{"id":38442,"date":"2021-10-28T17:42:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T08:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/oct\/28\/face-mask-row-in-japan-over-cost-of-80m-left-in-storage-unused-abenomask"},"modified":"2021-10-28T17:42:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T08:42:36","slug":"face-mask-row-in-japan-over-cost-of-80m-left-in-storage-unused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=38442","title":{"rendered":"Face mask row in Japan over cost of 80m left in storage unused"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government facing ridicule over \u2018Abenomasks\u2019 as it denies wasting large amounts of taxpayers\u2019 money<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/series\/coronavirus-live\/latest\">Coronavirus \u2013 latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">See all our coronavirus coverage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Wearing masks may be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jul\/14\/in-japan-wearing-a-mask-is-habitual-can-the-uk-follow-suit\">near-ubiquitous in Japan<\/a>, but the government has come under fire after it was revealed that more than 80m face coverings it procured at the start of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">coronavirus<\/a> pandemic are still in storage, at a huge cost to taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>The government secured 260m washable cloth masks early last year to distribute to every household in Japan after public anxiety over the virus emptied stores of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/aug\/26\/non-woven-masks-better-to-stop-covid-19-says-japanese-supercomputer\">medical versions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/oct\/28\/face-mask-row-in-japan-over-cost-of-80m-left-in-storage-unused-abenomask\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government facing ridicule over \u2018Abenomasks\u2019 as it denies wasting large amounts of taxpayers\u2019 moneyCoronavirus \u2013 latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageWearing masks may be near-ubiquitous in Japan, but the government has come under fire after i&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1066,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-coronavirus","category-japan"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38443,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38442\/revisions\/38443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}