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?

Yuqing Xing

Published: 9:15am, 13 May 2021

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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.

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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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.

While many countries with Covid-19 vaccination programmes are giving people shots seven days a week, and some even at night, it is surprising that it is business as usual in Japan: Covid-19 vaccination services are provided from Monday to Friday, but not at night, or weekends and holidays.

The lack of compensation for doctors and nurses working weekends and holidays could be one reason Japan is running its vaccination programme only on weekdays.

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Yet, the pandemic is a public health crisis. Surely it is the Japanese government’s responsibility to set up an emergency budget for mobilising medical staff to provide vaccination services beyond regular working hours. From Tokyo’s slow response, a sense of crisis is clearly lacking.

A shortage of medical staff qualified to administer shots has also been blamed for the slow roll-out of vaccines. Although medical professionals such as dentists are capable of giving vaccine injections, Japan has been constrained by regulations that only allow doctors, and nurses under the instruction of doctors, to give the shots. Until recently, dentists were not allowed to join the vaccination army.

Fighting the Covid-19 crisis requires innovative, decisive and smooth action. Stubbornly sticking to rules that hobble the inoculation campaign ultimately defeats the purpose of entering a Covid-19 state of emergency.

When the Japanese government decided to distribute limited Pfizer vaccines to senior citizens, it considered neither population distribution nor the number of infections across the country. It simply distributed them evenly across the nation to ensure “fairness” – with the exception of Kanagawa Prefecture, Osaka Prefecture and the Tokyo Metropolis, which were allocated twice as many doses as other regions.

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Tokyo has a population of 14 million, which is more than 10 times that of, for example, Aomori Prefecture. An even distribution system is obviously unfair to regions with larger populations. Even worse, it undermines the effectiveness of an already limited supply of Covid-19 vaccines.

A fourth wave of infections is threatening to overwhelm Osaka city’s medical system. However, when the LDP division in Osaka requested more vaccine doses, Taro Kono, Japan’s Covid-19 vaccine tsar, rejected the request based on the principle of fairness.

It is a pity that Japan, one of world’s most advanced nations, has not developed home-grown Covid-19 vaccines. It is even more frustrating that, although the Japanese government has signed agreements with a few vaccine makers, it has only approved the Pfizer vaccine. This is despite the fact that millions of people worldwide have taken the Moderna vaccine, which has proved safe and effective.

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Excessive concerns over side effects and the suitability of a vaccine for Japanese people have been keeping Moderna doses on the shelf.

Japan is experiencing a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections. The pandemic’s pattern suggests the virus may well spread quickly once the state of emergency is lifted. Yet, in less than three months, Japan will host the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

It is unimaginable that Japan would go ahead with the Games during another Covid-19 state of emergency. But as 11,000 athletes and many more staff, coaches, judges and journalists from around the world arrive, and local fans flock to the Games, it is highly likely that Japan will be hit by a new wave of Covid-19. Is the nation ready for this?

Japan needs to show it recognises this sense of crisis and hold a public debate about whether to proceed with the Olympics.

Yuqing Xing is Professor of Economics at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, Japan