The point being that Japanese culture is obviously vaccine hesitant. Vaccines are widely available and their vaccinated numbers are still very low.
Mask were particularly effective against the first variant of Covid and because a great deal of Japan’s residents wear mask regularly, they weren’t affected by Covid as badly as other countries were. Their infection and death rates were lower through most of 2020.
When it comes to the UK and India variants, non-surgical mask are not as effective... Thus more cases and more deaths are occurring. The only defense against the new variants is the vaccine.
The new variants (not surprisingly) started showing up when vaccines were approved in early December. On December 10th, there were only 2,456 deaths from covid in Japan. Deaths from Covid in Japan have now risen to 14,626 deaths. Other developed countries experienced as many deaths before the vaccine approvals, as they have since vaccine approvals, and because of vaccine those death numbers are dropping significantly and daily.
Until last week, it wasn’t an issue because nobody had offered me the vaccine. They are being distributed via the government, by appointment, at medical centers.
Our vaccine notification mails from the city government showed up last week. My wife grabbed both of them and stuck them in her purse. That’s her way of telling me not only “no”, but “HELL NO!” At least for the time being.
Yes, I know all about Japan’s vaccine resistance, but both my wife and daughter are very worried about the side effects. So am I, to tell the truth. I work from home so I have very low exposure risk anyhow, and I always mask up and keep social distance outside.