The delivery of novel coronavirus vaccines for the elderly to all 1,741 municipalities is expected to be completed by July 4, according to the government's distribution plan. However, the government will likely reach its target of completing the deliveries by the end of June.
Under the plan, a quota will be set according to the elderly population in each city, ward, town and village, so that there will be no regional disparities in the pace of inoculations. However, the distribution of vaccines to smaller municipalities, which require a smaller number of doses, is expected to be completed earlier than to larger municipalities.
According to the timetable, the government was expected to finish deliveries to about 130 municipalities by Sunday, followed by delivery completion to about 140 municipalities from Monday through June 6, and to 140 separate municipalities from June 7-20.
Following the delivery completion to about 1,300 municipalities from June 21 through July 4, all local bodies will have enough doses to vaccinate their elderly.
After the deliveries, municipalities need to arrange for the vaccines to be sent to individual vaccination sites.
Yokohama, which has the largest number of elderly at about 920,000, is expected to receive a total of about 1.84 million doses, with about 490,000 doses expected to be delivered by Sunday. The city is expected to receive about 440,000 doses from Monday; about 450,000 from June 7; and about 450,000 from June 21.
The total amount of vaccine doses to be delivered to all municipalities by July 4 is to be 1.5% more than the amount of two doses each for about 35.49 million elderly people.
With the government having managed to secure the vaccine supply, 1,616, municipalities, or about 93%, are expected to finish vaccinating their elderly residents by the government's target date at the end of July.
Many municipalities are expecting that around 80% of the target population wishes to be vaccinated.
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