Not Yet Desperate, Japan and South Korea Plod Toward Vaccinations
The slower pace gives the East Asian countries a chance to learn from mistakes elsewhere but also poses risks as more contagious and perhaps deadlier variants of the virus emerge.
A coronavirus vaccination drill in Kawasaki, Japan, on Wednesday. The country will begin vaccinating medical workers at the end of February.Credit...Philip Fong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Jan. 31, 2021
And yet none of these places have begun to carry out the only solution with any hope of putting the pandemic behind them: vaccinations.
While the United States and most nations in Europe as well as the Asian behemoths China and India have begun inoculating their populations, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong have stood out by proceeding much more slowly.