While Japan is lagging far behind other countries in developing COVID-19 vaccines, the United States is already supplying its shots to the rest of the world.

The gap reflects the differences between what the two nations have learned from past bioterrorism attacks and epidemics of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that occurred not only within the country but also elsewhere, and how they prepared for future risks and crises.

The following comment is not taken from a report, rather it is a remark made by a lecturer in 2000 during a class of disaster medicine at Harvard University School of Public Health.