TOKYO: Local governments in Japan are speeding up preparations for the third round of novel coronavirus vaccination, slated to start in December.

While the booster shots will likely be given first to medical professionals, who received their first and second doses early on in the pandemic, local governments are improving the ways to run their inoculation programs, after some areas faced confusion over vaccination appointments and other issues.

In the central city of Nagoya in April, vaccination tickets were sent to some 600,000 elderly residents all at once. The result was that ward offices in the Aichi Prefecture capital were swamped with residents complaining that they were unable to make reservations.

For the third shots, the city will send vaccination tickets in stages to residents seeing eight months pass after their second shots.

With the vaccination of the elderly likely to be in full swing in February next year and later, a Nagoya city official said, “We don’t expect to see a situation like that in April.”

From February, the western city of Kobe plans to expand its mass vaccination venues, which have been scaled down recently.

The capital of Hyogo Prefecture will try to avoid confusion by introducing a new system in which the city will decide the date and time, and venue of vaccination for elderly residents.

Tokyo’s Nerima Ward, known for the so-called Nerima model, in which family doctors play a major role in vaccination, has announced an upgraded version of the program. Under the revamped program, the ward office will increase the number of group vaccination sites to 16 from 12 and expand vaccinations at night and weekends.

The national government has said that the booster shots should be given eight months after the second shots in principle. But it also allows the interval to be shortened to six months depending on the infection situation in each area.

Still, the health ministry has stressed that the eight-month interval should be maintained in principle, saying that the government has not decided to move up the third shots.

Many local governments are making their preparations for the third COVID-19 vaccine shots based on the government policy.

Among them is Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, which will send vaccination tickets first to medical workers and residents of elderly nursing homes.

Breakthrough infections occurred at an elderly facility in the ward this summer, worrying its mayor, Nobuto Hosaka.

Wary of a possible sixth wave of infections, Hosaka has said that residents of elderly facilities should receive their third shots early. He is planning to ask the ministry to allow the interval to be cut for such people.

In February and March, when the third round of vaccination is expected to be in full swing, personnel changes will take place at local governments and planned vaccination venues will be used for graduation ceremonies, so people to be involved in the inoculation program will be extremely busy, Norihisa Satake, governor of the northeastern prefecture of Akita, warned.

He urged the central government to draw up a solid vaccine supply program to avoid confusion.

JIJI Press