Japan has seen a comparatively small Covid-19 outbreak overall.
Tokyo:
Japan will give free coronavirus vaccines to all its residents under a bill passed Wednesday, as the nation battles a record number of daily cases.
The bill, which says the government will cover all the costs of vaccines for Japan’s 126 million residents, was approved by the upper house of parliament after the powerful lower house had passed.
The country has secured Covid-19 vaccines for 60 million people from the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, and for another 25 million people from the biotech firm Moderna.
He has also confirmed that he will receive 120 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Pfizer and Moderna are already seeking emergency use approval in the United States and Europe, after clinical tests showed their strokes were effective.
The bill’s approval comes two weeks after Japan’s prime minister said the country was on “high alert” for the virus, and as doctors warn that hospitals were on the brink of collapse.
Japan has seen a comparatively small Covid-19 outbreak overall, with around 2,100 deaths and 150,000 cases, and it hasn’t imposed the strict lockdowns seen elsewhere.
But now it faces a third wave of the disease, reporting a record number of daily infections across the country in recent weeks.
The governor of Tokyo urged residents to avoid nonessential outings and asked businesses that serve alcohol to close early, although there is no enforcement mechanism for these recommendations.
The national government has also decided to allow individual regions to opt out of a controversial national tourism campaign.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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