At the start of the pandemic, they were the fastest – and the best – to contain the virus. Now, that the world has begun to see a pinch of normality again thanks to vaccines, the situation has turned upside down and they are among the last on the list of developed countries as regards the doses administered to their citizens. Last year, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand had everyone amazed by their speed and effectiveness thanks to sweeping tests, timely lockdowns and isolation of positives. On the immunization campaigns, however, something is wrong. Or rather, it goes slowly.
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If the United States has already vaccinated almost a quarter of the population and Britain has already guaranteed half of its citizens at least the first dose, Australia and South Korea are below 3 per cent, while Japan and New Zealand do not even reach. 1% with the first dose. Why?
“Success in controlling the pandemic has reduced the motivation and effort to set up a rapid immunization campaign,” he explained to New York Times Robert Booy, an infectious disease and vaccine expert at the University of Sydney, Australia. In Tokyo, for example, they started vaccinating over 65s only last week while Korea, after announcing that it would reach the goal of one million people a day, saw the counter stop at just 27 thousand.
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Thanks to timely policies at the outbreak of the coronavirus, the 4 countries have accumulated a significant time advantage over other nations and have been able to afford the luxury of delaying vaccination campaigns, claims the American daily. But, for the experts, at a very high price. In short, from white flies to black sheep. The virus continues to mutate, new variants appear, more aggressive. And delaying the vaccination campaign could prove to be a boomerang.
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All four countries depend on serums produced abroad. But, especially Tokyo and Canberra are having serious problems with supplies. Australia, for example, complains of delays for 3.1 million doses of AstraZeneca that should have come from the European Union. In addition, after the cases of rare thrombosis Canberra advised not to give Anglo-Swedish serum to people under 50. The Japanese minister Taro Kono also complained to the EU. Japan is running the biggest risk, which will host the Olympic Games in less than 100 days. The recent surge in infections has led the government to expand restrictions in 10 prefectures of the archipelago, including the cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. To date, the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine is the only one approved by the Japanese health authorities and the Land of the Rising Sun mainly depends on supplies from European plants. Pfizer will ship 144 million doses to Japan by the end of the year. During his recent visit to Washington, Prime Minister Suga said he had reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical company for a greater supply of vaccines. In the meantime, however, Tokyo has not yet approved the Moderna and AstraZeneca serums despite having already signed contracts with the two manufacturers.
Beyond the geopolitics of vaccines, other factors come into play: for new vaccines, for example, Japan requires ad hoc internal clinical trials. “We were the last to be invited to the vaccine party,” Kim Minho, a researcher in Seoul, told the newspaper. For South Korea, as well as for other countries, the NYT argues, the government has relied too much on respect for social distancing and closures, under the illusion that they might be enough.
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