Almost overnight, Japan has become a stunning, and somewhat mysterious, coronavirus success story. 1, 2021, file photo, people walk through the famed Kabukicho entertainment district of Tokyo on the first night of the government's lifting of a coronavirus state of emergency. Nearly 70 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. Many credit the vaccination campaign, especially among younger people, for bringing infections down. Some possible factors in Japan's success include a belated but remarkably rapid vaccination campaign, an emptying out of many nightlife areas as fears spread during the recent surge in cases, a widespread practice, well before the pandemic, of wearing masks and bad weather in late August that kept people home.īut with vaccine efficacy gradually waning and winter approaching, experts worry that without knowing what exactly why cases have dropped so drastically, Japan could face another wave like this summer, when hospitals overflowed with serious cases and deaths soared-though the numbers were lower than pre-vaccination levels.
Japan, unlike other places in Europe and Asia, has never had anything close to a lockdown, just a series of relatively toothless states of emergency. The bars are packed, the trains are crowded, and the mood is celebratory, despite a general bafflement over what, exactly, is behind the sharp drop. Daily new COVID-19 cases have plummeted from a mid-August peak of nearly 6,000 in Tokyo, with caseloads in the densely populated capital now routinely below 100, an 11-month low.