Jabonomics: Japanese taxpayers to keep paying for Covid shots

According to the Mainichi Shimbun, the government is once again considering whether or not to downgrade Covid from its current special status to Category 5 along side the flu, with any change happening in April 2023. But there’s a catch.

There is a proposal to leave certain measures in place, such as public funding for vaccinations, which differs from how influenza is treated.

Of course there is! At the risk of repeating myself for the umpteenth time, the taxpayer-funded Covid gravy train that the medical and pharmaceutical industries have been riding has been the main reason Covid has kept its special status for so long. So it seems Covid can only be downgraded if the gravy train is allowed to keep going.

In an attempt to justify continuing to transfer huge quantities of money from the Japanese treasury to foreign vaccine makers, magazine Nikkan Gendai recently interviewed economist Takuya Hoshino about the consequences of making people pay out of pocket for the Covid jabs. From a vax skeptic viewpoint, his arguments against read more like arguments for.

“The flu vaccine costs ¥ 3,600 [approx US$27], but the Covid vaccine currently costs about ¥9,700 [approx US$72.50]. If the coronavirus continues to mutate, you’ll end up having to get more doses. If a family of four vaccinates three times a year like this year, they’ll have to pay about 120,000 yen for the vaccine.

If the vaccine fee is too expensive, more people will decline the vaccines even though people are getting infected”

In the last 12 months in Japan, 54.8 million people have had 2 boosters and 22.8 million have had 3. But since these people presumably think Covid is terrifying enough justify 4 state of emergency declarations, 2.5 years of closed borders, and almost 3 years of 24/7 masking, they’ll definitely pay ¥20,000-30,000 per year for the safe and effective vaccines, right? RIGHT???

But what he says regarding medical institutions is even more interesting.

“If a fee is introduced for Covid vaccines, doctors will have to purchase vaccines at their own expense. One vaccine vial contains vaccines for six people. If six people don't come for vaccinations or they cancel, doctors will have to throw unused doses away.”

Once a vial is opened, the contents should only be used within 6 hours. In other words, if 5 people cancel appointments after the vial is opened, 5 doses will be discarded, resulting in a loss of about ¥50,000 per vial.

I think more medical institutions will go bankrupt. Also, there is no guarantee that some doctors won’t use previously opened vials instead of discarding them to avoid a financial loss.

This level of wastage is surely an argument against any entity, public or private, procuring these shots even if they weren’t worse than nothing. But it gets better.

“If the government covers the costs, the government will take responsibility for compensating people who suffer vaccine injuries. If the government stops covering the costs, doctors will have to take responsibility. Conceivably, some doctors will refuse to give vaccinations.”

The government’s “experts” have helped it avoid taking responsibility by finding evermore tenuous ways to avoid admitting causality between vaccines and injuries/deaths, and I doubt that’ll change no matter who pays for the jabs. But it’d certainly be interesting to see how many doctors who’ve been jabbing away happily up to now would be willing to take on the risk of compensating jab victims for medical expenses. We’d finally get to see how “safe and effective” they think the jabs really are.

For the Covid restrictions on economic activity, the Japanese government said it was prioritising the nation’s health over its economy. And for the Covid jabs, Kishida & Co. seemingly want to keep prioritising the wants of the Ministry of Health over those of the Ministry of Finance.

Jabonomics: Japan's Ministry of Finance calls for an end to "free" Covid jabs