Oh, very much. I think Japan is either equal to or older than Italy on average. It's a huge problem that's already affecting the country. To put it in perspective, a Japanese friend of mine happened to go to the same middle school that my daughters go to now. When he was there, the school was about two times larger. So, basically, in one generation, the population of children has halved. Schools are closing all over the place. And, since Japan refuses to bus students, we've got all sorts of schools with like 6-10 students total. A full building, full faculty, principal and whatnot, for 10 students.
It's insane and it's only going to get a lot worse.
I've seen predictions of Japan's population dropping to something like half it's current size within the next 30-50 years. We're talking massive economic collapse if that happens. Japan's just starting to allow more foreign workers into the country and whatnot, but, it still has pretty much zero immigration. This is a country that's going to have a serious, serious problem very, very soon.
But, as far as Covid goes, well, you'd think with a geriatric population, the virus would be having a field day. It's not like Korea managed to escape and, as I said, we had tens of thousands of Chinese tourists hitting the country on a daily basis. Why we haven't had it worse, no one can say.
Maybe it is just blind luck.
