After a marathon with 500,000 participants, Japan held a naked festival with 10,000 people. Are they copying Wuhan's failing grade?
According to reports, Japanese Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare Katsunobu Kato said at a press conference on the 15th thatthe epidemic situation has already changed, and COVID-19 has effectively begun to spread in Japan.
As of the latest reports compiled by 5:00 AM on February 18, Japan has a total of 520 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 454 are from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. On February 14, Japan had only 8 confirmed cases. In just four days, the number of confirmed cases has surged to 65 times that of February 14.
Japan has become the country with the second-largest outbreak after China.
Although Japan has begun implementing corresponding control measures:
For instance, the Japanese government has begun calling for remote work and staggered commuting within Japan;
The first birthday greeting event for Emperor Naruhito, originally scheduled for February 23, will be canceled, avoiding a scene where tens of thousands of people would gather. However, Japan's current attention to the epidemic remains only at the government level, while the public continues to celebrate with confidence and optimism.
According to reports, on the morning of February 16, marathon events took place as scheduled in 12 locations across Japan, including Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka, and others, with a total of 500,000 participants.
On February 17, about 10,000 men from all over Japan gathered in Okayama Prefecture on Honshu Island for the "Naked Festival."
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The "Naked Festival," also known as the Hadaka Matsuri or Eyo Festival, is a highly traditional and ancient Japanese celebration. Simply put, thousands of men and children gather together wearing only traditional Japanese loincloths, with almost their entire bodies exposed, engaging in "large-scale close contact." Everyone pushes and shoves, competing for the "sacred wooden sticks" personally crafted by monks. Whoever manages to grab one becomes that year's "Fuku Otoko," or "Lucky Man."
A CNN reporter, while covering the event, remarked: With the novel coronavirus outbreak, over ten thousand people packed together like sardines—won't that really be a problem?
Anyway, as Chinese people who have already been in "postpartum confinement" mode for days, seeing such population density makes our scalps tingle... This is strikingly similar to Wuhan's "banquet for ten thousand families," isn't it?Many netizens couldn't help but ask: Is Japan copying Wuhan's failing grade homework?
It's worth noting that Japan has a dense population, with a population density twice that of Wuhan.Japan once created a model to test influenza, and the infection speed of infected individuals riding the subway was alarming: 700 people in 5 days, 120,000 in 10 days!
Moreover, Japan is a country with a severe aging population, where the elderly account for a quarter of the total population, meaning the proportion of people susceptible to COVID-19 is very high!
With China as a cautionary tale, why does Japan still attach so little importance to it?
As Hegel once said, "The only lesson that humanity can learn from history is that humanity never learns from history." In ancient Chinese terms, it would be: "Later generations grieve for the past without taking it as a warning, thus causing later generations to grieve for them in turn."
Another reason may be the differences in national conditions. Japan is a capitalist country, and even if it recognizes the severity of the epidemic, it is difficult to implement measures like China's city lockdowns or border closures, because in the eyes of capitalist countries, economic development takes precedence over the people.
Although Japan's top-tier medical standards surpass those of China, the spread of this epidemic challenges a country's overall healthcare capacity. In other words, even the most brilliant Zhong Nanshan cannot treat tens of thousands of patients simultaneously. Once the epidemic breaks out in Japan, the country's 1,800 isolation beds will be absolutely insufficient to cope with tens of thousands of patients, and the Japanese government lacks the ability to lock down cities or instantly build several hospitals. Even currently, out of “respect for human rights,” Japan only “recommends isolation” for suspected patients rather than enforcing mandatory quarantine.
Moreover, due to the impact of the epidemic in China, protective supplies such as masks in Japan have been almost completely snapped up.
Given Japan's lax government controls, insufficient medical conditions, and shortage of protective supplies, the only way for Japan to escape this disaster is to hope that the virus does not spread widely in Japan, or that the virus in Japan has already weakened, or else to wait for China to develop more effective treatment plans.
Meanwhile, we Chinese, confined to our homes, can only pass the time by leafing through The Book of Songs. If the situation of our neighbor—who sent us the message "Though mountains and rivers divide us, we share the same wind and moon"—takes a turn for the worse, once we recover, we might have to return their donated masks, along with the poetic verses.
