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Japanese decry boomer-era tech as hospitals file coronavirus cases by fax
- Hospitals are legally required to send handwritten Covid-19 documents by fax to health centres – a dated practice that has been lambasted on social media
- Contrary to its image as a hi-tech nation, data shows virtually every office and one in three households in Japan still have fax machines
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Japan’s stubborn reliance on the fax machine has sparked a Twitter tirade by a doctor, who railed against the legal requirement that hospitals complete paperwork on new coronavirus cases by hand, and then fax it to public health centres to compile statistics on infections.
“Come on, let’s stop this,” said the doctor, apparently a specialist in respiratory medicine at a public hospital. “Reporting cases in handwriting? Even with the coronavirus, we are writing by hand and faxing.”
He added that the practice is “Showa period stuff”, referring to the imperial era that ran from 1926 until the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989.
Yet the fax machine still reigns supreme in Japan, with a recent government study showing that virtually every office in the country and one in three households has a machine.
Japan is run by a gerontocracy that is very much analogue in its ways of thinking.
The doctor’s tweet triggered a storm of comments on social media, with one user declaring: “Speed is the key to combating infectious diseases that spread so rapidly. It is a mistake not to utilise modern technology.”
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