Japan's responses to COVID-19

Abstract

This chapter explores how Japan responded to and mitigated the spread of COVID-19. Despite several unfavorable conditions controlling the pandemic, Japan has managed the pandemic more effectively than several other countries in terms of its numbers of COVID-19 infection cases and fatalities. However, Japan has not been as successful in containing the disease as other Asia Pacific countries. Japan’s approach is characterized as a cautious and self-restraint-based approach that relies on citizens’ self-restraint behavior and personal hygiene practices rather than on enforcing strict, legally binding measures and proactively testing and tracing potentially infected individuals. Japan implemented “mild lockdowns” using nonbinding request-based approaches to reduce mobility and certain types of public activities and relying on citizens’ self-restraint behaviors to control the pandemic. This chapter shows several performance indicators of governments’ responses to the pandemic and examine Japan’s response to the pandemic from a broader comparative perspective. Then, we explain three institutional factors that may have been associated with the distinctive characteristics of Japan’s pandemic approach; (1) institutional constraints on the prime; llminister’s leadership, (2) limited administrative capacity and pandemic unpreparedness, and (3) bureaucratic professionalism and closedness. Finally, we outline Japan’s COVID-19 containment policy by examining several phases of Japan’s response.