My Experience with the Policy Responses to COVID-19

Abstract

On February 3 of 2000, the author was requested by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to be involved in the initial response to COVID-19 countermeasures. The purpose of this paper is to describe and share my personal experiences of several governmental expert advisory bodies. There were serious challenges; the relationship between the experts and the government, the first operation of the Act on Special Measures against Novel Influenza etc., discrimination against infected people and health care workers, risk of privacy violation on the infected people by press releases of local governments and mass media reporting, and the difficulty in collecting and analyzing epidemiological data and clinical information. For the next countermeasure against emerging infectious diseases, I hope that a mechanism can be established to allow the humanities and social sciences communities to discuss pressing issues from the initial whirlwind stage of the crisis, and then suggest their recommendations immediately to policy makers.