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Opinion | Tokyo Olympics: amid Japan’s lacklustre Covid-19 vaccination efforts, should the Games go ahead?
- From Japan’s sluggish vaccine roll-out, it is evident that a sense of crisis is lacking. Have the Japanese given serious thought to the possibility that a new wave of coronavirus will arrive with the Olympics?
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As the number of infections and deaths from Covid-19 continues to rise in Japan, the government has extended its third state of emergency, declared on April 25, to the end of May.
On May 8, the daily number of Covid-19 infections exceeded 7,000 again; in the same week, the daily number of deaths hit a new high. There seems little prospect of Japan beating the pandemic any time soon.
The declaration of the state of emergency was necessary to slow the speed and contain the scale of transmission. But, disrupting mobility and shutting businesses are defensive approaches. They are only effective in the short term.
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To win the battle with the coronavirus, proactive offensives are critical. The experiences of the United States, Britain and Israel unambiguously indicate that vaccination is the only effective way to fend off Covid-19, and help us go back to a normal life.
However, given the progress of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in Japan, it is hard to believe the country is in a state of emergency. Japan started vaccinating health care staff in February, and senior citizens in April. Yet, by May 6, less than 25 per cent of 4.8 million medical staff had received two shots of Covid-19 vaccines and less than 1 per cent of senior citizens had received just one shot.
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Japan declares new state of emergency after worst Covid-19 spike since January
Japan declares new state of emergency after worst Covid-19 spike since January
The snail’s pace of vaccination for these two groups has nothing to do with the availability of vaccine doses, given that Japan had received more than 8.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccines before April 30.
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