Japan Aims to Vaccinate Most of Country Before Olympics, Report Says

(Bloomberg) -- Japan aims to vaccinate the majority of its population against Covid-19 by July, according to a report, meaning most of its more than 125 million residents could be inoculated by the time the Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to begin.

The country plans to complete vaccination of 50 million people in high-priority tiers, including the elderly and health-care workers, by April, according to the Yomiuri newspaper, citing multiple unidentified people. Japan then plans to begin inoculation of the general public as early as May, depending on the availability of doses, the report said.

The Health Ministry could not confirm the report when contacted by Bloomberg News. Taro Kono, who was appointed by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Monday as minister in charge of the vaccine rollout, appeared to pour cold water on various other reports of possible time frames in a Twitter posting.

“I just took charge of vaccines yesterday and am not yet envisaging this today,” he wrote in response to a Kyodo story on the plan to start inoculation of the general public in May. He also criticized an NHK report on the vaccination schedule as “irresponsible.”

Still, the Yomiuri report is an early indication of how Japan, which is facing its biggest wave of infections, may roll out vaccines to the general population. Suga has said he aims to begin the country’s vaccination program in late February starting with frontline medical workers.

The government has emphasized that vaccination is not a prerequisite for holding the Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled to start in July following a year’s delay. Surging cases in Japan and elsewhere and new strains of the virus have cast doubt on the country’s ability to hold the games as planned.

The rollout laid out in the Yomiuri report would represent a hugely ambitious plan. Completing vaccination of the 50 million in the high priority tiers, including the elderly, medical workers and those with underlying conditions, would require more than 800,000 doses to be administered each day.

Such a plan would keep pace with an aggressive program in China, which in December set out to inoculate 50 million people against the virus in about a two-month span ahead of the annual Lunar New Year holiday. Other countries have also set goals to reach herd immunity, which occurs when a large portion of a community becomes immune to a disease.

South Korea’s president said this week the country may reach herd immunity by November at the latest. In the U.S., Anthony Fauci has said that level will likely happen during the summer, with a return to normality by the end of the year.

Japan, which has plans to provide vaccines free of charge, is working to approve Pfizer Inc.’s shot in the middle of February, Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said last week. Vaccines will not be given to the more than 18 million children under 16 until more trial data on that age group is available, according to the Yomiuri.

Japan has sealed a contract for 120 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by the end of June. Pfizer is the only company so far to have applied for emergency approval for its vaccine in Japan, but the country also has contracts with Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca Plc and Novavax Inc.

Japan’s plan faces many potential obstacles, among them a public cautious about receiving a vaccine so soon. An NNN/Yomiuri poll in December found that while most wanted to get the vaccine eventually, only 15% wanted to take it “soon,” with a further 15% responding they didn’t want it at all.