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| TOKYO — To understand how Japan has fared better than most of the world in containing the dire consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, consider Mika Yanagihara, who went shopping for flowers this past week in central Tokyo. Even when walking outside in temperatures in the mid-90s, she kept the lower half of her face fully covered. | 东京——在遏制新冠疫情的可怕后果方面，日本比世界大多数国家做得更好，要想知道它是怎么做到的，不妨看看柳原美香（Yanagihara Mika，音）。上周，她在东京市中心买花。即使冒着摄氏30多度的高温，她依旧戴着口罩。 |
| “People will stare at you,” Ms. Yanagihara, 33, said, explaining why she didn’t dare take off her mask. “There is that pressure.” | “人们会盯着你看，”33岁的柳原在解释自己为什么不敢摘下口罩时说。“这就是压力。” |
| Japan’s Covid death rate, just one-twelfth of that in the United States, is the lowest among the world’s wealthiest nations. With the world’s third-largest economy and 11th-largest populace, Japan also tops global rankings in vaccination and has consistently had one of the globe’s lowest infection rates. | 日本的新冠死亡率只有美国的十二分之一，是世界上最富裕国家中最低的。作为世界第三大经济体和第11位的人口大国，日本的疫苗接种数量也在全球排名第一，而且一直是全球感染率最低的国家之一。 |
| Although no government authority has ever mandated masks or vaccinations or instituted lockdowns or mass surveillance, Japan’s residents have largely evaded the worst ravages of the virus. Instead, in many ways, Japan let peer pressure do a lot of the work. | 尽管没有任何政府部门强制要求佩戴口罩或接种疫苗，也没有实施封锁或大规模监控，但日本居民基本避免了这种病毒的严重影响。在很多方面，日本让同侪压力发挥了很大作用。 |
| Even now, as average daily cases have fallen to just 12 per 100,000 residents — about a third of the average in the United States — a government survey in May found that close to 80 percent of people working in offices or enrolled in school wear masks and about 90 percent do so when using public transit. Movie theaters, sports stadiums and shopping malls continue to request that visitors wear masks, and for the most part, people comply. The term “face pants” has become a buzzword, implying that dropping a mask would be as embarrassing as taking off one’s underwear in public. | 即使是现在，随着日均病例数下降到每10万居民中只有12例（约为美国平均水平的三分之一），政府5月份的一项调查发现，近80%的办公室工作人员或在校学生还戴着口罩，约90%的人在乘坐公共交通工具时佩戴口罩。电影院、体育馆和购物中心人仍要求佩戴口罩，而且在大多数情况下，人们都会遵守。“脸裤”一词成了流行词汇，意思是在公共场合摘下口罩，其尴尬程度不亚于脱掉内裤。 |
| Many factors have undoubtedly contributed to Japan’s coronavirus outcomes, including a nationalized health care system and severe border controls that have outlasted those in many other countries. | 毫无疑问，日本抗击新冠病毒的成果是由许多因素促成的，包括国有化的医疗体系和比其他许多国家更持久的严格边境管制。 |
| But social conformity — and a fear of public shaming that is instilled from the youngest ages — has been a key ingredient in Japan’s relative success in Covid prevention, experts say. Unlike in many other countries, Japanese law does not permit the government to order lockdowns or vaccinations. The majority of the population followed each other in heeding guidance from scientific experts who encouraged people to wear masks and avoid situations where they would be in enclosed, unventilated areas with large crowds. | 但专家表示，社会顺应性——以及从小被灌输的对于当众受辱的恐惧——是日本在预防新冠方面相对成功的关键因素。与其他许多国家不同，日本法律不允许政府下令封锁或接种疫苗。科学专家鼓励人们戴口罩，避免停留在封闭、不通风、人群密集的地方，大多数人都听从了这样的指导。 |
| After a slow start, once Japan ramped up the distribution of vaccines, most people followed advisories to get them. Even without mandates, close to 90 percent of all people over 65, the most vulnerable population, have received booster shots, compared with 70 percent of seniors in the United States. | 经历了缓慢的开始阶段，在日本加大了疫苗的分发力度后，大多数人都听从建议接种了疫苗。即使没有强制规定，65岁以上的老年人——最脆弱的人群——也有近90%接种了加强针，而美国老年人的这一比例为70%。 |
| In Japan, “if you tell people to look right, they will all look right,” said Kazunari Onishi, an associate professor of public health at St. Luke’s International University in Tokyo. | 在日本，“如果你告诉人们向右看，他们就会向右看，”东京圣路加国际大学公共卫生副教授大西一成说。 |
