I live in Setagaya, the most populous of the 23 Special Wards (ku) of Tokyo. Out of about 195,000 residents aged 65 and over, about 141,000 have made reservations for vaccinations. Of those 73,000 have received at least one vaccine dose and 8,000 of these have received both doses. There are vacant reservation slots for another 54,000 people.

Starting from next Tuesday (June 15), tickets will be sent to the next group, including people with medical conditions and people aged 60-64. That includes my wife and myself. Note that it’s not your age today that counts but age on March 31, 2022. So anyone born before April 1, 1962 counts as age 60 and up! This is consistent with the system used for elementary school enrollment in Japan.

The next groups after that will be:

• Age 50-59 (born before April 1, 1972): from June 30, 2021
• Age 40-49 (born before April 1, 1982): from July 5, 2021
• Age 30-39 (born before April 1, 1992): from July 12, 2021
• Age 16-29: from July 20, 2021

Currently there is a published list of vaccination sites with available slots per day for each date until the end of August. At the moment free slots are available starting from early July (i.e. with a 3 week wait list). The wait list most likely will grow significantly, seeing the rate at which age groups will be added vs. the rate at which people are currently getting vaccinated.

Online reservations can be made 24 hours a day, except for website maintenance periods. Reservations can also be made by phone during daytime, but the number used is a 0570 number not covered by flat rate mobile phone plans and unreachable by IP telephony services such as Skype or Google Voice. For people who only have a mobile phone and who don’t have internet access this is not very convenient.

For the senior citizens the city has been offering a service where they can visit city run facilities who will help them make an online reservation using a smartphone. This service was further publicised via the jichikai (neighbourhood associations) in Setagaya.

Meanwhile the number of shots given to senior citizens has surpassed the number of shots to healthcare workers (10.7 vs 8.7 million doses) and first doses given to healthcare workers are exceeding 5 million, more than the 4.8 million previously quoted as the total number of healthcare workers eligible for them. Compliance seems exceptionally high.

In total, about 14.5 million out of 126 million residents have received at least one doses. The Olympic Games will begin in 44 days.