Japan's local gov'ts striving to minimize waste of COVID-19 vaccines
June 5, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)
This photo taken on May 27, 2021 shows a local official reaching into a box used in a lottery to choose people who will be administered extra doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in Sugito, Saitama Prefecture. (Kyodo)
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- With the COVID-19 vaccination rollout just starting to gather steam in Japan, local governments have been figuring out how best to use surplus doses resulting from sudden appointment cancelations or no-shows -- and coming up with a variety of schemes.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has requested in writing that each local government study and adopt "flexible measures" to address the question of whom should be administered leftover doses of vaccine that would otherwise be discarded.