CULTURE AS A SAVIOUR IN JAPAN

Even though JAPAN has large population of 125 million ,they have managed to restrict the spread of COVID-19.Japan has only 13,231cases and 360 deaths (till now) .So we can say that the spread of virus is somehow contained there. One can argue that Japan has tested way less than other countries but the low death rate in Japan shows that the virus indeed hasn’t spread all that much there. Many see this as a miracle as Japan has the oldest population in the world. 26% of its population has an average age of 65 but still after having so much aged population and having it’s location geographically so close to CHINA, it has very few cases of coronavirus. Italy is on the second spot having aged population and Italy has suffered the most number of deaths. Some of the major reasons that limited the spread of Coronavirus in Japan are: *Ban on international travel.- Data shows that tourists attracting countries suffered the most and speciallly those having aged population(like Italy). Japan is not such a big travel attraction like Italy so travel ban did worked here on larger pace. *Japanese culture- Japanese culture is inherently more socially isolated than other culture.They generally used to bow each other rather than doing handshakes. MASK CULTURE OF JAPAN- Mostly every person there used to wear a surgical face mask and this face mask culture played a critical role in limiting the spread of coronavirus.On an average every 4 out of 10 person used to wear face mask but as the reports came out about the spread of any virus about 80 to 70% of its population start using face mask and this played a very major role in containing the spread of this virus. *Japanese government implored people to wash hands regularly.After the outbreak of SARS in 2002 they adopted the habit of washing their hands regularly. As they were habituated of doing this, the voice of the government reached to its every ctizen in a very clear and possible way. By acquiring all these habits Japan is giving a very good lesson to the world that in the coming future when we are able to contain coronavirus even after that also we should continue to do these things as our day to day habits so that we will be safe at the time when any such mishappening take place.