Japan yesterday began COVID-19 vaccinations for its sizeable elderly population, with imported doses still in short supply and the pace unlikely to stop a fourth wave of infections.
Shots for people aged 65 and above began at about 120 sites across the nation, using Pfizer Inc’s vaccine made in Europe and delivered to the regions in the past week.
Just 2,810 people in Tokyo are expected to get a shot from the first batch, while most regions are to receive 1,000 doses or fewer, a Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare schedule showed.
Photo: Reuters / Kyodo
Japan has a rapidly aging population totaling 126 million.
Touring a vaccination center in Hachioji, west of Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said that he expected to secure about 100 million vaccine doses by the end of June, more than enough to give two doses to the elderly population of 36 million.
“We would like to deliver [the vaccine] to as many people as possible, as soon as possible,” Suga said.
Tokyo yesterday implemented a month-long period of quasi-emergency disease prevention measures to blunt a fourth wave driven by virulent mutant strains, and with the planned start of the Summer Olympic Games just over 100 days away.
Shots for most of the population are not likely to be available until late summer or even winter, too late to stem a resurgence of cases that appears to be focused on people in their 30s and 40s, said Haruka Sakamoto, a physician and researcher at Keio University in Tokyo.
“The currently available vaccination cannot prevent the fourth wave of the pandemic,” Sakamoto said. “I think the younger generation is now going to be more greatly affected compared with the previous waves.”
Japan was among the last major economies to begin COVID-19 inoculations when it started in mid-February, after domestic trials to ensure safety. Japan is dependent on Pfizer’s vaccine as the only COVID-19 shot approved by domestic regulators.
About 1.1 million people in Japan, mostly frontline healthcare workers, have received at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine’s two-shot regimen so far.
Japanese Minister for Administrative Reform and Regulatory Reform Taro Kono, who is in charge of vaccinations, has defended the pace, saying local governments wanted time to prepare.
“After tomorrow, we will inform the prefectures how much we can distribute and they will decide how much to allocate to each municipality,” Kono told national broadcaster NHK on Sunday.
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