The country has also widely taken other steps to prevent the transmission of the virus, including the placement of hand sanitizers at the entrance of virtually every commercial space and workplace, and broad compliance with the government’s recommendations to avoid the ‘three Cs’: enclosed spaces and close contact with others.
Another, though small, factor is a decrease in traffic accidents as fewer people ventured onto the roads, especially since the government twice declared states of emergency. Deaths from traffic accidents have dropped by nearly 12 percent in 2020, to 2,839, according to data maintained by the National Police Agency. This was the lowest number since the agency began tracking in 1948.
Japan is not the only one to see peripheral benefits of coronavirus measures. Deaths in China fell slightly outside the Wuhan virus epicenter in the first three months of 2020, according to a study by Oxford University and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
While the decline in deaths in Japan has been a welcome development, there have been some ominous signs. The country has seen a surge in suicides, especially among women, with just under 4 percent more people taking their own lives in 2020 than in the previous year. Among women, the increase was nearly 15 percent.
Experts have traced the phenomenon to tensions related to the pandemic, including job losses, the increasing isolation of people taking refuge and the growing household burdens covered by women.
The Japanese population also continued to rally despite the decline in overall deaths. The country, which began to shrink in 2007 due to declining birth rates and the growing proportion of older people, lost more than 511,000 people in 2020, a slight acceleration from the previous year.
Births fell again last year, suggesting the pandemic is likely to accelerate the depopulation of Japan. According to government projections, the population, which now stands at 126 million, will fall below 100 million by 2053 and fall to 88 million by 2065.