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Is Japan Safe to Travel to During the Olympics? Covid-19 Vaccine?
The Japanese government has preordered 290 million doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines which is more than double the amount of the Japanese population of 126 million. The government stated that they are planning to vaccinate everybody before the Olympics in July.
With more than 101 million shots of covid-19 vaccines given out worldwide already, you would think that Japan would have at least a couple thousands shot already given to their aging population. However, they have not even started handing out vaccines.
The Japanese government is still trying to get them out by the end of this month (February). The main reason for this delay is because of mainly three reasons which are that the last 30 years Japanese media has been emphasizing the small chances of side effects in vaccines, the Japanese government has been sued in the past due to the side effects that were caused by smallpox and other vaccines in 1970s, and the lack of trust in the Japanese government by their people.
There was a survey done by the Japan Trend Research in December showed that nearly 63% of of people want to take the vaccine “eventually”, fewer than 11% of people want to take it immediately, and 27% of people who don’t even want to take the vaccine.
