Japanese health minister Norihisa Tamura in a television program on Sunday asked local governments to prepare to allow younger people without pre-existing conditions to get novel coronavirus vaccines simultaneously with those having such issues.

Referring to people aged 64 or under, Tamura said, “We don’t know how many of them have underlying issues because it is not mandatory for them to declare their conditions (when receiving coronavirus vaccines).”

It remains to be seen when vaccinations of people having pre-existing conditions will be completed, so those without underlying health issues should be allowed to get jabs simultaneously with them, he said.

Tamura also suggested that the government is considering offering a vaccine developed by U.S. biotechnology company Moderna Inc., which was approved in Japan on May 21, for inoculations to be carried out at workplaces, citing differences between the Moderna product and a vaccine from U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. in terms of storage methods and other aspects.

Japan’s novel coronavirus inoculation program now mainly covers people aged 65 or over, the second priority group, after the first priority group of medical workers, chiefly using the vaccine developed by Pfizer.

The minister said that the government’s ongoing coronavirus state of emergency could possibly be lifted before the currently scheduled expiration on June 20 for some of the 10 prefectures under the measure.

“It would be possible for the emergency to be removed for some prefectures if the infection situation improves close to Stage 2,” the second-worst level on the country’s four-tier novel coronavirus alert system.

The 10 prefectures under the emergency are Tokyo, Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, Aichi in central Japan, Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Okayama and Hiroshima in western Japan, Fukuoka in southwestern Japan and Okinawa, southernmost Japan.

JIJI Press