The daily news reports on the COVID-19 pandemic tell us how many people have been newly infected, but less attention seems to be paid to how many lives have been lost. Since the ultimate purpose of the fight against the novel coronavirus is to save lives, it is crucial to take a closer look at the number of fatalities.
According to World Health Organization data, the ratio of COVID-19 deaths to the total national population varies a great deal from country to country. As of April 13, the number of deaths per 100 million people is 81 in Japan, 240 in China, 6,251 in the United States, 22,216 in France and 32,894 in Italy. Japan’s figure is conspicuously low — one-third of the reported number in China, one-eightieth of the U.S. and one-four hundredth of Italy.
This shows that at least at present, Japan is controlling the situation relatively better than those countries. It has been pointed out that people’s sense of crisis over the pandemic in Japan is not as high as that in the U.S. and European countries, and that may be explained by the relatively low rate of death here.