The government reopened a mass COVID-19 vaccination center in Tokyo on Monday to speed up administering third shots to cope with the new wave of infections driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant.
The center, which opens amid criticism that the government has been slow to offer booster shots, will be run by the Self-Defense Forces and will offer Moderna Inc.'s vaccine to people age 18 or above.
The center, however, is unlikely to contribute drastically to accelerating the pace of inoculations. Capacity is initially limited to 720 slots per day, much fewer than the 10,000 available at the same venue from May to November last year, with the malfunctioning of an elevator in the aging facility reducing available space to one floor.