UPDATE 1-Japan to approve more COVID-19 vaccines as state of emergency set to widen

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By Chang-Ran Kim

TOKYO, May 21 (Reuters) - Japan is expected to expand a
state of emergency to cover the island of Okinawa on Friday, and
it is also set to approve Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca
PLC COVID-19 vaccines after health regulators' green
light a day earlier.

Japan kicked off its vaccination campaign in mid-February
using Pfizer Inc's vaccine but has so far inoculated
just 3.9% of its population - the slowest rate among the world's
larger, rich countries.

Media reported on Friday that despite the expected approval
of the two additional vaccines, the government was likely to
wait on using AstraZeneca's shots for the time being due to
concerns over blood clots. Japan has arranged to buy 120 million
doses of the British-Swedish drugmaker's vaccine, enough for 60
million people.

In contrast to some other Group of Seven (G7) countries that
are beginning to end coronavirus-led lockdowns, much of Japan
remains under emergency curbs amid a fourth wave of the
pandemic.

On Friday, medical experts approved the government's
proposal to add the southern prefecture of Okinawa to the
emergency state, which now covers nine prefectures including
Tokyo, host of the Olympic Games starting in about two months.

The state of emergency for Okinawa, expected to be
formalised later on Friday, would run for about a month from
Sunday through June 20, Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura
said, beyond the May 31 for the other nine. It would mark the
third straight week that Japan has expanded the state of
emergency.

Japan has so far recorded about 695,000 coronavirus
infections and 12,000 COVID-19 deaths - much fewer than many
countries - but its medical system is increasingly strained by a
spike in more infectious variants of the virus.

With the Olympics starting on July 23, Tokyo is under
particular pressure to bring infections and strain on the
medical system down from the most dire "Stage Four" level and
emerge from a state of emergency as scheduled this month.
(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Jacqueline Wong & Simon
Cameron-Moore)