After a 500,000-person marathon, Japan holds a naked festival with 10,000 people—copying Wuhan's zero-score test paper?

According to reports, Japanese Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Katsunobu Kato stated 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 5 a.m. on February 18, Japan had 520 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 454 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. On February 14, Japan had only 8 confirmed cases; in just four days, the number of cases had increased 65-fold.

　　Japan has become the country with the second-largest outbreak after China.

Although Japan has begun implementing corresponding control measures:

For example, the Japanese government has started calling for remote work and staggered commuting within the country;

The first birthday celebration for Emperor Naruhito, originally scheduled for February 23, has been canceled, avoiding a gathering of tens of thousands of people; 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 were held as scheduled in 12 locations across Japan, including Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi, Kyoto, and Osaka, with a total of 500,000 participants.

On February 17, about 10,000 men from across Japan gathered in Okayama Prefecture on Honshu Island to hold the "Naked Festival."

The "Naked Festival" is a very traditional and ancient Japanese festival, also known as the "Hōyō Festival." Simply put, it involves thousands of men and boys, wearing only traditional Japanese loincloths and nearly naked, gathering together for a "large-scale intimate contact." They jostle and push each other, vying to grab the "sacred wood" made by monks, and the one who succeeds becomes the "Fortunate Man" of the year.

　　A CNN reporter covering the event said: "With the impact of the novel coronavirus, over 10,000 people are packed together like sardines—isn't that a problem?"

Anyway, for the Chinese people who have been in a "confinement" mode for many days, seeing such population density makes their scalps tingle... Isn't this remarkably similar to Wuhan's "10,000-person banquet"?Many netizens can't help but ask: Is Japan copying Wuhan's zero-score homework?

It's worth noting that Japan has a dense population, with a population density twice that of Wuhan.Japan once modeled a flu test, where an infected person on the subway spread the virus at an alarming rate: 700 people in 5 days, and 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 example, why does Japan still take it so lightly?

Perhaps, as Hegel said: "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history." In Chinese ancient saying: "Later generations lament it but do not learn from it, causing later generations to lament again."

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 highest medical standards surpass China's, the speed of the epidemic's spread challenges a country's overall medical capacity. In other words, no matter how skilled a doctor like Zhong Nanshan is, he cannot treat tens of thousands of patients simultaneously. Once the epidemic breaks out in Japan, the country's 1,800 isolation beds will absolutely be insufficient to handle tens of thousands of patients, and the Japanese government lacks the ability to lock down cities or instantly build several hospitals. Even now, for suspected patients, Japan only "recommends isolation" to "respect human rights," rather than enforcing mandatory isolation.

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.

As for us Chinese citizens isolating at home, we can only flip through the *Book of Songs* when idle. If the situation of this neighbor, who said "Though mountains and rivers separate us, we share the same wind and moon," is not optimistic, once we recover, we may have to return the masks they donated along with the poems~