'Where are the vaccines': Public anger increases over slow vaccine roll out in Japan

Public frustration over Japan’s slow vaccine roll-out intensifying after it emerged that the European Union approved the export of more than 50 million COVID-19 shots to the country this year. Since the commencement of its mass inoculation drive in mid-February, the administration has been able to immunize only 1.3 per cent of the country’s total population, blaming supply bottlenecks of jabs. However, earlier this week, the EU said that it had authorized 52.3 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines made in European factories for export to Japan.

‘Where are the vaccines’

The news of colossal vaccine supply soon created a stir on the internet, striking a nerve with Japanese residents. As the social media posts lampooning the Yoshihide Suga administration caught momentum, the country’s vaccines minister Taro Kono jumped in claiming the numbers were wrong. Later, in a statement to Bloomberg, his office stated that only 28 million shots from Pfizer had arrived in Japan. Chief Cabinet Secretariat Katsunobu Kato confirmed on the same day news reports that shots of the Moderna vaccine had also been received though did not disclose the number of doses. The country has only given a green light to vaccines developed by PfizerBioNTech for public use as of now.

The kerfuffle overdoses is another blow to Suga’s government, which has been criticized for botching the vaccination program with bureaucratic manoeuvring. With the dates of Olympic 2021 nearing, the administration recently stepped up efforts to accelerate the vaccination process. According to Bloomberg, the administration has announced new efforts to channel more resources to rollout while also asking the physicians’ association to increase the number of doctors who can administer vaccines. Earlier this week, the administration, in a first, asked the country's military to set up a vaccination centre in the country capital Tokyo.

The country declared a new state of emergency from April 25 to May 11 in Tokyo, Osaka and two other prefectures as “short and powerful” measures to contain the resurgence of COVID-19. A per the latest tally, Japan has registered over 586,782 COVID-19 cases out of whom more than 10,194 have lost their lives. 

(Image Credits: AP)