When Prevention Fails Twice a Year: The Twin Peaks of Japan’s COVID‑19 Epidemic
How recurring summer and winter surges defied vaccines and masks, revealing the limits of short‑term immunity and the complexity of epidemic control.
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
Pandemic insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Public health officials should take a look at their own management tactics for the six-year COVID-19 pandemic. Alter AI assisted in this scholarly review of Japan’s National Surveillance Data.
The paper “COVID‑19 Double Annual Epidemic Peaks in Summer and in Winter from 2022, Irrespective of the Rate of Mask Wearing and Vaccination” by Shinako Inaida, Richard E. Paul, and Minsoo Kim (published in Viruses, 2025, vol. 17, p. 1612) analyzes Japan’s national COVID‑19 surveillance data from 2020 to 2025 to examine whether the nationwide vaccination campaign and widespread mask usage influenced epidemic dynamics. The authors compared weekly incidence rates, the rate of weekly case growth, vaccination coverage, and domestic mask stock levels.
