3 M. COVID-19 Infections Can Be Prevented thru Vaccinations: Experts

Tokyo, Oct. 26 (Jiji Press)--A rapid COVID-19 vaccine rollout is estimated to prevent as many as three million infection cases even if Japan is engulfed by an eighth wave of infections this winter, experts said Wednesday.

The estimate was presented at the day's meeting of the health ministry's COVID-19 advisory board.

According to the estimate, a total of 8.44 million people will be newly infected with the coronavirus by February if the effective reproduction number, or the average number of people infected by a single carrier, stands at 1.2.

The total could fall to 5.5 million if one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are administered per day in December, the experts said.

If the effective reproduction number stands at 1.3, the number of new infections could drop from 10.38 million to 7.97 million through such a vaccine rollout.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]