People ask what is wrong with Japan
A hapless response to the coronavirus pandemic belies Japan's reputation for efficiency
Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film 'Ikuru' tells the story of Kanji Watanabe, a typical Japanese bureaucrat doing his typically bureaucratic chore — maintaining the bureaucracy while doing nothing. (Photo: akirakurosawa.info)
As international media publicize Japan’s inept response to the Covid-19 pandemic, friends ask me how that could be. After all, isn’t Japan supposed to be a model of efficiency?
Yet Japan has the lowest vaccination rate among wealthy nations, with fewer than 4 percent of its 126 million people inoculated so far.