Advert Offers Scathing Rebuke of Japanese Government’s COVID Response

If this continues, the government will kill us all

The advert, taken out by Tokyo-based publishing firm Takarajimasha, appeared on May 11 in the Nikkei Shimbun.

Japan has received considerable praise from foreign media for maintaining a comparatively low coronavirus infection rate despite low testing, poor tracking, and a lax policy on lockdowns. The reasons are complex and open to debate, as a lack of data puts in-depth analysis and sweeping conclusions beyond reach. Japanese health policy experts will have their work cut out for years to come.

In the meantime, there seems to be growing discontent in the way the public is perceiving the government’s response to the pandemic. Before, concerns had been raised over a variety of issues — from inaccessible PCR tests to the discriminatory treatment of foreign residents — but public criticism remained relatively subdued as long as infections remained under control. Now, with vaccination widely available in most of the world’s wealthiest nations, Japanese citizens are feeling increasingly left behind.

An overt sign of swelling public frustration was this full spread advertisement published on May 11th in one of Japan’s most prominent newspapers, the Nikkei Shimbun. It was run by Tokyo-based publishing company Takarajimasha.