things are like this.
On the evening of March 10, Masayoshi Son, president of SoftBank Group of Japan, logged into Twitter after three years to express his concerns about the epidemic in Japan. The next morning, he said that he "was going to start taking action."
Then, Masayoshi Son announced in the evening of the same day that he would provide 1 million simple PCR virus tests for free to help Japan fight the epidemic. The reagents will be distributed directly to Japanese people and testing institutions, and ordinary people can send them back directly after the test is completed.
This aroused strong opposition from Japanese netizens and even criticized.
01
Masayoshi Son
Most of the Japanese netizens who speak rationally mainly focus on "expanding the scope of testing will lead to the collapse of Japan's medical system, and severe cases will not be cured."
Medical collapse in South Korea and Italy has been unable to cope with severe patients, which has led to an increase in the number of deaths. The probability of false positives in PCR tests is very high, which adds burden to medical institutions. Regarding this part, please tell me what you think.
This is what is called self-righteous. After the examination, you will throw it to the hospital. If you want to provide the examination, please set up relevant medical institutions. Japan's medical care has been taxed, so it must not be broken down because of Sun Sang's personal preferences.
Never mind. (In this case) Patients who are not even seriously ill will rush to the hospital without necessity. The probability of PCR testing is not high, and even false positive patients will be sent to the hospital. Your approach is a terrifying activity.
Of course, there are some netizens who simply carry it. They completely deny Masayoshi Son's donation behavior and say that he is meddling in other people's business.
However, many medical workers have expressed their objections.
This will cause great chaos in medical institutions, and people who do not need to seek treatment will flock to the hospital, which will cause a big explosion there. Sun Sang, please use this action and funds to arrange masks and alcohol for medical institutions and nursing places, please.
will cause the medical system to collapse, so don't do this.
Yahoo News also has comments from real-name authentication experts.
(it's relatively long, so it won't be translated verbatim) This expert gave an example to illustrate that the inaccuracy of PCR tests is very high, saying that "the disadvantages of examinations are more than the benefits", "If you do this, it will cause the collapse of the medical system like Italy." "Compared with the patient/dead ratio in other countries, Japan is definitely not a state of insufficient examination."
Faced with such strong opposition, Son said 2 hours later, let’s forget it and withdraw the 1 million free tests.
I heard that many people want to check but cannot get the check so they put forward this. If the evaluation is so poor, then forget it. . .
Here, the situation where Masayoshi Son said "someone wants to check but can't get the check" does exist.
02
Japanese people who were rejected for testing
There is a mother of four in Japan who posted on Twitter on February 21, saying that her son had a fever and cough for 6 consecutive days. She went to the regional health center to ask the doctor to test the child for COVID-19, but was rejected because it was not within the scope of the test subject.
a few days ago, the first patient diagnosed with Hiroshima developed related symptoms in early February. He went to 4 hospitals and visited 8 treatments. Finally, he had the first test 20 days later and was finally diagnosed and admitted to the hospital.
You should know that it is very simple for Japanese people to have a test when they go to the hospital.
As long as the doctor nods, he can do blood tests and image tests in the hospital at any time.
and basically have insurance added, so he has to bear very little. Even if
is a relatively expensive examination item like CT, they only need to bear 30% (less than 10,000 yen) of the cost...
treatment is rare in the world.
However, the threshold for testing for the new coronavirus this time is so high:
must be severely ill or have a history of overseas travel to test,
must go through a health center,
must bear the test costs themselves... (If there is no diagnosis)
This is completely different from what Japanese people who are used to easy examinations think. The reason why
is that the Ministry of Health and Labor started to conduct virus testing to conduct "epidemiological investigation" research, rather than conducting clinical testing and treatment for each patient.
They hope to conduct accurate investigations and testing of infected people, close contacts and suspected infections by locking the infection route. Through these research and detection, more complete data on the characteristics and transmission methods of viruses were obtained, and finally corresponding prevention and control measures were introduced based on this.
Because there are certain errors in PCR detection, it will affect the data accuracy that Japanese people want, so Japan has been completing the detection through independent detection methods.
This way to do it to the extreme can be said to be very "Japanese".
However, the Japanese government did not convey such an idea to ordinary people from the beginning. The understanding of the epidemic among ordinary people and experts from the Ministry of Health and Welfare has deviated.
03
The Japanese government is questioned. Immediately afterwards, the epidemic in the world has undergone drastic changes, and cases of human-to-human transmission in Japan continue to appear, and the continuous expansion of infection has not subsided. The Japanese people are becoming more and more uneasy, and they cannot understand the official requirement that "you must go through a health center for virus testing."
At this time, South Korea next door vigorously promoted testing, and the effect was significant. In this comparison, the sentiment of the Japanese people was almost at a critical point, and there was even a public opinion on the Internet that "the Japanese government tried to reduce the number of tests to make the number of infected people appear to be smaller."
Regarding this view, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, which is responsible for PCR testing, refuted it on its official website on March 1. He said he was conducting an "active epidemiological investigation" and did not mean to block the patient's examination. After
, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also made adjustments in the face of the public's doubts and pressures.
From March 6, the cost of COVID-19 testing will be included in the scope of Japanese medical insurance. In the future, the doctor can decide whether to test the patient for viruses, so there is no need to apply for the health center to agree in advance.
It can also be seen from the data that the number of people who received the test after the adjustments made by the Ministry of Labor and Labor has increased significantly, even though it is far behind other countries.
Since there is a difficulty in testing, why do netizens still oppose reagent donation?
Because reagent donation is difficult to test in Japan, it is actually not the same thing. Donating reagents alone cannot solve the problem. The testing involves the allocation of medical resources, the subsequent treatment plan for confirmed patients, whether the risk of cross-infection will be increased during the testing period, etc.
So should we detect it?
On March 12, the well-known publication toyokeizai interviewed Professor Kentaro Iwata. (Yes, that is the one who tweeted that the Japanese government was criticized for inappropriate handling of the Diamond Princess account and was called the "Japanese whistleblower")
04
? In the interview with
, Professor Iwata also said, "It is wrong to let everyone undergo testing." . Please see the picture below for the specific reasons.
Translation from @Ono Meizi Xue Tu
Full text of the interview: https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/335971
From this perspective, the detection threshold set by the Japanese government is not unreasonable.
However, some local governments do not follow this standard.For example, in Wakayama Prefecture, the governor clearly stated that he refused to implement the national exceeding the strict standards and carried out comprehensive testing, and arranged up to 67% of consultants to seek medical treatment (Tokyo arrangement rate is 0.9%).
Regarding this approach, the villagers in Wakayama expressed their peace of mind and felt that the local government was actively responding to the epidemic.
On the other hand, Son, who received strong opposition, decided to donate 1 million masks to hospitals and nursing institutions to continue to support Japan's fight against the epidemic in a more suitable way.
at the end:
The reason for writing this article is to share the information found, the opinions of professionals, etc.; and to restore the entire incident that everyone finds difficult to understand and has a great difference, and to restore the perspective of the Japanese as much as possible to help everyone understand more comprehensively.
didn't want to say what the Japanese government did wrong, or what the Japanese netizens meant.
No one would want to see the epidemic spread.
ref:
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO56568590Z00C20A3I00000/
https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/335971
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200311-00050198-yom-bus_all
https://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/
