The town of Jokoshiba Hikarimaci in the prefecture of Chiba, not far from the capital Tokyo, yesterday canceled the hospitality of athletes from the Central American state of Belize, who were supposed to acclimatize and train in it before the start of the Summer Olympics.
Ten athletes and canoeists from that Caribbean country were left without accommodation, despite the fact that the mentioned Japanese town of about 23 thousand people has already been visited several times by its diplomats, sports officials, and even cultural representatives.
While local authorities justify the fact that they have left the people of Belize in the lurch by not being able to provide them with health security and care in case they become infected, it is difficult to curb the numerous doubts and issues that this procedure entails. First of all, is it possible that in an economically and civilizationally rich and advanced country like Japan, local authorities cannot get the help needed from the central and regional government to take care of only a dozen people? Or is it a reflexive move caused by excessive fear (from foreigners) and a desire to please local Japanese voters?
Next, will other hosts in Japan follow the same path and close their doors to foreign athletes? And, what are the consequences of such decisions on Japan’s reputation and international prestige, especially in light of the fact that the Japanese government and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proudly emphasized that the Olympics would be an extraordinary opportunity for Japan to present its “special culture of hospitality” to the world?
An indecisive fight against the epidemic?
The refusal of hospitality may not be too much of a surprise if it is known that in Japan during the epidemic local authorities were often left to organize their own health response, and that due to the deteriorating epidemiological situation in recent months in public opinion polls to give up or at least relocate The world’s largest event is constantly declared by as many as 70 to 80 percent of Japanese citizens, who fear the possibility that tens of thousands of foreigners from around the world could bring various strains of the virus to their country.
In the Eastern capital, which is the literal meaning of the word “Tokyo”, an online petition is being signed asking for the cancellation of the Olympics. Although it has a political background, given that its initiator is the opposition politician Kenji Utsunomiya, who has already unsuccessfully ran for governor of Tokyo three times, it is experiencing a good response because it faithfully reflects the concerns and fears of the residents of the Japanese capital.
In the past few months, there have been more and more long columns in the media advocating giving up the Olympics due to the danger it (allegedly) poses to people’s health and the functioning of the domestic health system.
The greatest responsibility for this unfavorable situation lies on the shoulders of the central government and the administrative apparatus, which have shown great passivity and indecision in managing the crisis. Although the world’s third largest economy and world technology leader, Japan has never conducted mass testing to pinpoint the outbreak of the epidemic, has not developed its vaccine, and vaccination began two months late compared to other industrialized countries, including Serbia. So far, less than two percent of the population (medical workers and several tens of thousands of retirees) have received the first vaccine in the Land of the Rising Sun, because vaccination is running at a snail’s pace.
During the spring of last year, Japan tested fewer citizens than our country every day for weeks due to the lack of tests for covid and due to the organizational structure dominated by private practices and the lack of state health centers, even though it has a population 16 times larger than Serbia.
The state of emergency has been declared three times in the Far Eastern Empire so far, but it has been very mild each time. Not only was there no curfew and a ban on going out, but, which now obviously reflects on the anxiety of the population, the recent winter (second in a row) state of emergency was only on paper, because the only tangible measure was to shorten the working hours of the cafe. bars and restaurants that had to close at eight o’clock in the evening and abstaining (not banning) from mass gatherings such as conferences and concerts – all the malls, department stores, cinemas and museums were working.
Fear of “Olympic horror”
Moreover, although the first infected appeared in late January and early February 2020, Japan has so far not built any hospitals dedicated to caring for covid patients, despite constant warnings from doctors that the health care system is overloaded and that the possible escalation of the epidemic due to the Olympic Games knees.
The statement of the chairman of the Japanese Association of Doctors Toshi Nakagawa from the end of January that the domestic health system will not be able to provide the necessary care to athletes if there is a greater spread of the virus during the games because it is about to collapse, although the Far Eastern empire has a population of 127 million and about 1. 7 million health workers, and in the Summer Olympic Games in 2020, (only) about 11,000 athletes and several thousand more coaches and officials should participate, a significant number of whom will come already vaccinated.
It is true that the Japanese health system is hampered by a chronic shortage of beds in intensive care and especially medical staff, because in that island country the population over 65, which requires the most care, makes up 29 percent of the total population and numbers about 35 million people. , due to difficulties in mastering the complex Japanese language, etiquette and high standards of service, it is not in a position to import doctors and nurses from abroad en masse, like in developed western countries.