| “Generally, I think that being influenced by others and not thinking for yourself is a bad thing,” Dr. Onishi added. But during the pandemic, he said, “it was a good thing.” | “总的来说，我认为受他人影响而不为自己考虑是件坏事，”大西一成说。不过，他也表示，在疫情期间，“这是一件好事。” |
| Unlike in the United States, wearing a mask or getting a vaccine never became ideological litmus tests. Although trust in government has fallen during the pandemic, in a country where the same party has governed for all but four years since 1955, the public put pragmatism over politics in the approach to Covid. | 与美国不同，在日本，戴口罩或疫苗接种从未成为检验意识形态的试金石。虽然在新冠疫情期间，国民对政府的信任度有所下降，但在1955年以后只有四年时间由另一个政党执政的日本，公众在应对新冠时将实用主义置于政治考虑之上。 |
| Often, people policed each other or businesses seen to be violating municipal requests to close early or stop serving alcohol during periods designated as states of emergency. | 通常情况下，人们会互相监督，也会监督营业场所，是否违反了在紧急状态期间提前关门或停止供应酒类的市政规定。 |
| “We got so many reports about shops being open that we started joking about the ‘self restraint police,’” said Yuko Hirai, who works in the emergency response department in Osaka, Japan’s third-largest prefecture. “People were definitely aware that society’s eyes were on them.” | “我们收到了很多关于商店开门营业的举报，我们开玩笑说他们是‘自肃警察’，”在日本第三大城市大阪的应急部门工作的平井裕子（Yuko Hirai，音）说，“人们肯定意识到社会的目光在关注着自己。” |
| The practice of keeping in line with peers is inculcated in schoolchildren, who wear uniforms in most public schools and are shamed into following institutional expectations. “Just being removed from the group is such a big deal for Japanese kids,” said Naomi Aoki, associate professor of public management at the University of Tokyo. “They always want to belong to a social group and don’t want to feel isolated.” | 学龄儿童反复被教导要与其他人保持一致，在大多数公立学校，学生们都穿校服，因为害怕蒙羞，不敢不遵从学校的期望。“对日本孩子来说，被踢出团体是大事，”东京大学公共管理学副教授青木尚美说。“他们总是希望属于一个社会群体，不想有孤立感。” |
| Children are taught to act for the collective benefit. Students clean classroom floors and school grounds and take turns serving lunch in cafeterias. | 孩子们受到的教育是要为集体利益而努力。学生们打扫教室和校园，午餐时轮流在食堂值日。 |
| Japanese culture also depends on an ethic of public self-restraint that can be marshaled into group action. When Emperor Hirohito was dying in 1988, pop singers postponed weddings and schools canceled festivals. | 日本文化也依赖于一种公众自我约束的道德，这种道德可以组织成集体行动。1988年裕仁天皇病危时，流行歌手推迟了婚礼，学校取消了庆典。 |
| After the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima led to serious power shortages, the public cut back on electricity use voluntarily. (With temperatures rising in Tokyo this past week, residents are being asked to do so again.) | 2011年福岛核灾难导致严重的电力短缺后，公众自愿减少用电。（过去一周，随着东京气温上升，居民们再次被要求节约用电。） |
| During the pandemic, politicians tapped “into this collective idea of self-restraint for the public good,” said James Wright, an anthropologist at the Alan Turing Institute in London who has studied Japan’s coronavirus response. | 伦敦艾伦·图灵研究所研究日本应对新冠病毒措施的人类学家詹姆斯·赖特说，在疫情期间，政界人士“利用了这种为了公共利益而自我克制的集体理念”。 |
| When the coronavirus emerged from China in early 2020, Japan was among the first countries where it showed up, spreading in small clusters and aboard the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that docked in Yokohama and suffered a large outbreak. Japanese experts quickly realized the virus was airborne and that the best way to reduce its spread was to keep people from gathering in small, unventilated spaces or having close contact with others. | 当2020年初新冠病毒从中国传播开来时，日本是最早出现病例的国家之一，疫情在人群中小规模传播，并且在停靠横滨的钻石公主号邮轮上大暴发。日本专家很快意识到，这种病毒是通过空气传播的，减少传播的最好方法是让人们不要聚集在狭小、不通风的空间里，或与他人密切接触。 |
| With few legal options for enforcing the guidance, authorities hoped the population would voluntarily comply with pleas to stay home, said Hitoshi Oshitani, a professor of virology at Tohoku University in northeastern Japan and a government adviser. | 日本东北部东北大学病毒学教授、政府顾问押谷仁说，由于执行该指导的法律途径相当有限，当局希望民众自愿遵守留在家里的请求。 |
