Did people stop washing their hands after using the toilet in Japan once the restrictions let up?

Did…they start?

Having lived briefly in Japan and for a while in Korea, most people left public (and workplace) washrooms without washing their hands. Even during the pandemic.

I was in Japan on vacation and no one washed the hands. Also soap was either empty or none existent

Definitely a thing that japanese men doesn’t wash their hands when visiting a public restrooms… At least what I have noticed

Or because we are comparing rates now to those when COVID restrictions were in place?

That’s correct. A majority of the increase is due to strep throat cases; there’s also an increase in streptococcal toxic shock syndrome from the bacteria going systemic. There is not a significantly increased amount of necrotizing fasciitis that I’m aware of. It’s been going on for a few months now.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-warns-surge-potentially-deadly-strep-throat-cases-2024-03-26/

It’s a bit more complex.

The bacteria causing this (Streptococcus pyogenes) causes hundreds of millions of illnesses each year, ranging from the mild “strep throat” to the extremely severe scarlet fever. Whilst there have been a few outbreaks of antibiotic resistant strains of this bacterium, that doesn’t appear to be what’s going on in this outbreak, so thankfully the underlying streptococcus infection should be treatable with standard antibiotics.

Unfortunately, the condition that’s actually killing people (Streptococcal Toxic Shock Syndrome (STSS)) is caused by exotoxins released by the bacteria, and killing the bacteria only stops further exotoxins from being produced — antibiotics can’t do anything about the exotoxins that have already been secreted by the bacteria. If you’ve ever wondered why we can’t cook spoiled food to make it safe to eat, this is a large part of why — exotoxins are often better at sticking around than the bacteria that produce them. It doesn’t help that exotoxins are often super potent toxins (Botulism is a particularly potent and well known example).

It’s not clear what causes some cases of Streptococcus pyogenes to escalate and non-eventful cases of strep are common enough that treating every case with antibiotics is implausible. It’s tricky because if symptoms are severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of STSS, then things will have already progressed enough that the exotoxins present s risk to health even if antibiotics are administered. This outbreak of many cases of the severe STSS is concerning because it might indicate that the strep bacteria has evolved to be more deadly, but we really don’t know why there’s such a cluster of severe illness in one place.

You’ll need to monitor it and take antibiotics before symptoms kick in, otherwise it may be too late.

In any case, the higher mortality, the lower the chance of spreading. There are and were plenty of viruses, for example, that have a similar mortality rate, but that’s exactly why there’s no outbreak - patients are easy to identify and isolate, and in the wild many die before propagating anything.

You assume wrong. Not only are there bats, some of them are quite fond of human structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_house_bat

Also, it’s cute:

I want to feed it crickets and watch it munch them.

Wash your hands often. It really does make a huge difference.

I mean, this is Japan. Has to have the highest per capital ass-washing toilet rate in the world, right?

You should wash your hands after shitting whether or not you have a bidet.