Jun 16, 2021
Plans to better COVID vaccine support for foreign residents of Japan late in the day?
Local news here in Japan on Tuesday reported on government plans to beef up support for those foreigners resident in Japan who may face difficulties in getting to grips with procedures surrounding COVID-19 vaccinations.
The Japanese government launched its vaccine rollout in February, beginning with the inoculation of health care workers (with the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE) before including elderly residents in the rollout from early April. The rollout drew criticism for its sluggish pace, especially when compared to the speed of rollouts in nations such as the U.K. and the U.S.
With the speed of vaccinations having picked up in recent weeks, the number of people in Japan to have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine stood at around 25.04 million on Monday, according to data published by the Prime Minister’s Office of Japan. Inoculations performed on the same day stood at 736,125.
During a parliamentary debate with opposition leaders on June 9, Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga was reported to have expressed his hopes of the completion by November of vaccinations for all those people in Japan who wish to be inoculated. Some wards in Tokyo (and maybe elsewhere) began issuing “vaccination coupons” to residents under the age of 65 earlier in June.
In view of this progress-of-a kind regarding the speed of the vaccine rollout in Japan, should we feel alarmed that only now is the government talking about plans to increase vaccine support for Japan’s foreign residents (numbering around 2.89 million as of late 2020) or should we feel assured that they have our interests in mind?
It’s likely that more than one headline about these government plans will require some qualification -- the plans are actually part of an annual revision of an existing government policy set, introduced at the end of 2018, focused on supporting the daily lives of foreigners resident in Japan (ahead of visa changes that took effect the following year, aimed at facilitating an increase of blue collar workers into the country).
According to news reports the set includes nearly 200 policies. In the interests of cursory box ticking at least then, it surely comes as little surprise that support for vaccination procedures was included this time around.
One hopes though, that the question of COVID-19 vaccine support for Japan’s foreign residents was raised earlier in the rollout planning.
Related: Concerns raised over residence card checker app released to public
Staying up to date with the numbers
The Prime Minister’s Office of Japan publishes updates (although not daily) on the number of people to have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This page is available in English, however, Excel and PDF sheets detailing daily inoculations and breakdowns by prefecture are available only on the Japanese language page (and only in Japanese).
Link to number of people vaccinated in Japan (The Prime Minister’s Office of Japan):
http://japan.kantei.go.jp/ongoingtopics/vaccine.html
The same page on the Prime Minister’s Office of Japan also has basic vaccine information in English under headings such as, “COVID-19 Vaccination Priority Groups,” and “Getting well informed about vaccines.” Unfortunately the latter section, under the sub-header “For more information,” links to the English-language page of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare at the top of which is a large button to click on for “COVID-19 Vaccines" … which takes us right back to the Prime Minister’s Office of Japan page that we’ve just come from.
A cute-looking leaflet “What you need to know about COVID-19 vaccines” is dated March 8, 2021. Maybe there is more that we need to know by now.
Navigating coronavirus vaccination procedures: Corona Vaccine Navi
The “Corona Vaccine Navi” (コロナワクチンナビ) is a kind of portal site run by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare covering a variety of information about the vaccine and rollout procedures.
Visitors to the “navi” can read up on the characteristics or benefits of the vaccines (currently limited in Japan to those developed by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc.), learn about the basic flow of their administration (vaccine coupons, booking appointments etc), access a Q&A about the procedures (Japanese only), and research local medical facilities where vaccinations are taking place.
For something that one would think is of great importance the Corona Vaccine Navi is ridiculously difficult to find. We think at some point we must have found it via the website of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare but gave up trying to find it that way this time around. Even on the Japanese version of the navi there is no link to an English version, so we’ll link to it here: https://v-sys.mhlw.go.jp/en/
Still, the navi is available in English and as far as we can see the information is largely the same on both versions.
Of course, general information about the characteristics, benefits and risks of the vaccines is by now available from any number of sources in any number of languages. Our “native” governments are surely providing such information, for example.
The navi might be guilty of some further redundancy anyway. Yes, we can research local vaccination sites but we can’t book appointments through the navi. That has to be done directly with the facility (online or over the phone) and, after a quick look at the website of the municipality where we reside, it appears that local governments will be issuing lists of available facilities anyway. Still, through the navi at least we can get to a list of facilities via the English-language, even if the list itself is presented in Japanese.
In terms of information about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has information regarding both -- including a run-down of the side effects, who should be cautious about being vaccinated and more -- available in a number of languages. (The ministry just doesn’t appear to be very good at promoting this.)
Foreign language vaccine documents from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare:
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/vaccine_tagengo.html
Notice here the section “About the Relief System for Injury to Health with Vaccination.” Financial support may be available to those who are vaccinated as part of the government’s rollout should any side-effects of the vaccine require further medical treatment or result in death. Details of this potential financial support can found via the ministry here:
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/wp/wp-hw3/dl/2-086.pdf
It’s your turn!
On the same page as the information about vaccines we can find examples of a “Notice on COVID-19 vaccination,” again, in a number of languages.
Although it’s not made abundantly clear, this “notice” looks like the bit of paper we might expect to have posted to us from our local municipality informing us that our time to be vaccinated is here. Is this notice going to be posted out to us in one of the foreign languages, or are we to use these ministry provided PDFs as a kind of reference only?
On the notice we can find mention again, by the ministry, of those “vaccine coupons” which are so important in order for us to be inoculated as part of the government’s rollout. The notice itself is scant on details, but then maybe there really is little to know -- book an appointment, bring your coupons and ID with you when the time comes.