| Despite Japan’s culture of collectivism, Dr. Oshitani was surprised when businesses quickly closed and people refrained from going out. Companies that had never allowed telecommuting sent employees home with laptops. Families canceled visits to older relatives. Close to 200 industry groups representing theaters, professional sports teams, and venues that hosted weddings and funerals issued lengthy protocols for preventing infections. | 即使日本有集体主义文化，但当营业场所迅速关闭、人们足不出户时，押谷仁仍然感到很惊讶。从未允许远程办公的公司让员工带着笔记本电脑回家。家人取消了对长辈的探访。代表剧院、职业运动队和举办红白喜事场所的近200个行业团体发布了冗长的预防感染方案。 |
| The public embraced the guidelines, and the overall death rate actually fell below that of the year immediately preceding the coronavirus outbreak. | 公众接受了这些指导方针，总体死亡率竟然低于新冠暴发前一年的死亡率。 |
| Those who tried to buck the guidance were subjected to public condemnation. Toshio Date, who operates a venue in Osaka devoted to the board games Go and shogi, initially tried to stay open when the city requested that restaurants, bars and other entertainment businesses shut down. | 那些试图违背指导方针的人受到了公众的谴责。伊达利雄（Toshio Date，音）在大阪经营着一家专门从事围棋和将棋游戏的棋牌室，在该市要求餐厅、酒吧和其他娱乐场所关闭时，他最初试图继续营业。 |
| When local television stations started asking to film the club as an outlier, Mr. Date, 58, got the message and quickly closed. Even after infections settled down in Osaka, which recorded the highest death rate in Japan, and businesses reopened, he said strangers frequently scolded him for hosting too many customers. | 在当地电视台要求拍摄这间异类的棋牌室时，58岁的伊达得到了消息并迅速关店。大阪是日本新冠死亡率最高的城市，但即使在大阪的感染数字稳定下来，棋牌室重新开业后，伊达表示，自己经常遭到陌生人的责骂，说他接待太多客人。 |
| Although the public has provided most of the sticks, the government has offered carrots in the form of economic subsidies for businesses. | 尽管大部分大棒来自公众，但政府也以经济补贴的形式为企业提供了胡萝卜。 |
| In 2020, the country paid out over $40.5 billion to more than 4.2 million small- to medium-size companies and individual business owners, according to statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. | 根据日本经济产业省的统计，2020年，日本向超过420万家中小企业和个体业主提供了逾405亿美元的资金。 |
| Larger businesses received “cooperation money” based on their pre-pandemic revenue, as much as 200,000 yen — just under $1,500 — a day. | 较大的企业根据大流行前的收入获得“配合资金”，每天高达20万日元（略低于1500美元）。 |
| The incentives were not universally effective. In the first summer of the pandemic, clusters of infections began appearing in nightlife districts in central Tokyo, as visitors to bars and cabarets ignored the experts’ advice. | 激励措施并非普遍有效。在疫情的第一个夏天，由于光顾酒吧和歌舞厅的人无视专家的建议，东京市中心的夜生活区开始出现群聚感染。 |
| When businesses flouted guidance on ventilation, masking and alcohol sanitizing, city officials were dispatched to convince them to fall in line. Only as a last resort were businesses fined or cut off from economic subsidies. In Tokyo, according to the city’s Bureau of Industrial and Labor Affairs, between 96 and 98 percent of businesses ultimately agreed to follow the rules. | 当企业无视有关通风、戴口罩和酒精消毒的指导时，市政府官员被派去说服他们遵守规定。只有在万不得已的情况下，才会对企业罚款或切断经济补贴。在东京，根据该市产业劳动局的数据，96%到98%的企业最终同意遵守规则。 |
| Experts warn that voluntary compliance is no guarantee of indefinite success. | 专家警告说，自愿遵守并不能保证防疫的永久成功。 |
| “The response is like an Othello game,” said Dr. Oshitani, comparing Japan’s coronavirus results to the board game where one move can change a winning outcome to a losing one. “All of a sudden, the most successful countries can become the worst country in the world,” he said. | 押谷仁说：“这种措施就像黑白棋游戏。”他将日本的新冠病毒结果和该棋盘游戏作比较，只需一步就能转胜为败。“防疫最成功的国家可能会一瞬间成为世界上防疫最糟糕的国家，”他说。 |
| For now, residents continue to bow to peer pressure. | 目前，居民继续屈服于同侪压力。 |
| Kae Kobe, 40, a receptionist at an office in Shibuya, said that because her job is client facing, she always wears her mask at work. | 40岁的子部加惠（Kae Kobe，音）是涩谷一间办公室的前台，她说因为工作面向客户，所以她在上班时总是戴着口罩。 |
| “Everyone around is still wearing it,” she said. “So it’s hard to get rid of it.” | “周围的每个人都还在戴口罩，”她说。“所以很难摘下来。” |
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