Local governments are setting up their own large-scale vaccination sites, taking such steps as using a former school building and hiring dentists to administer shots. However, the increase in options for getting vaccinated may require efforts to prevent double-bookings.
-- Speeding up
"We'll dramatically accelerate vaccinations and bring hope to the people of Gunma," prefectural Gov. Ichita Yamamoto said Thursday, expressing confidence in Gunma's mass vaccination rollout to start in early June.
A former elementary school building in Ota City, in the eastern part of the prefecture, will be used to vaccinate an expected 1,000 people a day. Medical personnel will be recruited from prefectural hospitals, so as not to divert staff from the inoculation drives of local municipalities.
There are also plans to hire former nurses who quit to get married or for other personal reasons.
Kobe, which has about 430,000 elderly residents, will hire dentists to administer shots. It will open a 3,000-square-meter venue in a building in the center of the city in late May, at which residents will be vaccinated by a dentist or a nurse after a consultation with a doctor.
The novel coronavirus remains rampant in Kobe, and its hospital beds are almost full.
"We want to accelerate vaccinations so the number of patients will not increase," a city official said.
Saitama Prefecture will open a large-scale COVID-19 vaccination site on June 1 within the Urawa Godo Chosha government building in Saitama City. Priority will be given to residents of cities that are slow to vaccinate the elderly, in a bid to speed up overall vaccinations in the prefecture.
-- Double-bookings
In Osaka City, large-scale vaccination sites will be established separately by the central, prefectural and city governments. When the option of individual or group vaccinations are included, city residents will have four kinds of vaccine-taking opportunities to choose from.
Since each venue accepts reservations separately, multiple-bookings can be expected.
Mass vaccinations led by the central government in Osaka City will start on May 24 at a venue operated by the Self-Defense Forces. After that, the city government plans to start its own mass vaccinations at a venue in June, followed by a prefectural vaccination rollout at another location, according to announcements by the different authorities.
The Osaka City government said the reservation systems differ between the central and city-led vaccinations, and this may cause double bookings. What's more, the systems allow a recipient to make a reservation for such mass vaccinations even after making a phone reservation with their family doctor for the city's individual vaccinations.
The Osaka prefectural government has yet to decide on its reservation system at this point, but the situation will become more complicated if the prefecture chooses a system different from those of the central and city governments.
If a person makes more than one reservation and doesn't cancel unnecessary ones, vaccines will be wasted.
Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui said Thursday at a press conference, "Please make a cancellation if you switch venues."
-- Requesting help
Municipalities suffering a rapid increase in the number of COVID-19 patients are calling for the central government to set up venues for mass vaccination.
More than 700 people were confirmed Thursday to have been infected in Hokkaido, a record for the prefecture. Hokkaido has about 1.66 million people aged 65 or older, and 60,000 doses a day would need to be administered at the peak to meet the central government's goal of completing vaccinations for the elderly by the end of July. At the same time, the prefecture must secure medical personnel to treat patients.
"There's no way we can handle it by ourselves," a Hokkaido official said, requesting the central government to set up a large-scale venue. "We urge the central government to understand that vaccinations cannot start without people to administer the shots."
On Wednesday, Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima, whose city has the same problem as Hokkaido, unsuccessfully pleaded with Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of coronavirus measures, and others to set up a mass vaccination site.
Takashima is said to have been told that the SDF had their hands full running the Tokyo and Osaka venues, and it would be difficult for the central government to send personnel. The Fukuoka prefectural government is therefore considering setting up its own large-scale venue.
The Tokyo metropolitan government said it has no intention of setting up its own vaccination site. The SDF will be dispatched to run a large venue in the capital.
"The central government is already handling it, and changing the leader would bring confusion," Gov. Yuriko Koike told reporters Wednesday.
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