Also, due to the large share of private property in hospitals, the state is not able to order the transfer of patients from overburdened public institutions to those hospitals in private hands that have free beds.
However, it remains unclear how it is possible for a highly developed and wealthy country like Japan to fear the Olympics and its potentially devastating impact on its own health care system when there was more than enough time from February 2020 to expand hospital capacities and find alternative solutions such as hiring medical students, retired doctors and nurses, or the military.
A false sense of security?
There are a number of reasons for the above sluggishness in response to the kovida-19 epidemic. The first is that throughout the past year, Japan, at least officially, had a relatively small number of infected, sick and deceased in relation to the total population and by these parameters was in a much better situation than countries such as the US, UK, France and Germany (although at the same time, it recorded worse results than South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which all implemented significantly stricter measures).
All this led the Japanese authorities to think that it was possible to overcome the crisis without drastic measures such as closing cities and also served as an excuse for delays in working on their own vaccine – the public was informed that Japanese companies did not have enough infected to test efficacy. and the safety of their vaccines, ignoring the fact that with more effort and financial investment, the necessary research could be conducted abroad, as some Western companies have done.
That belief, based on last year’s (relatively acceptable) health statistics, that the government can rely on the traditional domestic culture of wearing surgical masks in everyday life and the high discipline of the population may have created a false sense of security to some extent. Because these days, near the Olympics, Japan is recording daily records in the number of people in serious condition and casualties, while the largest number of infected people is ever registered in the west of the country, so the city of Osaka is already talking about the triage procedure, because hospitals are full. The population is mentally tired, discipline has relaxed, and many companies and catering facilities, due to the long duration of the epidemic and its economic impact, no longer respond to calls to do everything to make workers work from home, that is, close their shops.
Political and ideological discipline
In its response to the contagion, Japan was also limited by political and ideological factors. The government in Tokyo has repeatedly emphasized the differences in terms of human freedoms and democracy in relation to China, which managed to suppress the spread of the epidemic on its territory relatively quickly by banning the movement of the population and completely isolating Wuhan. Officials in Japan pointed out that their country’s constitution does not allow the introduction of coercive measures such as curfew, and that the country will fight the covidity in its own way, with a soft approach that includes appeals to the population and demands to businesses and other entities. public humiliation of the undisciplined.
The geopolitical affiliation with the US-led Western bloc has prevented Japan from receiving help with preparations needed for testing and other medical supplies from its communist neighbor and has led it to rely solely on US and British companies to procure vaccines – logistical problems with storing and distributing the Pfizer vaccine. requires special refrigerators and delays in delivery, as well as doubts about the safety of Astra-Zeneka vaccine, are one of the important factors in the delay in vaccination in Japan.
However, the biggest one is probably the internal one: scandals related to several types of vaccines that have shaken the country over the past decades have caused distrust among citizens and contributed to the government deciding to wait several months for vaccination until safety and efficacy facts are more reliably established abroad. in Japan, they are conducting (according to the number of respondents too modest) studies on the health impact of Western vaccines on domestic, Asian physiology.
Hesitation that threatens the Olympics
Japan now, however, seems to be paying more and more for the hesitation in testing and vaccinating citizens, because during the first three months of this year, more than five thousand people died of kovida in that country – the same as during the whole of 2020. The vast majority of those who succumbed to the new coronavirus in Japan were in the eighth, ninth and even tenth decades of their lives. Now the country is spreading more contagious, the British strain of the virus and the leadership among the infected is taking a layer between the ages of 20 and 50, while the population is gripped by a wave of fear due to increasingly alarming (cumulative) figures: these days Japan has crossed tens of thousands dead and 600,000 infected .
The Olympic and Paralympic Games are the victims of reflection and indecision, ie the fact that the mass vaccination of the population was not carried out and that no additional hospital capacities were built. They will pass not only without foreign fans, but, very possibly, without domestic ones, due to the unpreparedness of the health care system and the dissatisfaction of the population towards them.
The Olympics will probably remain a political stumbling block in Japan in the near future and, as things stand now, will be a bitter experience. Because, instead of stimulating the economy and demonstrating the hospitality, cultural and technological achievements of that country, it will seem to expose some social neuralgia in it and further deepen the economic and other doubts about the biggest sporting event on the planet that have been felt in recent years. the world.
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