TOKYO, Jan. 31 (BNA) “Tokyo has launched a mass vaccination campaign of COVID-19 booster shots at a temporary military-run center as Japan tries to speed up its delayed third punches to counter the rising infection.
Japan began giving booster vaccines to medical workers in December, but has only offered such vaccinations to 2.7% of the population after delaying a decision to cut the interval between the first two coronavirus shots and the booster to six months from the first eight, The Associated Press reports. .
Demand for shots is intense: Online bookings that began on Friday have filled all slots for approximately 4,300 doses at the center this week within 9 minutes. The center offers the vaccine made by Moderna, Inc.
On a smaller scale, people 65 and older can get booster injections elsewhere.
The SDF-operated center in central Tokyo reopened Monday after closing in late November. It will vaccinate about 720 people aged 18 or older per day this week, reaching more than 2,000 per day next month. Another military-run center will start booster shots next week in Osaka.
The omicron variant spread rapidly, pushing new reported infections much higher than previous waves of the coronavirus. Tokyo recorded 15,895 new cases on Sunday, a new high for Sunday. Nearly half of the hospital’s capacity is full. Nationwide, Japan has recorded about 78,000 cases for a cumulative total of 2.68 million, with about 18,700 deaths.
A resident man in his fifties said in an interview with Japanese media that immunizations in his area had been slow and that he felt comfortable getting vaccinated. Another, in his forties, said he was anxious to get vaccinated because Omicron’s infection was spreading through his son’s elementary school.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited the vaccination center in Tokyo on Monday and said most cities are expected to finish providing booster injections to Japanese over 65 by the end of February. Younger Japanese are next, but many have not received the vouchers required to apply for the shots and are unlikely to receive reinforcements until March or later.
Kishida said the decision to close Japan’s borders to most new foreign travelers in late November helped slow the recent increase in infections.
The government has resisted imposing strict lockdowns to curb the pandemic, relying largely on restaurant orders to shorten their opening hours and urging the public to wear face masks and observe social distancing.
Although these practices have kept the number of cases relatively low in most parts of Japan, and contributed to a sharp drop in the number of infections in the fall, the epidemic is taking a long and steady economic toll.
“It is very likely that Japan’s very slow booster shots will significantly delay its economic recovery compared to many other countries,” said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
Pandemic restrictions are now in effect in most parts of Japan, including Tokyo and other major cities such as Osaka and Kyoto, for the first time since September.
The government has faced heavy criticism for delays in its response to the pandemic, particularly the slow start of the first two shots of COVID-19 last year amid a shortage of imported vaccines. The vaccination rate reached nearly 80% after Kishida’s predecessor, Yoshihide Suga, set a goal of providing one million injections a day to finish vaccinating most of the elderly population before last year’s Tokyo Olympics.