UK response still makes me furious today , its the same as the start - all saying 1 thing and doing another. We are still woefully unprepared and (I believe anyway) now in a position where test trace isolate cannot possibly work, it's already out of control.

All this because , in my view, in Feb we denied and boris told the world we would be brave, take it face on and "Put on our clark kent glasses in the name of world trade" and did nothing to secure what we needed to Lockdown.

Then during lockdown we chased our tails trying to fix what should have been done in Feb, instead of building our test trace isolate strategy and function - and in fact fragmented it to hell amongst outsourcing companies to outsourcing companies . Then we released lockdown without being ready and are now chasing test trace isolate too late.

It really doesn't look good for our healthcare system.

Even today the headlines are saying "will the NHS be overwhelmed" - the MINUTE that the NHS cannot provide its usual services (cancer , surgery, testing etc) it's overwhelmed . It's not possible for surgeons to even catch up with the backlog now, its literally 4-5 months behind , because we repurposed existing facilities and pretended about Nightingales. Nightingales might have actually been the answer, if they were service specific and staffed / kitted out.

<aaaaand relax>

[WTFH]

hooters went bankrupt last year in japan.

It's two years since I was there. Possibly unrelated.

[jayn200]

Hard Rock Cafe does well, as does Hooters, Mos, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, KFC, KrispyKreme, Critters, and several others.

Which parts of Japan have you been to?

I havent been everywhere, I've been to osaka, tokyo and a bunch of smaller places between them. I spent some time studying there and researched and wrote some papers on western multinationals trying to break into japanese market.

Of course there are some success stories but as a country they have probably the highest failure rate for western multinational restaurant chains.

I don't want to go through your list one by one but hooters went bankrupt last year in japan. Burger king failed their first time in japan as well and shut all their stores before retrying like 5 years later. I think mcdonald's has a decent amount of restaurants and overall probably is considered successful but I think they've also gone through periods where they've shut down a bunch of restaurants.

[WTFH]

They don't do well. There is a literal graveyard of western multinational restaurant chains that have tried and failed. Sure a few "succeed" and manage to keep a handful of profitable sites but they're few and far between.

Regardless... It's such a weird statement to make that the only difference between uk and japan is the PMs.

Hard Rock Cafe does well, as does Hooters, Mos, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Burger King, KFC, KrispyKreme, Critters, and several others.

Which parts of Japan have you been to?

[jayn200]

I did think it is diet and obesity related. Although due to vile western fast food outlets opening in Japanese cities it won't be long before everyone in Japan looks like a Sumo wrestler.

They don't do well. There is a literal graveyard of western multinational restaurant chains that have tried and failed. Sure a few "succeed" and manage to keep a handful of profitable sites but they're few and far between.

Regardless... It's such a weird statement to make that the only difference between uk and japan is the PMs.

[mallisarealperson]

Shame as you would fix mistakes as soon as you realised they occurred.

Serco on the other hand

[SueEllen]

Don't worry I don't work on track and trace

Shame as you would fix mistakes as soon as you realised they occurred.

[mallisarealperson]

FTFY. don't think that is the whole story.

Sorry got the % wrong. 36 is the rank.

Don't worry I don't work on track and trace

[vetran]

Because UK population is too fat.
List of countries by obesity rate - Wikipedia


27.8% obese in uk (ranked 36)
4.3% obese in japan

FTFY. don't think that is the whole story.

[_V_]

Because UK population is too fat.
List of countries by obesity rate - Wikipedia


36% obese in uk
4.3% obese in japan

I did think it is diet and obesity related. Although due to vile western fast food outlets opening in Japanese cities it won't be long before everyone in Japan looks like a Sumo wrestler.

[mallisarealperson]

UK - 42,500 deaths
Japan - 1,600 deaths

UK Population - 65m
Japan Population - 126m

UK Population Density - 725 persons per sq mile
Japan Population Density - 863 persons per sq mile




Coronavirus: Japan's mysteriously low virus death rate - BBC News

I thought it was interesting to compare the two countries.

The only difference I can think of is Japan doesn't have Boris and his totally inept team.

Because UK population is too fat.
List of countries by obesity rate - Wikipedia


36% obese in uk
4.3% obese in japan