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Am I the only one that is sitting here wondering why Japan a modern nation with a strong economy has been so far behind in vaccinating their population?
Apparently, Japan has done well with quarantines and public compliance has been good with public health measures like masks and social distancing. As a result, they've actually had only modest morbidity and mortality up until now, far lower than in the US and Europe. The US has about 330M people and we've had about 625K deaths. Japan has about 126M people and they've had about 15K deaths - far lower per capita (119 per million vs 1,876 per million here).
That said, their vaccination campaign has been slow. Vaccine supply, logistical issues, a shortage of doctors and nurses, and vaccine hesitancy have all been problems there.
I don't know about Japan, but a lot of "modern nations" were not able to secure the vaccines early enough due to supply shortage. In essence, countries like US and UK got the early because of the money they provided to the manufactures. Some of the 3rd world countries also got them quicker because of WHO.
I know Taiwan was sort of in that situation. Certainly wanted vaccines, but just couldn't get them. It wasn't until recently that they started to vaccinate people. A lot of ex-pats that lives in Taiwan or Taiwanese ex-pats that live in the States but went back because of their covid success actually came back to the US to get vaccinated.
It’s interesting Taiwan was doing very well throughout the pandemic that is until they started to vaccinate. Is it merely coincidental?
I do like the way Japan took the “Swedish” carrots request approach rather than a police power approach unlike many other countries in the world. Letting people choose the best methods to keep safe based on their situation. I be curious whether other countries would learn that the carrots approach isn’t more dangerous than the sticks approach with harsh lockdown, home imprisonment, stiff penalties. I am not saying Japan is perfect in every way they have their issues, though they show they show respect to the constitution yet death rates are not what other countries that turned police state feared if they didn’t harshly intervene by suspending people’s rights/constitution in every possible way.
It’s interesting Taiwan was doing very well throughout the pandemic that is until they started to vaccinate. Is it merely coincidental?
You do realize that the Delta variant has a far higher transmission rate than the original COVID-19 strain. The viral loads have been measured at 1,000 times higher than the earlier strains. The transmission rate is so high that the traditional test, contact trace, and quarantine method doesn’t work very well. Even vaccinated people are getting exposed to such big viral loads that their immune system can’t keep up.
It’s interesting Taiwan was doing very well throughout the pandemic that is until they started to vaccinate. Is it merely coincidental?
I do like the way Japan took the “Swedish” carrots request approach rather than a police power approach unlike many other countries in the world. Letting people choose the best methods to keep safe based on their situation. I be curious whether other countries would learn that the carrots approach isn’t more dangerous than the sticks approach with harsh lockdown, home imprisonment, stiff penalties. I am not saying Japan is perfect in every way they have their issues, though they show they show respect to the constitution yet death rates are not what other countries that turned police state feared if they didn’t harshly intervene by suspending people’s rights/constitution in every possible way.
This is all anecdotal or conjecture from relatives that live there. But their success rate was mainly based on strict quarantine rules, etc. The outbreak (from what I've been told) was the result of a number of those that broke the quarantine rules (mainly airline pilots).
I guess it's more timing and people's patience. Perhaps once people realized vaccines were on the horizon, they simply cared less about following quarantine restrictions..?
Japan has a general reluctance toward treatments that have not been tested for a long time due to the effects of the atomic bombs coming years after the actual bombings. Birth control pills were only made legal in the late ‘90s, and even after that it was hard to get them for a while. They apparently wanted to wait a while to see whether there were any effects on children born after birth control was available. Hopefully once more people start getting vaccinated and having children with positive experiences, they will become less hesitant.
Unfortunately, if only more Japanese where vaccinated to the levels of the Western World by the start of the Olympics then there would have some fans allowed in the stands.
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