This article, dated July 30, 2020, introduces a continuation of the WiLL dialogue between Yasuhiko Kamikubo and Eitaro Ogawa entitled “There Will Be No Second Wave.”
It records the arguments advanced at the time concerning immunity among the elderly, unemployment and suicide, PCR testing, media reporting of case numbers, the “Three Cs,” ventilation, BCG, race, HLA, and the search for a possible “Factor X.”

2020-07-30
This article continues my introduction of the dialogue “There Will Be No Second Wave” between Yasuhiko Kamikubo and Eitaro Ogawa, published in the September 2020 issue of WiLL.
The discussion proceeded from the hypothesis that many Japanese people had already been infected and had acquired immunity.
On that basis, it argued that even elderly people need not be excessively afraid, that avoiding the “Three Cs” was meaningless, and that excessive emphasis should not be placed on PCR-positive case numbers.
In my own commentary, I questioned television reporting that presented the number of infections without, in my view, adequately examining the relationship between testing volume and positive results, the ages and clinical conditions of positive cases, or how infections occurred.
This text was written on July 30, 2020, and the original statements are preserved unchanged as a record of the medical hypotheses and arguments being advanced at the time.
Subsequent evidence has established that reinfection can occur after an earlier infection and that older age is a major risk factor for severe COVID-19.
Evidence has also established that transmission is more likely in crowded, poorly ventilated indoor environments and during close interpersonal contact, and that improving ventilation can reduce the risk of indoor transmission.
The statements that elderly people need not be afraid and that the “Three Cs” are irrelevant should therefore be read as Professor Kamikubo’s position in the summer of 2020.
The allegation concerning the Tokyo governor’s academic credentials in the original text is likewise preserved as the author’s commentary at that time.
Quotation
“Even elderly people do not need to be afraid.
If they go outside, there is no way they could avoid exposure to the coronavirus, so they undoubtedly have immunity.”
Text
The following is from the special dialogue between Eitaro Ogawa and Yasuhiko Kamikubo, a specially appointed professor at the Kyoto University Graduate School, published in this month’s issue of WiLL under the title “There Will Be No Second Wave.”
Do Nothing About COVID-19 — A Groundbreaking Coronavirus Theory
An Asymptomatic Cold
The following continues from the previous chapter.
Kamikubo:
Even elderly people do not need to be afraid.
If they go outside, there is no way they could avoid exposure to the coronavirus, so they undoubtedly have immunity.
If we continue to fear the coronavirus and maintain a life of self-restraint, the Japanese economy will suffer enormous damage and the streets will fill with unemployed people.
It is said that when the unemployment rate rises by one percentage point, the number of suicides increases by 2,400.
That number would be greater than the number dying from coronavirus.
Many people must have felt that Professor Kamikubo’s argument opened their eyes.
At the same time, they must also have noticed something strange about television reporting.
The media report only the number of infections but do not report what those figures actually contain.
What is the causal relationship between the increase in the number of PCR tests and the number of positive cases discovered?
Are the people found positive in a condition like Giants players Sakamoto and Oshiro, for example?
What are the numbers of infections by age group, and how did people in each group become infected?
Reporting such matters should be elementary for journalists, yet none of it is being done.
Can this be described as anything other than reporting conducted for some particular purpose?
There is something abnormal about the fact that simple matters that any competent journalist ought to be able to investigate immediately are not being investigated at all.
In the case of Tokyo, genuine informed observers have collectively described the governor as an “onna Tenichibo,” a political operator concerned only with self-promotion and ambition—someone whom the original text accuses even of falsifying her academic credentials.
Her ambition to become prime minister if the opportunity arose seemed obvious.
To be continued.
The “Three Cs” Are Nonsense
Ogawa:
According to you, the “Three Cs” are nonsense as well.
Kamikubo:
The definition of the word “clean” is misunderstood.
No matter how much you wash or wipe your hands with disinfectant, from a medical standpoint everything is still “unclean.”
Microorganisms are everywhere because of saliva droplets and similar material.
When dealing with a virus, “clean” should not mean cleanliness in our ordinary everyday sense, but a sterile condition like that of an operating room.
Whether a setting involves the “Three Cs” is irrelevant.
The only issue is whether a person has immunity.
If you avoid the “Three Cs,” are the viruses contained in saliva somehow going to fly around us rather than toward us?
If you ventilate a room, are viruses going to escape through the window?
Experts seriously talk as though viruses were as large as baseballs or balloons [laughs].
Finally, I would like to make one point to prevent misunderstanding.
BCG vaccination is not carried out in Australia, yet the number of deaths is around 100.
Australia has deep connections with countries along the Chinese coast, making it easier for the K type to enter, and therefore, like Japan, it possesses immunity.
At the same time, Australia has a large white population.
In other words, race is not the cause.
ASEAN countries and countries along China’s coast contain many different racial groups.
Could HLA—Human Leukocyte Antigen—be a factor?
If you travel to Cambodia, Vietnam, or Taiwan, you will see that they can be extremely crowded, with some places cleaner than Japan and others less clean.
Yet do people in those countries wear masks as Japanese people do?
Do they conduct cluster control?
I am by no means saying that I alone am correct.
Various possible “Factor X” explanations should be actively investigated from now on.
With sound principles, science, and politics, PCR testing, antibody kits, and vaccines should be developed, and I believe everyone should study these possibilities together.
Ogawa:
Exactly.
I strongly encourage scientists to examine them.
I should not oppose that either, right? [laughs]
Kamikubo:
We should not oppose everything.
We should all get along.