Japan accelerated on Monday its rollout of coronavirus vaccines with the aim of completely inoculating all people age 65 or older by the end of July amid a fourth wave of infections.
Over the next two weeks starting Monday, the government will send vaccines to municipalities to administer shots to over 9 million people, covering a quarter of the nation’s population age 65 or over of about 36 million and plans to distribute vaccines for the entire population of such people by the end of June.
Japan lags behind other advanced countries in its vaccine rollout, with only some 240,000 of older people having received the first of two shots as of Thursday, according to government data.