Do these coupons also serve as proof of vaccination? On what occasions outside of our vaccination appointment might we be required to show them? What happens if we lose them? Can they stand a bit of wear and tear?
These are questions which we might like answered at some point. Unfortunately, for further information we are directed to a QR code on the notice that takes us to the Corona Vaccine Navi, which doesn’t answer all of these questions. That being said, information about the coupons is scant on the Japanese language navi, too. In regards to losing vaccine coupons, according to the navi (in Japanese only), some municipalities accept reissue applications online (the navi provides links), others require direct consultation with staff at the municipality office.
Translations of Prevaccination Screening Questionnaire for COVID-19 vaccine
You can find these translations on the same ministry page listed above. As we understand things, the translations are to help us fill-out the Japanese version of the questionnaire which we are to take along with us to our vaccination appointment -- we are not to fill-out and hand over the translated version.
This form is not only the basis for a pre-vaccination screening (during which medical professionals determine if we are fit to receive the vaccine), but are also us giving the authorities our consent to have them vaccinate us and for the questionnaire to be submitted to the “municipal government, the All Japan Federation of National Health Insurance Organizations, and the National Health Insurance Organization.”
Booking an appointment
To us, and at this stage, this looks to present the most significant hurdle for those without an understanding of Japanese … or confidence with doing things online.
We have, by now, heard a number of accounts of the elderly turning to their offspring and / or friends to help them book their vaccination appointments online, largely because they haven’t been able to get through on the phone (due to high call volumes).
Actually, what online booking processes we’ve been told about seem to be doable enough for those with a reasonable understanding of Japanese. Where most anxiety has stemmed from has been system errors due to high volumes of traffic forcing people to start their bookings from scratch. With no understanding of Japanese though the challenge is surely more significant and one wonders how local authorities might be able to help with this.
In the case of where the person writing this resides, a leaflet was delivered by post earlier in 2021 detailing a number of hotlines and consultation services for foreign residents (provided at municipal and prefectural levels) about matters relating to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. While no mention of booking appointments for vaccinations is made on the leaflet, hotlines like this could be a first port of call for those who are struggling.
In April this year the health ministry began running a multilingual service at its call center for people wanting to inquire about the effectiveness COVID-19 vaccines and any potential side effects.
MHLW Call Center (Toll Free)
COVID-19: 0120-565-653
COVID-19 Vaccines: 0120-761-770
Languages / hours (Daily including weekends and holidays):
-English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish: 9:00 - 21:00
-Thai: 9:00-18:00
-Vietnamese: 10:00-19:00
Some personal(ish) experience
The partner in marriage of the person writing these words is a health care worker here in Japan. They received their second dose of the vaccine just the other day.
As a health care worker much of the organization, in terms of booking appointments and some degree of the paperwork, was handled between the local medical authority and their place of work, so has little relevance in this case. However, the partner did receive the same “vaccine coupons” as detailed by the ministry in their vaccine information. At the reception of the vaccine site one coupon was handed over for each appointment, and not returned.
What they did get in return was a “Record of Vaccination for COVID-19.” On this “record” is stamped (or penned in) the date of each vaccination and a sticker detailing the type of vaccination administered (one for each dose). The partner wrote in their own name, date of birth and address on the record (which is just a bit of A4 paper), so in this sense it is far from a secure document offering definitive proof of vaccination. The stickers aside (which have some sort of unique number on them) the record looks like something anyone with access to a computer and a printer could knock up.
On the same document, some text in Japanese explains that official proof of vaccination should be obtained from the city / ward office in which you reside.
Vaccination cancellations - キャンセル待ち
While some of Japan’s foreign residents, frustrated by the slow pace of the vaccine rollout in Japan, have sought to be vaccinated in their country of birth, others seem to have clocked onto cases of local (maybe private?) clinics (in Tokyo in the cases that we’ve noticed) offering up applications for people to be placed on a waiting list should those with appointments to be vaccinated cancel. In some cases, it seems that clinics were (and still are) willing to accept those people who have yet to receive their vaccine coupons, although they have listed applicable areas or wards of residence.
In the case of having no vaccine coupon there has been talk of paying a deposit at the time of the appointment, presumably to be returned at some point, although we don’t know how. Nor do we know how being vaccinated in this way works in terms of local authorities being made aware of your vaccination (and thus being able to issue official proof of vaccination as and when it may be requested). While we can’t say definitively, perhaps it would be a bit much to expect clear information and support about this way of getting vaccinated from national and local authorities. Do the research before going down this route.
The recent questionnaire on City-Cost, “Novel coronavirus measures and vaccine in Japan,” asked the following question: How aware are you about how, when and where the COVID-19 vaccine will be administered in Japan?
Just over 20 percent of respondents said they were aware of most of the details at the time of completing the questionnaire. Nearly 40 percent said they were roughly aware of the details. Around 38 percent however said they knew very little of the details surrounding the “how” and “when” of getting vaccinated here in Japan (at the time of the questionnaire between April and May).
Still work to be done then in making information accessible and understandable. In the meantime we await more details as to how the government plans to strengthen support for foreigners wanting to be vaccinated.
In terms of any lack of support, should we be forgiving of authorities scrambling to guide us through what is an extraordinary situation? Or, should we expect that the same extraordinary situation demands an extraordinary effort on the part of those same authorities?
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