Japan , where face mask wearing when one is sick is a common courtesy, and where mask wearing during the Covid threat has been virtually universal, has experienced a low Covid infection rate compared to Western Countries despite a slight uptick in infections recently and a very low vaccination rate. Something to think about for those who don't believe face masks are effective. Of course they won't be effective if there is poor face mask wearing compliance. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ple-vaccinated-japan-lags-the-developed-world
The keys to fighting airborne diseases is to already have face mask wearing already in place prior to a Pandemic along with quickly closing the borders without shutting down the economy plus contact tracing and protection of the vulnerable population to the disease. It's not perfect but the country will avoid the problems that typically hit most western countries that typically panic only after a deep spread in their country, poor contact tracing and not prepare at the hospital level for any outbreaks / surges. The least talked about key...do not turn a health crisis into a political debate. wrbtrader
Asian countries by and large fared the pandemic best overall because they had basic compliance with the most simple preventive measures. Many never even had to shut down or impose restrictions because most citizens were compliant with mask wearing, hand washing and distancing. However, to be fair the Asian countries also have experience with new highly contagious pathogens so they have been through enough pain to learn the basics is all you need. We in the west have not learned anything from this ordeal. There’s still too much fighting over the basic preventive measures and denial of the seriousness of disease.
The most amazing aspect of the article that correlates to a recent documentary... Japan has one of the worst vaccinations in the world because they have one of worst vaccine hesitancy in the world due to the historical distrust with vaccines. On top of that, the delays in vaccine shipment / distribution is like no other country... It's just amazing they can still keep their Covid numbers so low although their recent "surge" is so small...still overall low numbers. Other top performing countries are New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are also top compliance countries to health guidelines although some recent Qanon conspiracy theorist have stated its because those countries have low vaccinations...less people getting infected with Covid. Conspiracy theorists that ignore the fact that those countries have had low Covid infections / deaths since Day 1 of the Pandemic and vaccines weren't develop until the end of 2020. Simply, there's really no one key variable to success in fighting diseases. A lot of important variables must be working together to beat an airborne disease like Covid. wrbtrader