The Impact of Covid-19 in Japan

Por Kento Ogishima

Yuma

Tabuchi

Current Situation in Japan and Countermeasures Taken Against COVID-19

In Japan, the outbreaks of COVID-19 started in full swing from February 2020. In the first wave, the Government announced a state of emergency for the first time in its history and asked people to quarantine themselves. In the second wave, though there were no specific treatments for the outbreak, the number of the cases naturally decreased. According to the experts, this is because people’s awareness of what they should or shouldn’t do in order to protect themselves from the infection increased. In the third wave, the Government again announced a state of emergency. The number of confirmed cases differed greatly from that of the first and second waves.

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To deal with the pandemic, the government in Japan made some treatments towards the situation. As explained in the previous paragraph, the state of emergency was announced twice, in April (2020) and January (2021). Also, there were some handouts such as Special Cash Payments, and 2 cloth masks distribution per household. As political measures to revive the economy, there were sort of campaigns called “GO TO Travel” and “GO TO Eat”, which enabled people to travel or eat out with discounts. The campaigns were controversial between the people who think it important to stay home and those who think it crucial to revive the economy.

Next will be about the people’s awareness of COVID-19. There was a questionnaire taken in July and December 2020, that asked people “Which do you think is important, economic activities or limiting the spread of COVID-19?” The rate of people who answered “limiting the spread of COVID-19” was, in July, 67%, and in December, 76%. The rising percentage shows that people have become more and more conscious about how serious the situation is.

In addition, there was a research of the people who felt some sort of anxiety due to COVID-19. From April to May, surprisingly, the rate rose up to 63.9%. There are various kinds of anxiety such as fear for the risk of infection of myself or family members, tiring of the life changes, worrying about work of myself and family members or unsureness of the future, and so on.

About industries, there is a world-wide word “BEACH”, composed of the first characters from Booking sites, Entertainment, Airlines, Cruise, Hotel. Similar to this, in Japan, industries especially, Ryokan, airlines, and Food and Beverage are having a large damage and can be seen much in the daily news that tells how serious they are. About people affected by COVID-19, some are struggling to make ends meet. From seeing the people, those who were vulnerable before this pandemic are now even more vulnerable.

Research indicates that the number of the unemployed population soared in 2020. The portion that shows the data for 2020 is greatly different from that of the others years. Though we can see a slight improvement in the last couple months of 2020, Japan needs to take more action to get the situation through.

Japanese Health Care System

There are 2 topics in this section. First is about the current health care system in Japan and the next is problems caused by COVID-19.

There are 3 points of the first topics. The first point is the increase of places to take PCR test. People can take the test in a PCR test center that is managed by a private enterprise as well as hospitals and airports. Also, drive-through method and PCR test kit that can be used at home are gaining popularity across the country. The second point is the plan to start a vaccination. The Japanese government reached a basic agreement of a supply of the vaccination to 60 million people with Pfizer. In the order of medical workers, elderly people and those who have underlying medical problem would receive primarily the vaccination. The third point is the tight situation in hospitals. Hospitals are suffering from the lack of doctors, nurses and beds. 40 percent of hospitals in Tokyo have just one expert in COVID-19. It is difficult to treat patients by one doctor. This situation is leading to the breakdown of regular care and emergency care balance. Also, the shortage of beds is making situation worse. Although there are many beds as a whole in Japan, the number of beds exclusively for COVID-19 patients is too small. As a result, the more pandemic spreads, the more difficult it becomes for hospitals to accept new patients.

Next will be about the problems caused by COVID-19. There are 3 problems. First, measures against COVID-19 have delayed for months. As explained, Japan can’t respond to COVID-19 speedily because of the number of beds. The delay has affected the peak of the number of infected people. Japan has already experienced the third wave. That is why the Japanese government should prepare for the fourth wave and secure plenty of beds for patients. Second, medical specialists in infection are still dispersed the country. The big medical institution that has many specialists and a large number of medical equipment is more efficient to help many patients than the hospital that has not such things. Third, Mental health care of medical workers is not enough. Because of COVID-19 expansion, nurses have a high rate of turnover. The nurse turnover rate is about 21 ％ , in limiting hospitals that accept infected people. This figure is 1.4 times as large as the nurse rate of turnover in all hospitals. Medical personnel are continuously working for patients who need treatment in a hospital since about 1 years ago so they have b been too busy to have a day off. They want someone like psycholosy councelors to listen to their worry, but few people really do.

