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On December 2, 2020, the Japanese government passed a bill that will make vaccines for Coronavirus free to its residents. Needless to say, the world has been crippled by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, nations around the world have been racing to find a vaccine to save both the lives of their residents and their economies as well. Even though Japan grapples with a spike in COVID-19 infections, this bill indicates that there may be a light at the end of a dark long tunnel.

While nations in East Asia have handled the pandemic better than nations in the West, these nations still have a significant interest in resolving the pandemic as soon as they can. Given the widespread nature of the virus, the notion of containing the virus and waiting for it to die out or otherwise subside is unrealistic at best. As a result, most nations have pinned their hope on a vaccine to inoculate the public against infection. Luckily there are multiple vaccines seemingly on the horizon either being in Phase 3 trials or even being approved for limited early use in certain countries like the United Kingdom.

In nations like Japan efforts to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic have had success, but not without some controversy. Like many nations, Japan faces the struggle of balancing economic and public health concerns. Thankfully, with vaccines seemingly on the horizon, they may not have to wait too long. Unfortunately, the prospect of the vaccine presents a whole other set of problems. Specifically, around the logistics of vaccinating the public. How nations get vaccines out to the public, how safe or effective is the vaccine and who pays for the vaccine in the first place? In an effort to resolve these issues, the Japanese central government recently passed a bill aimed at the logistics of deploying a vaccine.

This bill puts the purchasing cost of vaccinations on the central government. Securing the vaccine itself is also on the central government, although they have partnered with local corporations like Takeda to better achieve this goal. The objective being to secure enough doses of the vaccine by the first half of 2021. While not explicitly stated health ministry officials have indicated that this would include foreign residents in Japan as well.

There are health concerns about the actual vaccine surrounding the fact that the vaccine is being approved with far fewer late stage trials than other vaccines. Because of this, the bill will also compensate private companies for any health losses stemming from the vaccine. On a similar note, the bill does include provisions to oblige citizens to receive the vaccine. However, these provisions would only come into effect if the effectiveness and safety of any distributed vaccine are assured. With this bill nations like Japan are showing that nations can not only overcome COVID-19 but they can also do so in a way that will not cripple either their national economies or the financial situations of the people they are obliged to take care of.

JTTC is a political writer for La Tonique.