TOKYO: Japan’s Defense Ministry showed the press the COVID-19 vaccination process at Self-Defense Forces-run sites in Tokyo and Osaka Prefecture on Wednesday.

The ministry opened up the vaccination venues for people aged 65 or over to the media second time after a similar press event was held on their opening day on May 24.

At the Tokyo site in the Otemachi district, the members of the media were shown new booths in which people who may suffer side effects are able to go through the entire process, starting from receiving the vaccine until the follow-ups, while lying down.

“We’re working to make improvements to dispel people’s worries,” said Ground SDF Col. Shuichi Kawano, who is in charge of operations at the Tokyo venue.

At the Osaka site, western Japan, Tsutomu Moribayashi, a 69-year-old resident of the city of Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, who came with his wife, said that he chose to be vaccinated at the venue as he would have to wait until mid-August to receive his shot locally.

“I had been worried that I may get infected with the novel coronavirus while I worked outside, but I feel safe now,” said Moribayashi, a self-employed worker.

Initially, only residents of Tokyo’s 23 wards or the city of Osaka had been able to receive shots at the two mass vaccination venues for a maximum of 7,500 people per day.

On May 31, the eligibility list expanded to include those across Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa as well as across Osaka Prefecture for up to 15,000 people per day.

On Monday, residents of Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures, both of which neighbor Osaka, became eligible.

Some 189,000 people had received shots at the two venues as of Monday. For the period between Monday and June 27, the number of bookings stood at only 38,957, or 18.5 pct of the capacity, as of Wednesday morning.

JIJI Press