Effect of COVID-19 on the Japanese Economy

This section will be about the impact of COVID-19 on the Japanese economy. First is the overview of the Japanese economy from the beginning of pandemic in the viewpoint of gross domestic product. One research about GDP growth rate (Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc, 2020, chap. 2) shows that Japan’s GDP decreased rapidly since the pandemic had begun, and decreased 28.8% in the April-June period from the previous three months, which was the worst decline since World War II. This decline resulted from the state of emergency which was issued by the Japanese government due to the rapid spread of COVID-19. During that time, people refrained from going outside unless necessary, which lead to the consumption spending which account for more than half of GDP decreased 8.1%. After the state of emergency w was lifted, Japanese government aimed to balance economic activities, and then GDP in July-September period increased 21.4% from the April-June period. Consumption spending also increased 4.7% from the previous period. However, GDP still remains lower than the period before pandemic.

Japan also received a great impact of COVID19 in trade statistics. The latest announcement (Ministry of Finance, 2021, p. 1) shows that the total amount of exports in 2020 was about 68.4607 trillion yen and 11.1% lower than a year earlier, which was the second largest decline after the global financial crisis. As for imports, the total amount was lower by 13.8%.

As the factors of the decline in Japan’s economy, it is considered that the manufacturing industry and service industry are greatly related. A research about the degree of impact on Japan’s economy by industry (Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc, 2020, chap. 2) shows that the exports of automobiles and steel declined because of the production suspension or the decrease in demand overseas by COVID-19. Also, people quarantine themselves to prevent the spread of COVID-19, so service industry such as food service, travel, and entertainment had a decrease in profit. According to one research (NIKKEI, 2020), ordinary profit in service industry decreased by almost 55% in JulySeptember period compared to a year earlier.

As mentioned above, the Japanese government started “Go To campaign” in order to revive the economy, and this campaign was to some extent effective. Japanese Tourism Agency (Japanese Tourism Agency, 2020) calculated that the guest nights who traveled using this campaign was about 52.6 million people from July 22nd to November 15th, which brought a great economic effect on travel industry.

However, this campaign also obtains high risk, like accelerating the spread of infections. The research group from Kyoto University (NHK, 2021) announced that the positive rate of COVID-19 tripled after Go To campaign started. This campaign is really controversial and the effectiveness is limited in the long run.

Effect of COVID-19 on Japanese Lives

Life in COVID-19 Crisis

The COVID-19 crisis has changed people’s lives significantly. People cannot go to places with ease, especially for overseas. In this section, we will start from the introduction of the changes and the incidents related to the virus in Japan. First, when the infected person was confirmed in japan for the first time, some necessities of life like toilet papers and tissues got into a shortage. Also, the products which prevent infection like facemask and alcohol ran short. Second, in fact, Japanese government cannot prohibit people’s activities in law. Therefore, they only asked for “requirement”: people to restrict themselves not to spread the virus. Government also requested to close the stores by 10 p.m. (restaurants are closed by 8 p.m.) In public, people wear face masks and do disinfection constantly (stores, especially restaurants set alcohol splay). Lastly, students but mainly university students take classes on the internet and workers do their job from their house which is called “remote work” in Japan.

Negative Effect on Woman

The equity of gender is still not improved in Japan. Japan has low gender equality consciousness and is ranked in the 121th in 151 countries. It means the absolutely bottom of the G7countries. Recently, the statements made by Yoshiro Mori, who is the former prime Minister and present Olympic chairman, has been criticized. He said “meetings with lots of women take time” and “Women have a strong sense of competition” in the interview. This is just one of the cases, however, gender discrimination is happening in several places. This cultural background of Japan is accelerating the effect of the virus for woman. Suicides by women and women’s deterioration of employment have increased. The suicides by women on August increased more than 40 percent compared to the last years years. The number deterioration of employment in last year was 70.242.

