Amid anxieties around the spread of COVID-19 in Japan, a question has emerged as to whether organizations in Japan are making sufficient use of expert input.
Despite the unfolding crisis, the government's coronavirus task force didn't convene its panel of experts to discuss what measures should be taken in Japan to combat the new virus' spread until Feb. 16. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the first meeting for a mere three minutes and then went home, and has attended subsequent meetings for an average of just 12 minutes each.
Last week, the Abe administration recommended that all schools in Japan close for several weeks, despite experts doubting the usefulness of doing so. Masaki Yoshida, chairman of the Japan Society for Infection Prevention and Control, has said that closing schools where the virus is not present "will not make any difference at all" and the fact that children will go out and play even with schools closed will make it hard to tell whether the school closures are actually working. On March 2, Abe admitted that he made this decision without expert input, solely based on his own political judgment.