BEIJING -- About 215 million people aged 60 and above, or 81.44 percent of the age group, have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on the Chinese mainland, a health official said Thursday.

Nearly 160 million of them also got a booster shot, said Wu Liangyou, deputy head of the disease control and prevention division of the National Health Commission (NHC), at a press conference, noting that the vaccination speed for the age group is accelerating.

So far, 1.25 billion Chinese people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, accounting for 88.62 percent of the total population, data from the NHC shows.