The COVID-19 Impact and Culture Nexus in Japan: Insights for the Global Community
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Journal articleDate
2022-05-09Department
Strategic CommunicationCommunication Studies
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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/8090
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https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.879653Abstract
This opinion column identifies and reflects on the defining moments in Japan's sprint toward acquiring herd immunity by the end of 2021. As of this writing, COVID-19 conversations across the globe are becoming less and less concerning, as wealthy nations ramp up testing and triple-vaccinate their citizens, as COVID-19-related infection and hospitalization rates fall significantly, or, as is the case of the less developed countries of the Global South, concerted efforts are being made to have a sizable number of residents tested for COVID-19 and inoculated with their first shot. In developed economies, the pendulum of healthcare uneasiness is pivoting toward a simple issue—endemicity—as governments ease or phase out COVID-19 restrictions, as the disease is increasingly being viewed through the lens of, say, the seasonal flu, and as agitation against COVID-19 mandates leads to protests in countries such as the Netherlands, France and Canada. The world will get by, the argument goes, by coexisting with COVID-19 as it does with a host of other diseases, including the seasonal influenza, dengue, and malaria. But applying such a view now to the pandemic may be inadvisable, as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, asserts: “We're concerned that a narrative has taken hold in some countries that because of vaccines, and because of Omicron's high transmissibility and lower severity, preventing transmission is no longer possible and no longer necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth. More transmission means more disease.” But the world need not have been so ravaged by the pandemic only if it had looked around to remind itself about commonsensical steps that could have been considered in response.Citation
Pratt CB and Carr RL (2022) The COVID-19 Impact and Culture Nexus in Japan: Insights for the Global Community. Front. Public Health 10:879653. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.879653Citation to related work
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