Did we have to buy this many doses? No debate on vaccine wastage in sight before election.

2 comments

1. I don’t think this is a Japan-specific problem. It’s an industrialized world problem in more than one way. They have the money to buy 3+x times the amount of vaccines needed, have to order them months in advance without knowing about demand or effectiveness in an ever changing pandemic landscape. They cannot order less than for the whole population (regardless of whether everybody wants the jab or not) because they set themselves up for a constitutional discrimination lawsuit if they do. All rich countries have over ordered and destroyed out of date vaccinations. The biggest problem is that it takes away vaccinations from poorer countries who couldn’t get an order in for various reasons. It’s an unintended consequence of the values of equality and a duty of care towards your citizens written into law and constitutions in rich countries and a consequence of the divide between rich and poor countries. And rich countries have or had a hand in that wealth divide as well. This is an issue that’s both good and totally morally reprehensible at the same time, a conundrum of Schrödinger proportions. You can make this into a political football by chastising the government for not motivating more people to get more jabs. But in Japan as anywhere else, the people are tired of the pandemic and you don’t score big victories with this topic right now. I think that’s why this is a non-issue that should be an issue. But that’s not how politics work.

2. Every country underestimated the number of dumbshits that would not take the vaccine, whether initial, second, third and probably forth.