A few Infected in Japan: What is the factor X?

As far as the novel Coronavirus has spread in recent months in the Japanese society? Not very far is the answer. According to a study by the Japanese Ministry of health, only 0.1 percent of the Studied antibodies in the blood have in Tokyo. In the second largest city in Japan, Osaka, it is 0.17 per cent and in the rural Prefecture of Miyagi in the North-East of the country, 0.03 percent. The Ministry had tested for the study at the beginning of June 8000 Japanese in the three regions on antibodies.

Patrick Welter

a correspondent for Economics and policy in Japan, based in Tokyo.

is The infection rate, according to the study in Japanese cities is significantly lower than in Western cities. For London, it was determined in similar studies, an infection rate of 17 percent, and in New York city a rate of 20 percent. Other studies in Japan to come to an international comparison of similar low values. The technology investor Softbank Group had recently tested 44,000 employees and medical staff, and came up with a infection rate of 0.43 percent.

The anti-body tests are in Japan, of particular interest, because the country has tested only around 340,000, and thus far fewer people on the Coronavirus as many other countries. The new results are significantly lower than in comparable studies in the West, yet they show a larger spread in Japan as the official virus statistics. On Monday, the government had confirmed 17.587 cases of infection. Relative to the overall population that would be a quota of only 0,014 percent.

a Low number of virus dead

The capital, Tokyo, reported last approximately 5600 cases of infection. The new study by the Ministry of health indicates that in Tokyo, around 14,000 people with the Coronavirus infected or were. This extrapolation assumes that the Ministry of health in Tokyo tested almost 2000 people are representative of the entire population of Tokyo.

Japan has in international comparison, a very low number of virus dead. Finally, there were 927 – seven Deaths per Million inhabitants. Germany is officially 106 virus dead per Million inhabitants. Experts puzzle over the reasons for Japan and other Asian countries, lower susceptibility to the Coronavirus.

The Nobel prize for medicine 2012, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, speaks of a not-yet-declared "X" factor. Yamanaka believed that in Japan, many factors are responsible for its success, ranging from the successful virus hunters of the government and the local health centers about the early closure of schools, the will of the Japanese people to Wear face masks and in Japan the spread of body contact. Some researchers also suspect that Japanese and Asians may have through the contact with other corona viruses have a greater resistance to the new Virus.