Japan may let pharmacists administer COVID-19 vaccines

J gov will consider !

and this was not done 12 months ago - because ?

an American friend told me recently that where his Mum lives, Arizona, they were using a sports stadium for no-book vaccinating, running 24 hours a day, as well as pharmacies, and the usual suspects.... this was months ago.... still, it's good that the oji's are looking at considering launching a study as to the practicality of the possibility of perhaps taking action to speed up the vaccination program.

Just make a quick decision for once !

Japan used to be a country that would study practices around the world, adopt, adapt and advance. Now it is an inward looking, declining and aging nation-state, with the political and economic elite clinging to power.

This is an example. While other countries have been using pharmacists for months to help rapidly vaccinate their populations, Japan now starts to consider it, which means it will take month more of discussions and planning before operations begin.

Why not also use acupuncturists and veterinarians. Giving a jab is much easier than designing and building the bullet-train.

They started giving out the vaccines 3 months ago and only now they're considering the pharmacists to inoculate the nation? So another meeting for the rest of the month and finally come to the conclusion that they'll have do that in order to speed up the inoculation process and start in July? What are they waiting for? It's only been 15 months since we've been in this mess

Another unsurprising mystery as to why they couldn't consider and plan this when they were thinking about dentists over a month ago. It's like these guys live under a rock and block any information or advice that comes from the outside. I remember seeing dozens of comments in social media about including pharmacists.

The government will STUDY such an option 

It's like they are intentionally being slow.

OMG! If a high school drop out working at Walmart in the US can be trained to administer covid vaccines, Japan actually has to study if pharmacists are qualified to administer the shots? It’s a disgrace.

You can teach a person to administer an intramuscular injection in 20 minutes max... this is ridiculous

And dentists??? There should be no question as to whether they are qualified to administer the shots. They spend half of their day injecting Novocain into the gums of their patients anyway.

Japan may let pharmacists administer COVID-19 vaccines

News: Dentists, now pharmacists, and... who next, 7-eleven staff (?) to administer COVID-19 vaccines in Japan

Reality: millions of vaccines stocked up for no reason

Japanese Government: We ran out of excuses. Lets blame the gaijin again!

Is this just talk or will this happen? It seems the gov't is looking to mirror America....finally

Japan slowly being dragged to modern times (but still resisting a lot).

@Scarce

I’m not a fan of “America” but they actually have done a decent job with the vaccine rollout compared to Japan. And it also helps that most Americans don’t have the paranoia about vaccines that the Japanese have.

Pathetic! Is the word that comes to my mind!

One of the top news yesterday was that a dentist did provide the shot.

Can we just get on with vaccinating people already? The fact that the j-gov is even still discussing these things tells me that there never was a vaccination rollout plan from day one, otherwise these things would have been discussed and decided upon a long time ago.

They will "study it" so is 2022 or 2023 if they do decide to let them, I will say welcome to the 20th century.

Pharmacists have been giving Vaccines in most of North America for decades as well as many part of Europe.

“Japan may...” This has got to be the winner of Japans best “phrasist” or “wordist” or whatever other dumb name they give those awards for best phrase of the year

So slow to act, but I'm sure they will be quick to enact the tax increases on the people of Japan to cover the cost of this pandemic and Olympics just like they did with the earthquake tax. Households are paying an extra 2.1% in income tax for 25 years through 2037. While companies were supposed to pay an extra 10% tax for three years, they were off the hook after two years. Next up is the "pandemic tax" in 2023 and I'm sure these companies will be left off the hook again.

News: Dentists, now pharmacists, and... who next, 7-eleven staff (?) to administer COVID-19

I'd take an IM vaccine from 7-11 staff. I'm sure I could teach my 7 year old daughter to do it if I wanted to.

Just give me the bloody vials and I'll jab my whole family.

People grow sick and die while millions of vaccines sit in a freezer somewhere. Why aren't people more upset about this? Japan has secured more than enough vaccines to inoculate the entire population of this island and the government sits on its bloody hands quaking in fear of doing anything spontaneous or out of regulation. Meanwhile back in America of all places, my family and friends go back to their lives basically mask-less while I watch my daughter play the piano through a plastic sheet.

It's viable, and perhaps more reasonable as big crowds and trips can be avoided, dispersed into many local chemists.

Can we stop calling facilities that administer 10,000 shots per day "mass" or "large scale"? In every other country that does vaccinations properly, these would not even be considered medium scale sites.

