Japan has started inoculating its senior citizens against the coronavirus on Monday amid growing concerns about another wave of new infections.

The country is expected to vaccinate about 36 million people aged 65 and above, which accounted for 29 percent of its population.

Since its commencement in mid-February, the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines had been extremely slow.

Only 0.4 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated as of Friday, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare.

Also on Monday, the government extended a semi-state of emergency to Tokyo, Kyoto, and Okinawa prefectures as the regions have seen an increasing number of new coronavirus cases due to the rapid spread of new variants of the virus.

Tokyo, which would stage the postponed Olympic Games in less than four months, confirmed 421 new infections on Sunday after exceeding 500 new daily cases for the fourth consecutive day.

Japan has so far reported about 507,600 known infections and more than 9,400 deaths related to COVID-19, according to a tally by broadcaster NHK.
The central government adopted the semi-state of emergency in Osaka, Miyagi, and Hyogo prefectures a week ago.

Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, told reporters on Friday that new variants constituted about 70 percent of the infections in the western prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo and about 20 percent in Tokyo.

 

NAN