Berita 24 English - Japan opened mass vaccination clinics on Monday as part of a race to vaccinate the majority of its elderly population b...
Berita 24 English - Japan opened mass vaccination clinics on Monday as part of a race to vaccinate the majority of its elderly population before the Tokyo Olympics begin.
Thousands of people will be vaccinated daily at the Tokyo and Osaka centres, boosting Japan's sluggish vaccination drive as officials battle the fourth wave of coronavirus infections.
"It's better to get it early," Tetsuya Urano, 66, who was one of the first in Tokyo to receive the vaccine, said. "Overall, it went fairly smoothly."
For the next three months, the Tokyo facility will operate 12 hours a day, administering shots to 10,000 people daily. The site in Osaka, Japan's western metropolis, will eventually process approximately 5,000 shots per day.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga requested last month that centres expedite the vaccination rollout. Local governments also opened large-scale vaccination sites in the prefectures of Aichi, Miyagi, and Gunma.
The fourth wave of infections prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency for a large portion of the country, including Tokyo, raising concerns about the upcoming Olympic Games, which begin on July 23.
The majority of regions' states of emergency are set to expire on May 31. The government is considering extending the measures, according to several people with knowledge of the decision. Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura of Osaka, whose region has been particularly hard hit by the current wave, told reporters Tuesday that he would decide whether to extend the emergency.
According to Reuters' global tracker, only 4.4 per cent of Japan's 125 million-strong population has received at least one vaccine dose, the slowest rate among the world's larger, wealthier countries.
Japan began its vaccination campaign in mid-February, a month later than the majority of major economies. Initially, the campaign was hampered by a shortage of imported doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE. However, even as shipments increased, the rollout was hampered by manpower shortages and reservation system malfunctions.
The elderly mass vaccination centres use a vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and approved on Friday and a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC.
Johnson & Johnson announced Monday that it had submitted a regulatory filing for its one-shot candidate and that it could begin supplying the country in early 2022.
