To date, have you observed any other countries and governments undertesting? And if so, was it for reasons other than the Olympics?
That gives you a baseline of disincentives to report.
Now extend:
- what would the cost (financial, reputational, etc) be to Japan the government if the Olympics do not go ahead?
- might there be other disincentives for Japan to undertest relative to its neighbours?
Also recall, in some cases a little bit of disincentive mixed with poor planning/incompetence leads to a lot of unplanned underreporting :)
The trick in all cases is to look for a metric that governments have not thought to obscure/or cannot control that strongly signal the thing you’re trying to verify.
To date, have you observed any other countries and governments undertesting? And if so, was it for reasons other than the Olympics?
That gives you a baseline of disincentives to report.
Now extend: - what would the cost (financial, reputational, etc) be to Japan the government if the Olympics do not go ahead? - might there be other disincentives for Japan to undertest relative to its neighbours?
Also recall, in some cases a little bit of disincentive mixed with poor planning/incompetence leads to a lot of unplanned underreporting :)
The trick in all cases is to look for a metric that governments have not thought to obscure/or cannot control that strongly signal the thing you’re trying to verify.