There are possible reasons for the cause of these circumstances. Because of COVID-19 spreading, the time spending in home with family have increased. Women turn out to spend more time taking care of their child and doing household chores. In Japan, women tend to do chores than men. A lot of people feel natural about this. Therefore. the burden on women have become really heavy. It also increased DV and moral harassment from partner. Currently, the women’s protection institutions have been crowded, and we must restrict from going outside, so women cannot escape from these situations.

SNS and News are also giving a bad influence for the physically weak people. The information from the media sometimes makes them feel isolated or negatively and so on. They become disguised with the difference of fullness from SNS, and the news about well-known persons death. The information causes them want to “DIE”.

The number of fired temporary workers are about 33.000. Women tend to be temporary workers than men, since the guarantee systems for regular employee are insufficient. Women cannot gain guarantees for pregnancy and childcare. Therefore, women’s temporary workers percentage are twice in 25 to 34 years old and 5 times larger in 35 to 44 years old more than men. It indicates how hard it is to work as a regular employee and doing household chores at the same time.

Solutions and Future Outlook

So far, we have explained the impact of COVID-19 on Japanese economy, the healthcare system and non-regular workers especially women and so on. Based on these points, we would mention the conclusion part. This time, we focused on the health care system and non-regular workers to come up with solutions. We have three solutions to overcome the recession.

The first is to have a common understanding that the Japanese government and the nation will endure until a clear treatment is established. Probably, our final goal to COVID-19 would be to establish the clear treatment. Of course, as you know, vaccines are being developed and implemented in several countries. However, it has not been introduced in Japan yet, and it is at the stage of discussion about when to introduce it. Since the prediction of convergence is uncertain, the Japanese government is struggling to come up with new economic policies. Moreover, the nation is also worried about how long this situation will continue. Therefore, it is necessary for the government and the public to have a common understanding that they will manage to bear until a clear treatment is found. By setting specific goals, they could work together and overcome the recession.

The second is the local government to enhance the health care system. In Japan, the medical system has started to be overwhelmed due to the turnover of nurses and the shortage of beds. If this situation gets worse, the health care system could collapse completely. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to give more incentives to nurses than ever before. The government has distributed the cash handouts to them. However, it cannot be said that it was so effective. This problem cannot be solved with money. Thus, it is important not only to provide money, but also to enhance the mental care of them. For instance, there are things such as setting up an institution to receive counseling and enhancing the working environment. In addition, the local governments should focus on securing specialized beds for coronavirus. By doing so, even if the number of infected people increases, it would be a help to mitigate the adverse effects.

The third solution is to strengthen the social safety net so that the country does not widen the economic disparity. A specific example is to improve the income tax redistribution function. Compared to other countries, it is said that the income tax rate for high-income earners is low in Japan. Therefore, there is ample room to raise Japan's income tax rate. If a new income tax rate is put in place, the burden on low-income earners could be reduced. Furthermore, it is possible to prevent widening social disparities, by providing the financial resources collected from them to low-income earners such as non-regular employees. In addition, it would be necessary to consider a safety net for women.

For a while, we have mentioned the adverse effects of the coronavirus on the Japanese economy and some solutions to it. However, in the long run, it could be seen as having a positive impact on Japan from the aspect of digitization. In Japan, though, most social activities such as work and education are usually done in person, those activities were forced to be done online to avoid contact between people. It was a good opportunity to doubt the customs that were rooted in the Japanese society. I've seen many reports that the introduction of telework and online lesson has increased productivity because it eliminates the time it takes to commute and allows us to work in our own schedule. Considering this point, the promotion of digitalization would continue and the customs of society would also change in the future. Furthermore, Japan’s technological capabilities would grow. https://www.thestranger.com/ https://lat.ms/3DemEvx

Finally, mankind has overcome various difficulties many times in history. That is because even if human beings hit a wall, they never gave up and rack their brains. If we never abandon this time, we will definitely be able to overcome it. Hence, I think we should not be too pessimistic and take the maximum measures we can think of.