Even once the pandemic is resolved, it will not be the "end": How do we prepare for the long-term impacts?
Author: Nakata Daigo, Senior fellow, RIETI
On April 7, 2020, Prime Minister Abe declared a state of emergency, putting Japan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic on a new level. What are the likely outcomes of Japan’s infection countermeasures? The author, who is neither an epidemiologist nor possesses any other relevant specialized knowledge, is unable to speculate on an answer to this question, but as a social sciences scholar, I would like to put forth a word of warning for the record.
Current discussions are focused on how to suppress spread of the infection. This is natural because Japan is teetering on the precipice of an explosive spread in infections. Nevertheless, with our remaining strength, we must also underpin this dialogue with a discussion that anticipates the situation after the pandemic has been resolved. That is the substance of this paper.
Read the article on the RIETI website or in Japanese.
Image taken by Fernando Zhiminaicela and sourced from Pixabay.
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