A city in Aichi Prefecture admitted Tuesday it initially gave a pharmacy chain chief and his wife priority for a COVID-19 vaccination, in a revelation likely to anger older people struggling to make reservations amid the slow vaccine rollout.
Yoshihide Kondo, deputy mayor of Nishio in Aichi Prefecture, apologized at a news conference Tuesday for the "lack of fairness" and said the city has already canceled the reservations for Sugi Holdings Co. Chairman Hirokazu Sugiura, 70, and his 67-year-old wife.
In what would have been special treatment, Sugiura and his wife had been scheduled to receive their first shots on Monday, but the city canceled their bookings after a local newspaper made an inquiry into the matter. The drug store chain operates in many regions of the country.