Japan has administered more than 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines and surpassed the US in the proportion of elderly people fully vaccinated, Japanese government figures released on Tuesday showed.
The vaccination mark comes as Japan, like many other nations, is in the middle of a fresh wave of infections attributed to the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Japan and its capital, Tokyo, have reported record daily infection numbers for several days this month, as the Summer Olympics were drawing to a close.
Most of the new infections have been among those in their 20s and 30s, apparently showing the effect of the gap in inoculation rates between elderly people and the rest of the population.
As of Tuesday, Japan had administered 102.9 million doses and 81.6 percent of its residents aged 65 or older were fully vaccinated, the office of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said.
That is higher than the 80.4 percent of the same age group in the US who are fully vaccinated, US Centers for Disease Control of Prevention data showed.
However, in the US, 90.5 percent of those 65 or older have received at least one dose, higher than the 87.6 percent in Japan.
Japan also has a lower percentage of its population fully vaccinated than any other member of the G7.
Japan is at 32.9 percent, compared with 50.8 percent in the US and 59 percent in the UK, the Johns Hopkins University’s vaccine tracker showed.
A poll conducted by Japan Broadcasting Corp on from Saturday last week to Monday found 75 percent of respondents said that Japan’s vaccine rollout was “slow,” while 18 percent said it was “smooth.”
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