Photo/Illutration Shigeru Omi, chief of an expert panel advising the government on COVID-19 policy responses, during an interview with The Asahi Shimbun in Tokyo on Jan. 13 (Naoko Kawamura)

What would have happened if not for this individual? Might the tumultuous period of the COVID-19 pandemic, where everyone was tossed about by many befuddling questions to which no one knew the answers, have been even more devastating? Or perhaps the opposite?

I could not help but ponder these questions while reading Shigeru Omi’s book “1,100-nichikan no Katto (1,100 days of inner struggle).”

In the book, Omi, the central figure in the nation’s battle against the novel coronavirus who stepped down in August from his official post as the government’s top COVID-19 adviser, looks back on the three-and-a-half years of his desperate efforts to deal with the public health crisis in his candid “self-examination.”

He writes he made proposals that would not go down well with the government while feeling like he was “crossing the Rubicon.” What he feared was not the criticism or friction he immediately faced, but rather the "judgment of history,” according to the book.

Of course, he also had to make concessions. For instance, a passage referring to “the possibility of infection through breathing” was removed from a statement upon the government’s request.

If this risk was included in the advisory panel’s proposals, the government contended, it “might give general citizens an unnecessary sense of fear.”

Was it right to omit such information? Omi writes that when the views of experts and the government differ over such issues, the public should be informed of the discrepancies.

If inconvenient facts are kept undisclosed, the public’s trust in the government could wane, he argues.

However, in reality, there was continuous work to find middle ground between the two sides in responding to the pandemic.

Albert Einstein once recommended the development of the atomic bomb. After the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, he changed his stance and argued against nuclear weapons. Scientists, as well as governments, make mistakes.

Perhaps true scientific thinking begins by denying infallibility in all matters.

The book concludes with this passage: “I wish to see examinations (of the policy responses to the pandemic) from multiple perspectives by people from various positions in the coming years.”

Another pandemic will strike sooner or later. I am eager to hear testimonies from political leaders involved that can withstand the “judgment of history.”

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 15

 * * *

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.