Japan Vaccine Effort Hits Logistic Bottlenecks Ahead of Olympics
- Country has enough total shots, but some locations are short
- Vaccine minister asks speedy municipalities to slow their pace
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Several of Japan’s biggest municipalities, including parts of Tokyo and Osaka, have stopped taking new reservations for Covid-19 vaccinations in the latest hiccup for the country’s effort to vaccinate its people, with the Tokyo Olympics just two weeks away.
The bottlenecks in distribution are sowing confusion among vaccine seekers, complicating a vaccination campaign that has sped up rapidly in recent weeks after criticism over a slow start. They’ve prompted Japan’s vaccine czar to ask some municipalities to curtail their pace to keep up with supply.