I had my 1st dose in here in the UK at a location officially designated as a "Large Vaccination Centre". It delivers around 1000 doses per day 7 days a week. The 1000 doses/day figure seems fairly typical for this type of site here based on a bit of searching.

Maybe the difference here is the number of locations where the vaccines are being administered? The most recently updated list on the NHS web site lists 157 such centres out of 1802 locations in total. The site claims 99% of the population is within 10 miles (16km) of a vaccination site.

I wonder how many different schemes have been devised (or haven't yet been devised) at a local level across Japan? Is it all decentralised? I suspect the duplication of effort going on must be very high. Here everyone can book appointments through the same web site.

My 80+ mother-in-law is beginning to think she will still be hanging on the phone trying to get an appointment at the end of July.

Something needs to change very quickly

I support this 100%.

Thank god they're finally getting with the times. As everyone has pointed out, this should have been planned better and been a policy from the start. Clearly the Japanese government is so used to the population being meek and scared of vaccines that they didn't anticipate this demand, and didn't appropriately plan anything of this magnitude. This was a massive blunder on their side, and really lacking forethought or understanding of how hard this has been for the every day people. They're so out of touch with reality. Not to mention ancient and insular.

So drug store staff and teeth cleaners should be allowed to administer emergency vaccinations which are killing people under the guise of “less people die from side effects than the virus”?

Doctors are doctors because they are doctors.

Oh, for Christ's sake, more may, probably, consider, discuss, ad nauseam.

(Other) developed nations have moved on.

Yesterday's stats:

Number of dead: 83 (Japan), 7 (UK)

Number of positive cases: 4,650 (Japan), 2,412 (UK).

Granted, UK experienced hell last year and there is the threat of the Indian variant, but these stats show that a proper lockdown and vaccines are working. And no, UK official stats are not estimated to be one-tenth of the real numbers, autopsies are not skipped, and there is extensive testing everywhere. It is now time for people in their 30s to get their vaccinations. And here in Japan? Don't ask.

The way things are not much is going to change for normal Taro or Keiko here in Japan till at least end of this year.

My nominations for "word of the year" in Dec end would be these classic three options -

1. "may consider" 2. "as early as" 3. "urge"

Somethings will never change here.

While I support the emergency plan, there are (again) bureaucratic red-tapes and resistant groups who are reluctant to change the status quo. Let's hope that vax minister Kono will deal with it well and fast.

薬剤師が注射、医師法の壁　医療行為認められず

https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA1841K0Y1A510C2000000/

Is this for real?

https://covidvax.live/location/jpn

I forgot to quote this from the abovementioned site.

"At this rate, Japan could have 70% of people vaccinated (2 doses) in 602 days (or by Jan 11, 2023)."

The govt will consider allowing pharmacists to administer vaccine shots if they assesed that addition of dentists for the task isn't enough

"At this rate, Japan could have 70% of people vaccinated (2 doses) in 602 days (or by Jan 11, 2023)."

That quick????

What's next?

コンビニ？

エステ？

マッサージ？

I can almost picture a bunch of ojisans just thinking  "We may let... Or may we? Maybe not haha"

with a sprinkle of "mmmm... muzukashi desu ne.....hmmm..."

On today's episode of Japan Inc

Which word will we use today? - Ojisan spins the fortune wheel, the arrow quickly passing words like 'urge' 'may' 'pledge' 'plan to' 'consider' .... which one will it be today?

Just release the statement after you conducted the study. You're just making yourself look incompetent.

Are they still messing around working out how to do something that should have been planned a year ago?

Unbelievable.

Please give us the vaccines ASAP, I'm tired of my monthly health insurance deductions.

60,000 yen a month in health insurance and unable to get a vaccine and no sign of that coming anytime soon. Also, a high risk of not getting hospital care if I get very sick with COVID. I'm definitely being ripped off.

A good idea - Japan is ramping up its vaccination program but needs to get to 1M doses a day or more. This is one practical step they can take.

In the past, there were news articles published stating nurses here were missing the mark when conducting needle insertions like IVs and medication. What makes these pharmacists any better?! This is too risky.

consider = more meetings = more delays as the LDP oyajis dilly-dally

Here in Europe nurses, doctors, vets, dentists, health care assistans are allowed to give shots at the moment. 70% vaccination rate is only few weeks away here.

Useless Japan

Meanwhile Yahoo News Japan reported an incident at a vaccination site in Nara where personnel used a USED syringe to inject the vaccine..................................