Government

Millions of Americans are not getting the second doses of their Covid-19 vaccines, and their ranks are growing.

More than five million people, or nearly 8 percent of those who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, have missed their second doses, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is more than double the rate among people who got inoculated in the first several weeks of the nationwide vaccine campaign.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said Friday that it did not know that a Baltimore factory had discarded millions of possibly contaminated doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine when President Biden last month released the company to ship vaccines manufactured there to Mexico and Canada.

Canadian and Mexican officials said on Friday that they had assurances from AstraZeneca that the millions of doses they received were safe. Some of the doses have been distributed to the public in both countries, the officials said.

TOKYO — Japan on Friday declared states of emergency in Tokyo, Osaka and surrounding areas in an effort to stem a widening coronavirus outbreak three months before the country plans to host the Summer Olympics.

The measures will take effect on Sunday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said, calling them “a short and concentrated measure” to slow the virus’s spread during the Golden Week holiday, traditionally one of the year’s busiest travel periods.