Japan’s number of COVID-19 deaths per million people was by far the lowest among developed nations.
Hidenori Kakehi argues that this demonstrated the world-class quality of Japan’s infectious-disease measures, medical system, and healthcare professionals, while sharply criticizing self-proclaimed experts who demanded widespread PCR testing and the poor quality of Japanese television reporting.

July 2, 2020
It was by far the lowest among developed nations.
This result proves that Japan’s infectious-disease measures, medical system, and healthcare professionals are among the finest in the world.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
Readers will also recognize once again that my arguments concerning PCR testing, for example, were correct.
All emphasis within the text, apart from the heading, is mine.
Self-Proclaimed Experts Who Obstructed the Front Line
The worldwide death toll from the novel coronavirus exceeded 400,000 on June 7.
In Japan, by contrast, the number of deaths had not reached 1,000 as of the same date, while the number of deaths per million people stood at seven, by far the lowest among developed nations.
This result proves that Japan’s infectious-disease measures, medical system, and healthcare professionals are among the finest in the world.
A crisis in society exposes things that are normally concealed.
The same was true at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Those who distinguished themselves during the Great East Japan Earthquake were the people working on the very front lines, including nuclear power plant workers, firefighters, Self-Defense Forces personnel, and police officers.
They were praised throughout the world and were awarded the Prince of Asturias Award.
On this occasion as well, the work of frontline healthcare professionals and Self-Defense Forces personnel deserves the same degree of praise.
Meanwhile, those who obstruct the people working on the front lines are invariably the mass media, commentators, and self-proclaimed experts eager to appear on television.
The commentators who appeared on television information programs to discuss the novel coronavirus were mainly non-mainstream doctors who had been ostracized by academic societies, together with self-proclaimed experts who did not possess any medical qualifications in the first place.
They spoke with one voice in repeatedly demanding the expansion of PCR testing.
The fact that Japan did not follow their irresponsible advice prevented confusion at medical facilities and became one of the factors that produced Japan’s success.
The harmful effects of expanding PCR testing arose from the fact that no treatment was available even when a person tested positive, as well as from problems involving the accuracy of the tests, including false positives and false negatives.
The harm caused by false positives and false negatives can be explained by a theory known as Bayes’ theorem, which is also frequently used in machine learning, one of my own fields of specialization.
It was extremely reassuring that Japanese doctors understood this principle thoroughly.
The appalling quality of Japanese television appears to have been readily apparent even to foreign students.
In January of this year, when the novel coronavirus began spreading in China, a Chinese student in my laboratory was watching YouTube.
When I asked him what he was watching, he said it was a Taiwanese news program about the novel coronavirus.
He explained that the program invited numerous specialists and provided detailed reporting, making it highly informative.
I then asked him what he thought of Japanese news programs.
He severely criticized them, saying, “They merely report the Chinese government’s announcements exactly as they are and are completely useless.”
When I introduced this incident on Twitter, it received an enormous response of 100,000 likes.
That is how widespread the dissatisfaction with Japanese television has become.
I, too, found the Japanese media completely untrustworthy and therefore obtained information about the novel coronavirus from overseas YouTube channels.
More specifically, I followed the channels of the nurse Dr. John Campbell, the pathologist Dr. Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity, and the physician Dr. Roger Seheult of MedCram.
All three provided explanations based on official statistical data and academic papers, making them reliable sources of information even for me as a scientist.
It was regrettable that no Japanese-language channel was providing information of a similar quality.
To be continued.