Japan approves first vaccine to host postponed Olympics

TOKYO: Japan on Sunday approved its first coronavirus vaccine, clearing the way for mass inoculations as the nation prepares to host the postponed 2020 Olympics.

“The health minister today gave a special approval to the Pfizer vaccine,” the prime minister’s office said in a tweet.

Japan now expected to put the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the arms of 10,000 to 20,000 medical workers from as early as Wednesday; before making it and other coronavirus vaccines available for more medical workers and the elderly from April.

The government is yet to outline the exact rollout schedule for the rest of its population of 126 million people.

Olympics officials have insisted that the Tokyo Games will take place even though COVID-19 continues to affect the entire world.

Athletes and other participants will be encouraged, but not obliged, to get the vaccine, to take part.

Japan is now trying to secure enough special syringes; that can extract the full six doses from each vial of the Pfizer vaccine

More commonly used syringes can only draw five doses.

Recently, Japan has felt earthquake jerks with a high magnitude of 7.3 on the other hand. The Olympics had expected to cancel due to the pandemic of 2020 After a surge of coronavirus cases in the Japanese capital.