Japan’s ‘social distancing’ is shrinking as coronavirus fears ease. Too soon?

Just north of Tokyo, a martial arts events attracted around 6,500 people packed into the Saitama Super Arena on Sunday, despite the local governor’s pleas for restraint. On Saturday, more than 50,000 people gathered in Sendai, north of Tokyo, to see the Olympic flame, newly arrived from Greece, burning in a golden cauldron.

Japan had so far dodged the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, but last weekend the capital was proof of what many experts have long warned: people might put up with social distancing for a few weeks, but eventually tire of remaining indoors, and seize on the smallest piece of good news as an excuse to venture out again.

So much for the “obedient” Japanese of some crude stereotypes. It also does not bode well for the idea that Europe and the United States will be able to maintain social distancing for months on end.

“I am very concerned about complacency and fatigue,” said Kentaro Iwata, an infectious disease expert at Kobe University. “People cannot stand remaining in a restricted lifestyle for a long, long time.”

Japan has been a puzzling outlier in the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite limited testing in the early weeks of the outbreak, and despite cold weather perfect for spreading respiratory infections, Japan has avoided the kind of explosive growth in infections seen in South Korea, Europe and the United States.

Japan added 38 new cases on Monday, bringing the number of confirmed infections to 1,140, with 42 deaths, not including cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

The sense here is that Japan has dodged a bullet, either by luck or judgment, but experts warn the country is not invincible.

“I’m deeply concerned about the current situation in Japan,” said Hitoshi Oshitani, a virology professor at Tohoku University’s School of Medicine and a member of the government’s own expert advisory panel.

“Now the first wave of is almost under control … but the second wave has already started,” he said. “It is probably going to be much worse, and we are going to have more outbreaks, and some of them are going to be big.”

Some critics say Japan is deliberately burying its head in the sand, either to protect its economy from a damaging shutdown or in a vain bid to lower the chances of an Olympics cancellation.

But by rationing tests only to people with prolonged fevers and more serious symptoms, they argue, the government has undercounted the number of infections and lulled the country into a false sense of security.

“The government has given an optimistic picture all along, and so people don’t have an image of it being that scary,” said Masahiro Kami, executive director at Medical Governance Research Institute, who has been calling for more extensive testing. “That’s natural if you see just the numbers.”

But Oshitani and Iwata say the government has been wise to concentrate its resources and its testing capabilities on people with more serious symptoms, and needs to strike a balance between strict measures and sustainable ones.

Each region, Iwata says, needs to make its own decision on how strict to be in imposing social distancing measures, depending on their local caseload — precisely because strict controls cannot be sustained forever, and should be reserved for when they are most needed. And many people did stay home last weekend in cities like Osaka and Kobe where infection rates have been climbing, he says.

But that doesn’t excuse what happened in Tokyo, Saitama and Sendai last weekend, critics say.

They bemoan a lack of leadership from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has personally done little to drive home the importance of social distancing to the general public and often seems to have taken a back seat role to Health Minister Katsunobu Kato.

“It’s situations like this where Abe has not stepped up,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor at Temple University Japan. “It’s a familiar situation during this crisis where Abe has been MIA.”

In Tokyo, some people are working from home, but commuter trains remain packed during the rush hour. Kami is worried the government seems to be putting the economy ahead of the public’s health.

Whether Japanese habits — wearing masks, and bowing rather than shaking hands — have helped slow the epidemic’s spread remains an open question.

But good habits won’t protect Japan if complacency sets in, especially with a new wave of infected people entering the country from Europe and the United States, experts say.

Oshitani says he expects the government to come down more firmly this week to limit social interactions, as it now understands how dangerous the situation has become.

“Our enemy is optimism,” said Kuni Miyake, president of the Foreign Policy Institute, quoting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural address in 1933 that only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

“I don’t want to be a foolish optimist,” he said. “I want to be a wise pessimist.”