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While the chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, Haruo Ozaki, has recommended the use of ivermectin on COVID-19 patients, neither he nor the organization is associated with the Japanese government.

Ivermectin is not listed by the Japanese government as an approved medicine to treat COVID-19.

Ozaki’s recommendation was less than total: “Of course, one cannot conclude that ivermectin is effective on the basis of these figures, but when we have all these elements, we cannot say that ivermectin is absolutely not effective, at least not me,” he says.

“We can do other studies to confirm its efficacy, but we are in a crisis situation. With regards to the use of ivermectin, it is obviously necessary to obtain the informed consent of the patients, and I think we’re in a situation where we can afford to give them this treatment,” Ozaki said.

It would be interesting to see how much actual prescription of Ivermectin has changed, to assess how much it may have been the cause of the reduction in cases in Tokyo.

Also of note, Ozaki recommended Ivermectin to treat COVID infections, not as prevention (although the African studies he cited make a strong case for it’s use as a prophylactic against infection).

It is possible that the culture in Japan might well have resulted in many doctors quickly conforming to the recommendation to prescribe Ivermectin, without official Government approval - but without knowing how much actually got administered, it is not possible to conclude that Ivermectin caused the downturn in cases, or how much of the downturn in cases it may have caused.

Before we had vaccines, Doctors posting on Free Republic reported that their hospitals were using Ivermectin as prophylaxis against COVID infection for their staff, and that it seemed to work very well for them, preventing infection despite very high risk working conditions in COVID wards.