Opinion | In its coronavirus response, Japan must not repeat the mistakes of its handling of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

Japan may have opted to conduct only limited tests for Covid-19 to bolster the chances of the Olympics going ahead. Continuing this policy would be foolish

The government was criticised for its opacity and mishandling of data after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown. It must not repeat these mistakes

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Crowds flock to Ueno Park in Tokyo to admire cherry blossoms on March 12. Japan has not followed other Asian countries in adopting aggressive testing to counter the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:00pm, 16 Apr 2020Updated: 4:13am, 17 Apr 2020

At root, the Japanese government has not approached the current pandemic as an epidemiological crisis. Instead, it has sought to manage it as an economic crisis and as a perilous public relations liability for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government. This reactive, obstructionist approach is dangerous at a time when Japan needs real leadership to preserve lives.

In recent months, when the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games were expected to go ahead, Japan garnered some international sympathy for attempting to put a brave face on the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, which threatened to upend years of careful planning and investment. Yet three weeks after the Olympics’ postponement, the government continues to operate from the same cynical PR playbook.

There is a clear official reluctance to test aggressively for Covid-19, although Japan has the same technological and medical capability to do so as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have been so successful at using testing and contact tracing to blunt the spread of the coronavirus.

Without robust testing, it is impossible to determine the scale of the outbreak, let alone reverse its toll.

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso (right), seated next to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, adjusts his face mask during an upper-house parliamentary session in Tokyo on April 1. Photo: Reuters

Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported over 482 new cases on April 14, bringing the total to about 8,173. These figures leave out the 712 infected on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in what has widely been viewed as a Japanese quarantine fiasco.

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