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Japanese Government Will Pay Families £295,000 If Relative Dies From Covid-19 Vaccine

Japanese Government Will Pay Families £295,000 If Relative Dies From Covid-19 Vaccine

The amount equates to just under £300,000 and is an attempt to coax the public into taking the newly distributed vaccine.

Simon Catling

Simon Catling

Japanese authorities will pay a bereaved family a lump sum of 44.2 million yen should one of them die after taking the Covid-19 jab.

The figure, which is the equivalent to around £295,350, is the highest one-off fee that could be paid out by the Japanese government in the case of an adverse reaction to the Coronavirus jab.

Families may also receive a 5,056,800 yen (£33,700) annual payment should someone suffer a long-term disability that requires care as a result of taking the jab, while funeral costs in the eventuality of any death would also be covered up to 209,000 yen (£1395).

The figures were confirmed by Japan's Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Norihisa Tamura, who explained the compensation policy to the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

In actual fact, the agreement has been around for some time, with SoraNews24 reporting that these figures would be paid out should these instances happen as a result of a Japanese citizen taking any vaccine.

PA

However, given that the country only recently started vaccinating its population with the Covid-19 vaccine at a time when its cases are still high it has come into focus again and reflects the reticence in Japanese culture to accept such jabs.

That might seem surprising given that culturally Japan is known for its regular use of face masks in order to combat the effects of pollution and mitigate picking up illness, but its meant that the uptake on the flu vaccine - for instance - only sits at around 50 percent of the population year-on-year.

This in spite of the fact that deaths related to flu in Japan for 2018 were similar to the number who died from Covid-19 there last year.

With the current pandemic the worst globally for a century, though, there are understandable efforts to try and make the jab seem like a more agreeable thing to do.

The roll-out of the vaccine is broadly in line with how many other countries have been administering it - staggered to medical staff, the elderly, people with health conditions, with younger and less vulnerable people further down the line.

It's also a surprisingly loose criteria for those who may end up needing to claim any of the sum, with the compensation not reliant on whether the negligence was the part of medical staff or the vaccine producer or anything like that.

This ambiguity has actually made courts tend to favour the victims in any settlements around vaccination settlements and has also made Japanese companies wary of producing vaccines for this very reason - there are currently no Japanese Covid vaccines in use.

This, coupled with the fact that much of the public aren't actually aware of the policy, suggests that it might be more intended to coax Japanese companies to produce vaccines by reducing their liability.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: World News