Japan’s state of emergency is set to end
with new cases of the coronavirus dwindling to mere dozens. It got
there despite largely ignoring the default playbook.
No restrictions were placed on residents’
movements, and businesses from restaurants to hairdressers stayed open.
No high-tech apps that tracked people’s movements were deployed. The
country doesn’t have a center for disease control. And even as nations
were exhorted to “test, test, test,” Japan has tested just 0.2% of its
population — one of the lowest rates among developed countries.
Yet the curve has been flattened, with deaths well
below 1,000, by far the fewest among the Group of Seven developed
nations. In Tokyo, its dense center, cases have dropped to single digits
on most days. While the possibility of a more severe second wave of
infection is ever-present, Japan has entered and is set to leave its
emergency in just weeks, with the status lifted already for most of the
country and Tokyo and the remaining four other regions set to exit Monday.
