Apr 27 (NHK) - In Japan the number of people who had the coronavirus and died has now topped 10,000. It took about one year for the tally to reach 5,000 since the first case of infection was confirmed in the country. It took only three months for that figure to double.
Japan's capital and three other prefectures are once again under a state of emergency from Sunday, as authorities try to tamp down on rising coronavirus cases.
The government wants companies to reduce the number of commuters by promoting working from home. But mobile phone data show nearly 40 percent more people were around Tokyo station during rush hours on Monday morning, compared with the Monday average during the first state of emergency about a year ago.
Railway companies plan to reduce services while the declaration is in effect through May 11.
The government is pushing ahead on vaccinations. Inoculations for about 4.8 million healthcare workers started in February. As of last Friday, about 37 percent of them had received at least one shot. Around 18 percent had completed two shots.
Vaccinations for about 36 million senior citizens started earlier this month. Less than one percent of them had received a shot as of Sunday.
Vaccines have been delivered to this small village of Shingo in the northern prefecture of Aomori, but inoculations haven't started.
The only clinic in the village has one doctor and three nurses. They can't start administering the vaccines until they make sure that residents would be transported to hospitals at neighboring municipalities in case of severe reactions.
A Shingo village clinic official, Kudo Katsushi, said "We would start the inoculation tomorrow if we could. It's frustrating."
A total of 3.9 million doses will be distributed across Japan over the next two weeks. The government plans to allow dentists to administer the vaccines in areas where there are shortages of medical workers.
More than 3,300 new infections were confirmed in Japan on Monday. Over 900 of them were in the western prefecture of Osaka.
