Jishuku 自粛: Is Social Responsibility the Best Vaccine?

Social responsibility has been a critical imperative before the vaccines for the COVID-19 virus were developed and it remains vital for the safety and well-being as the vaccines are rolled out across the world. But some countries have fared better since the beginning of the outbreak, and we’d like to discuss the reasons for this and what we can learn from each other across the world, in true ‘Over Here, Over There’ fashion.

Dan Harris hosts along with his fellow podcaster Claudia Koestler, Senior Editor at the Suddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. Our guests: Mike Bellissimo, senior healthcare and high technology executive, joining from outside Bostin, Massachusetts;  Margaret Cavanagh, a British Psychotherapist, and Kaki Okumura, a top Japanese writer on food, cooking, health, travel, and culture, who joins the discussion from Tokyo. 

The COVID pandemic has been devasting in so many ways. Each country has its own unique story in the management of the pandemic, all with different strengths and weaknesses. There are some that seem to have managed it in their stride, keeping it relatively under control, although furiously vigilant to each potential outbreak. Japan, with the third largest economy, is one of these countries. The data behind transmitted cases show Japan with approximately 1% of cases and deaths relative to the USA. 

How has Japan maintained control and achieved relative success? We’ll ask Kaki Okumura what we can learn and possibly use in some way in other countries. Kaki  wrote the opinion piece in Yes! Magazine entitled ‘Pandemic Lessons from Japan: A Tradition of Considering Others’ that sparked this discussion.

The U.S., with highly-trained healthcare professionals and world-leading medical facilities, has had challenges encouraging more socially responsible behaviours. We’ll look at others to see how countries approach different problems and what can be learned and adapted from them.