{"id":20538,"date":"2020-07-14T21:47:36","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T12:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jul\/14\/in-japan-wearing-a-mask-is-habitual-can-the-uk-follow-suit"},"modified":"2020-07-14T21:47:36","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T12:47:36","slug":"in-japan-wearing-a-mask-is-habitual-can-the-uk-follow-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=20538","title":{"rendered":"In Japan wearing a mask is habitual \u2013 can the UK follow suit?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Japan has avoided Covid-19 disaster and people here accept masks \u2013 making the debate in the UK even more bewildering<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/series\/coronavirus-live\/latest\">Coronavirus \u2013 latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">See all our coronavirus coverage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As a resident of a country where not wearing a mask is now akin to venturing out in one\u2019s underwear, I\u2019ve watched with growing exasperation the debate in the UK over whether wearing a face covering is a potentially effective defence against Covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>Although the benefits of hand hygiene and social distancing \u2013 two habits promoted by the World Health Organization in the early days of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">pandemic<\/a> \u2013 are widely accepted, it will take time to establish which combinations of factors, both official and cultural, have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/may\/22\/from-near-disaster-to-success-story-how-japan-has-tackled-coronavirus\">spared some countries<\/a> while leaving others battling high numbers of infections and deaths.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jul\/14\/in-japan-wearing-a-mask-is-habitual-can-the-uk-follow-suit\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Japan has avoided Covid-19 disaster and people here accept masks \u2013 making the debate in the UK even more bewilderingCoronavirus \u2013 latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageAs a resident of a country where not wearing a mask is now akin to venturing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1069,88,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-coronavirus-outbreak","category-japan","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20539,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20538\/revisions\/20539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}