Japan is likely to achieve herd immunity to COVID-19 through mass inoculations only months after the planned Tokyo Olympics, even though it has locked in the biggest quantity of vaccines in Asia, according to a London-based forecaster.
That would be a blow to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who has pledged to have enough shots for the populace by the middle of 2021, as it trails most major economies in starting COVID-19 inoculations.
"Japan looks to be quite late in the game," said Rasmus Bech Hansen, the founder of British research firm Airfinity. "They're dependent on importing many (vaccines) from the U.S. And at the moment, it doesn't seem very likely they will get very large quantities of, for instance, the Pfizer vaccine."