(On his visit to the National Hospital Organization Tokyo Medical Center and future responses)
 
Today, I visited one of the sites where vaccines have begun to be administered since yesterday. I got the impression that health professionals have high expectations for the impact of the vaccine. Vaccination of the elderly will start in April. Visiting a vaccination site before that begins has made me think that I would like to deliver this vaccine to everyone nationwide as soon as possible.
 
In my conversations with health professionals today, they pointed out that the situation at medical institutions has been improving because of a significant decline in new infection cases. I would like to express once again my sincere respect for the dedicated efforts of health professionals.
 
Also, we intend to exert every effort to reduce the number of hospitalizations and patients with severe symptoms by further advancing our measures to counter the disease. In addition, by swiftly disclosing and publicizing various kinds of information, we will create a vaccination structure that inspires feelings of assuredness, through which everyone around the country can get vaccinated with a sense of ease. That’s all I have to say right now.
 
(On an early lifting of the declaration of the state of emergency)
 
Regarding that issue, we intend to make a decision after asking the experts for their analyses of the current state of affairs.