Tokyo, 7 February, /AJMEDIA/
Japan aims to soon start providing 1 million booster shots per day to stem a new wave of infections spurred by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Monday.
New cases exceeded 100,000 a day nationwide for the first time last week, but only 4.8 percent of Japan’s 125 million people had received a third shot as of last Friday, according to the government.
The percentage is much lower than in Britain, France and Germany, where over 50 percent of the population has had a booster shot. “By setting a clear goal, the government as a whole will work to deliver shots to those who hope to be vaccinated as soon as possible,” Kishida said at a parliamentary session.
Prior to the session, Kishida instructed health minster Shigeyuki Goto and other Cabinet ministers concerned to bring forward vaccination campaigns implemented by local municipalities, boost inoculation capacity at workplaces and promote the delivery of shots to essential workers including teachers.
On Monday, the Self-Defense Forces began operating a mass vaccination center again in Osaka, western Japan.
It joins a similar venue in Tokyo relaunched last week that has tripled the pace of inoculations from the previous week to 2,160 shots a day. The pace is set to reach 4,080 on Tuesday and then 5,040 on Thursday.
The SDF is operating centers in the two cities again, after doing so last year, amid criticism that the government has been slow to offer booster shots. The venues will offer jabs to people aged 18 or older through July 31.
The Osaka venue is initially providing 960 shots a day, but Kishida said Monday he will increase the capacity to about 2,500 per day from around Feb. 14.
Kishida had faced mounting calls to boost capacity at the Tokyo center since it had provided 10,000 shots per day last year.
Slots through next Sunday at the Tokyo center and for the first week at the Osaka venue are already fully booked, according to the Defense Ministry.
