Japan has sent military doctors and nurses to send shots to the elderly in Tokyo and Osaka today, as the government scrambles to speed up vaccinations and prevent coronavirus infections just two months before the Olympics.

Despite doubts, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is committed to holding the Olympics in Tokyo after a one-year break. He has made an optimistic promise to vaccinate the country's 36 million elderly citizens by the end of July.

Concerns about public safety, along with the fact that many Japanese people are still unvaccinated, have sparked a wave of protests and calls to postpone the Games, which are scheduled to begin on July 23.

Since late April, Suga's government has repeatedly extended the scope and length of a virus state of emergency and tightened virus-fighting measures. However, with Covid-19 cases remaining strong, Suga believes vaccinations would be critical in bringing the infections under control.

For the next three months, the aim is to inoculate up to 10,000 people per day in Tokyo and another 5000 people per day in Osaka at the two mass inoculation centers staffed by Japan's Self-Defense Forces.

People who were inoculated at the centers today were among the first in Japan to receive doses of Moderna, one of two foreign-developed vaccines approved by Japan on Friday.

Previously, Japan had relied solely on Pfizer, with just around 2% of the 126 million people receiving the requisite two doses.

In mid-February, Japan began immunizing healthcare staff while adhering to a common requirement of internal clinical testing — a move that many analysts said was statistically irrelevant and only caused delays.

Vaccinations for the next generation, the elderly, who are more likely to experience severe Covid-19 side effects, began in mid-April but were delayed by bureaucratic snafus, including reservation protocols, vague delivery plans, and a lack of medical personnel to administer shots.

The completion of Japan-developed vaccines is still unclear, but Japanese officials are hoping that Moderna and AstraZeneca's approvals on Friday would help speed up the rollout.