Over Half of Japan's Population Given 2 Vaccine Shots

Tokyo, Sept. 13 (Jiji Press)--Over half of Japan's population have received a second shot of a COVID-19 vaccine some seven months after the country's vaccination program started initially for medical workers in February, the government said Monday. The nationwide rate of inoculation against the novel coronavirus has reached 50.9 pct, according to the government. The government aims to administer two shots of a COVID-19 vaccine to those who wish to receive them at an early date in October-November and is considering easing activity restrictions on fully vaccinated people. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a news conference on Monday that Japan's vaccination program "has been moving smoothly as a whole." He indicated that the government will continue to promote related efforts. According to a tally by the prime minister's office, the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine shots given in Japan reached some 144 million as of Monday. The number of people in Japan who received two shots of a COVID-19 vaccine totaled some 64 million. People who received at least one dose of such a vaccine numbered some 79 million, or 63.0 pct of the country's population. Among people aged 65 or older, 88.0 pct have been inoculated against COVID-19. By prefecture, Yamaguchi had the highest two-shot inoculation rate, at 55.60 pct, followed by Wakayama, at 53.77 pct, and Kumamoto, at 52.50 pct. Okinawa was at the bottom of the list, at 38.58 pct, followed by Tochigi, at 39.77 pct, and Saitama, at 40.21 pct. According to Our World in Data, a database created by researchers at the University of Oxford and others, the share of fully vaccinated people in the population stood at 53.02 pct in the United States and 64.50 pct in Britain as of Saturday. Of the three COVID-19 vaccines administered in Japan, those developed by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc. and U.S. biotechnology company Moderna Inc. are mainly used for its vaccination program. In Japan, the two vaccines cover people aged 12 or older in principle. The vaccine developed by Britain's AstraZeneca PLC targets people aged 40 or over in the country. The latest vaccination rates in Japan were calculated through a system in which municipalities make registrations on the basis of inoculation vouchers. As there is a delay in reporting vaccinations, the actual inoculation rates are believed to be higher than the tally shows. Japan's population includes children aged below 12, who are not subject to COVID-19 vaccinations. END