Here in Tokyo, I actually feel the opposite. WeWorks are quite busy again, but then again we didn't get hit as hard as the west.
If I were a company with 100 employees, I'd get 50~ hotdesk spaces at my local coworking space chain and let employees come in up to 3 days a week whenever they feel like it.
There are other reasons to dislike hot desking but COVID doesn't seem to be one of them: surface transmission is low risk, disinfecting a desk is easy and can be done by staff overnight, ...
OH yes but it would have to be done properly between uses and regular office cleaning would now have to be more rigours and costly than it is now.
Probably closer to how a low risk hospital ward is cleaned than the perfunctory wipe - you might also have to use those sealed keyboards designed so they can be cleaned.
And that's quite surprising to hear. I also live in Tokyo, but given how packed Chuo line/Shinjuku station in the morning for the past few weeks, it feels like everyone has already gone back to their regular office hours routine. :(
Many people from our company prefers working from home as well, so I'm waiting to see how our HR reacts (we already have a 3 days WFH policy in place, but many people now kinda wish they could do permanent). However a large enterprise I'm working with already asked everyone to go back to office, in addition to never issuing WFH for their non-Tokyo office in the first place, which is kinda shame, because I wish they would be adopting with the "new normal", but instead they just go back to normal...
In the sense its cheaper to outsource than having your own permanent offices? That's possible but major companies would probably have them meet/come at existing offices on alternate days.
Commercial leases also tend to be fairly long-term. So a lot of companies are in the situation where they want to use their existing space in a way that's appropriate for the current situation. Which may be different from what they'd do if they were starting from a clean slate.
If I were a company with 100 employees, I'd get 50~ hotdesk spaces at my local coworking space chain and let employees come in up to 3 days a week whenever they feel like it.