Why haven't more people in Japan died from Covid-19? It is a macabre question that has spawned dozens of theories, from Japanese manners to claims that the Japanese have superior immunity. Japan does not have the lowest death rate for Covid-19 - in the region, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam can all boast lower morbidity. But in the early part of 2020, Japan saw fewer deaths than average. This is despite the fact that in April, Tokyo saw about 1,000 "excess deaths' - perhaps due to Covid. Yet, for the year as a whole, it is possible that overall deaths will be down on 2019. This is particularly striking because Japan has many of the conditions that make it vulnerable to Covid-19, but it never adopted the energetic approach to tackling the virus that some of its neighbours did. What happened in Japan? At the height of the outbreak in Wuhan in February, when the city's hospitals were overwhelmed and the world put up walls to Chinese travellers, Japan kept borders open. As the virus spread, it quickly became clear that Covid is a disease that primarily kills the elderly and is massively amplified by crowds or prolonged close contact. Per capita, Japan has more elderly than any other country. Japan's population is also densely packed into huge cities. Greater Tokyo has a mind-boggling 37 million people and for most of them, the only way to get around is on the city's notoriously packed trains. Then there is Japan's refusal to heed the advice of the World Health Organization (WHO) to "test, test, test". Even now, total PCR tests stand at just 348,000, or 0.27% of Japan's population. Nor has Japan had a lockdown on the scale or severity of Europe. In early April, the government ordered a state of emergency. But the stay-at-home request was voluntary. Non-essential businesses were asked to close, but there was no legal penalty for refusing. Many paragons of Covid strategy, such as New Zealand and Vietnam, used tough measures including closing borders, tight lockdowns, large-scale testing and strict quarantines - but Japan did none of that. Yet, five months after the first Covid case was reported here, Japan has fewer than 20,000 confirmed cases and fewer than 1,000 deaths. The state of emergency has been lifted, and life is rapidly returning to normal. There is also growing scientific evidence that Japan really has contained the spread of the disease - so far. Telecom giant Softbank carried out antibody testing on 40,000 employees, which showed that just 0.24% had been exposed to the virus. Randomised testing of 8,000 people in Tokyo and two other prefectures has shown even lower levels of exposure. In Tokyo just 0.1% came back positive. As he announced the lifting of the state of emergency late last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke proudly of the "Japan Model", intimating that other countries should learn from Japan.