Vaccine laggard Japan steps up shots with company efforts

Japanese companies have joined the effort to speed up the country's lagging coronavirus vaccine rollout before the Tokyo Olympics begin next month

TOKYO -- Japanese companies have joined the effort to speed up the country’s lagging coronavirus vaccine rollout before the Tokyo Olympics begin next month. Medical professionals were being inoculated with the Moderna vaccine Tuesday at a downtown Tokyo office of WeWork, an office-sharing company of energy and technology giant SoftBank. The company plans 15 such sites to vaccinate 150,000 SoftBank group company employees and their families, and another 100,000 people living near the sites, SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son said. Japan’s vaccine rollout has been the slowest among developed nations, with about 5% of its population fully vaccinated. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is determined to hold the Olympics in Tokyo after a one-year delay and has made an ambitious pledge to finish vaccinating the country’s 36 million elderly people by the end of July, despite skepticism it’s possible.