Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sets a target of 1 million booster shots a day at a Lower House Budget Committee meeting on Feb. 7. (Koichi Ueda)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced his first numerical target for COVID-19 booster shots--1 million jabs per day--at the earliest date possible in February to battle the Omicron-led surge in COVID-19 cases.

“Under the specific target, the Kishida administration would like to make a concerted effort to give (third) vaccine doses to people who want it as soon as possible,” Kishida said at a meeting of the Lower House Budget Committee on Feb. 7.

He was responding to a question by Koichi Tani, a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Kishida also said he wants to ensure that a vaccination center run by the Self-Defense Forces in Osaka Prefecture would be able to provide 2,500 booster shots a day by around Feb. 14.

The SDF venue in Osaka reopened on Feb. 7 and is currently administering 960 booster jabs daily.

Kishida had earlier instructed relevant Cabinet ministers, including health minister Shigeyuki Goto and economy minister Koichi Hagiuda, to encourage related organizations to more robustly promote the booster shots.

For example, the use of workplace vaccination programs should be strengthened, and schoolteachers and nursery care nurses should be urged to receive the third shots, Kishida said.

The prime minister had previously refrained from setting a daily target for the third jabs, saying, “It is not realistic to go ahead with the booster campaign with a specific number in mind.”

He has only said that his policy was to gradually administer the third doses to those who had waited for specific periods since their second shots.

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