Most of the countries in East Asia have very low rates of Covid relative to the West. (BTW, That’s also true of Australia and NZ.) Some people have suggested that there is some sort of natural immunity in East Asia, and that the low Covid rates do not reflect differences in behavior.
I wouldn’t entirely rule out that hypothesis, but unless I’m missing something this seems to suggest that behavior is a factor, especially mask wearing:
Japan has suffered just 18 deaths per million people, a higher rate than in China, but by far the lowest in the g7, a club of big, industrialised democracies. (Germany comes in second, at 239.) Most strikingly, Japan has achieved this success without strict lockdowns or mass testing—the main weapons in the battle against covid-19 elsewhere. . . .
As early as March, Japanese officials began warning citizens to avoid the san-mitsu or “3cs”: closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings. The phrase was blasted across traditional and social media. Surveys conducted in the spring found that a big majority were avoiding 3c settings. . . .
While Americans argued over whether face coverings were an assault on personal freedom, Japanese lined up outside Uniqlo for the release of its new line of masks. During the first ten weeks of flu season this autumn, Japan saw just 148 cases of common influenza, or less than 1% of the five-year average for the same period (17,000).
Japan does have much less obesity, but it’s also a society with more elderly people than the West. Thus demographics alone cannot explain such an enormous difference in fatality rates.
But it’s the flu data that really caught my eye. Suppose there were some sort of natural immunity to Covid in Japan, how would that explain the extremely low levels of flu? Doesn’t it seem more likely that behavioral changes in Japan have reduced the flu season to only 1% of the usual level?
On the other hand, the flu is less contagious than Covid and flu rates are down sharply even in countries with high Covid rates. Thus it seems like a level of social distancing that is insufficient to stop Covid often is sufficient to stop a flu outbreak.
Another piece of evidence that behavior is important comes from the fact that Wuhan was hammered by Covid and the rest of China got off quite lightly.
To conclude, we know that social distancing stops the flu. The question remains as to whether it can stop Covid.
PS. Don’t miss the Christmas star (Jupiter/Saturn conjunction) tonight—the best in 800 years—even last night it looked very impressive. SW sky—an hour after sunset.