Hidenori Kakehi argues that Japan’s “cluster-busting” strategy and its early emphasis on avoiding the “Three Cs” were highly original responses to COVID-19.
He credits the strong mathematical ability of Japanese doctors and the government’s expert panel for producing effective countermeasures, while criticizing the lack of mathematical literacy displayed by some intellectuals in both the United States and Japan.

July 2, 2020
Judging comprehensively from the information I gathered, Japan’s strategy of “eliminating clusters of infected people” was a measure that strongly reflected Japanese originality and ingenuity.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
The Expert Panel That Led the World
Judging comprehensively from the information I gathered, Japan’s strategy of “eliminating clusters of infected people” was a measure that strongly reflected Japanese originality and ingenuity.
Avoiding the “Three Cs”—crowded places, close-contact settings, and closed spaces—was strongly recommended in Japan from the early stages, whereas the United States did not begin advocating similar precautions until May.
It can therefore be said that Japan’s Novel Coronavirus Expert Meeting possessed outstanding insight that led the world.
Another strength of Japanese doctors is their understanding of exponential functions and differential equations, knowledge that is essential when discussing measures against infectious diseases.
As everyone knows, gaining admission to medical school is among the most difficult challenges in Japan’s university entrance examination system.
Until now, I had felt somewhat dissatisfied that medical schools were taking the students with the highest academic ability.
That was because I believed that the ability to solve mathematics and science problems appearing in entrance examinations would be more useful after entering a science or engineering faculty than in medical school, and that excessive abilities were being demanded of future doctors.
However, the present novel coronavirus crisis gave me reason to reconsider that view.
Japanese doctors were able to implement appropriate measures because of their high mathematical ability.
We were saved by their intellect.
By contrast, when watching videos of press conferences held by American doctors, one frequently encounters cases in which they appear not to understand the fundamentals of statistics, such as failing to consider sampling bias.
More generally, scientific and mathematical literacy among American intellectuals is low.
For example, the American conservative commentators Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro opposed excessive restrictions when the number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States was still relatively low, comparing it with the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents and influenza.
Ultimately, however, the number of deaths from the novel coronavirus in the United States exceeded 100,000.
This was far greater than the annual number of deaths caused by traffic accidents or influenza in the United States.
When exponential growth is expected, judgments must not be based merely on the cumulative number of deaths recorded up to that point.
American intellectuals did not possess even that level of mathematical literacy.
However, Japanese humanities-based intellectuals deserve no praise in this respect either.
Those who were particularly appalling in their dissemination of information about the novel coronavirus were commentators who had graduated from humanities faculties at the University of Tokyo.
Their ignorance of mathematics was almost too painful to watch.
For example, the economic commentator Nobuo Ikeda wrote the following on Twitter.
“The difference between Japan and the United States is not a matter of ‘variables’ such as medical care or lifestyle.
Even if the variables in the SIR model are adjusted slightly, the scale of the damage hardly changes.
This is a difference in the ‘coefficients’ of the differential equations, and the cause is probably natural immunity.
Unless that is analyzed, no fundamental solution will be found.”
This statement alone clearly demonstrates that he does not understand differential equations at all.
Once the initial values and coefficients of a differential equation have been determined, the behavior of its variables is automatically determined.
In the end, many humanities elites may be nothing more than a class of people skilled at speaking as though they understand things that they do not understand at all.
To be continued.