Thread by @dicklp

A friend wrote to me asking for advice about travel to Japan. She's planning a trip in the spring with her family, and is understandably concerned about the coronavirus outbreak.

In case there are other people facing a similar decision, I post here my reply:

"Dear H,

I've got a couple of other friends contemplating family trips and facing the same dilemma as you. The short answer is that the virus has made almost no difference to everyday life here.

I've been reporting it intensively, and talking to experts, and my hunch is that Japan is probably not going to experience a catastrophe. But the situation is unpredictable.

Tokyo, and the rest of the country I'm pretty sure, feels almost completely normal. In Tokyo Station this morning, I'd say that more than half of people were wearing face masks - more than normal, although, as you know, at this time of year many people wear them anyway.

I put one on in the subway, but only because I sneezed, and didn't want to freak out my fellow passengers. We went skiing in Karuizawa the other week and one taxi driver asked us all to wear masks as we got in. (There were a fair number of tourists from China in that town.)

Masks and hand sanitiser are hard to find in the shops, but otherwise there is little obvious sense of crisis, although the story dominates the news and is certainly on everyone's minds.

Yesterday I talked to one of the leading Japanese virus and public health experts, and asked him what precautions he is taking personally. He doesn't wear a mask. He washes his hands after going to the toilet.

He said that on the train he found himself next to a man without a mask who was coughing, and he steered clear of him.

That's it.

I don't think that any of this will be resolved by the spring. I would guess that, in Japan anyway, there will be more clusters of cases, and a handful of deaths. (As you know, it's not a particularly lethal virus, and most people have mild symptoms or none at all.)

But it's at least possible that it will be worse than this, that there'll be widespread infection, with schools, public facilities and places of work closed, and transport affected. Unlikely, I'd say - but the truth is that nobody knows.

In terms of planning a holiday, I think that it depends on you and your family's attitude to disruption and unpredictability.

If you did have to wear masks everywhere, and found museums closed, and travel schedules uncertain, would that be an inconvenience, but an exciting one that you would remember in years to come as a memorable adventure?

Or would it just be a source of stress that would make everyone tense and sad?

Different people experience this kind of thing in different ways. My hunch is that you will be fine if you come out in the spring.

But if you tend towards the second category, and if you can change your plans without too much disappointment, then it might be better to wait and see."