Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has announced that coronavirus vaccinations for people aged 65 or older will start on April 12.
Initial supplies will be limited, so vaccines are not expected to reach all municipalities until April 26 or later.
Suga made the announcement to reporters at the Prime Minister's Office, after which administrative reform minister Taro Kono, who is also in charge of vaccination efforts, explained the details at a press conference.
In preparation for vaccinations to begin on April 12, the government will distribute a total of 50,000 doses throughout all prefectures during the week starting April 5. An additional 250,000 doses will be delivered in the weeks starting April 12 and April 19 each, but with about 36 million elderly people eligible for the shots, inoculations will be limited.
"We want to ask prefectural governments to coordinate which municipalities will receive the vaccines and how they are distributed," Kono said.
The government has set the vaccination period for the elderly at two months and three weeks. However, the planned number of health care workers who will be inoculated prior to the elderly has increased by about 1 million.
In addition, sufficient doses will be delivered to all municipalities nationwide at some point from April 26 on, which may cause delays in vaccinating the elderly in urban areas with large populations.
"It is highly likely that the vaccination of healthcare workers and the elderly will proceed in tandem from April to May," Kono said.
Kono also announced that the third batch of vaccines from the European Union will arrive on March 1 and contain 87,750 vials. With each vial containing six doses, that represents enough for about 530,000 vaccinations, or about 230,000 people.
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