Japan’s capital of Tokyo is at the center of its coronavirus epidemic with more cases than any other region. After a record number in a single day, data from public broadcaster NHK showed.
Tokyo registered a record 17 new cases on Tuesday, taking its tally to 171. In addition, Tokyo overtaking the hard-hit northern island of Hokkaido island as the prefecture with the most infections, NHK reported.
In mid-January, the first novel coronavirus had infected 13 people who have stayed in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Wuhan, as the source of the global virus pandemic, were subsequently found to be infected.
After that, other infected people who had returned to Japan from China or who were visiting Japan are thought to have carried the virus into the country.
The outbreak in Japan has infected 1,214 people in Japan as of late Wednesday morning, with 43 deaths linked to the virus, NHK said. That excludes 712 cases from a cruise ship moored near Tokyo last month.
An expert is warning of a second wave of novel coronavirus infections in Japan due to a surge in infected people returning to the country from overseas.
According to reuters.com, the International Olympic Committee and Japanese government on Tuesday agreed to put back the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to 2021 over the coronavirus outbreak.
Tokyo’s new infections came after Governor Yuriko Koike warned. Yuriko Koike said that a lockdown of the capital was possible if it saw an explosive rise in cases.
Hokkaido ended a state of emergency over its outbreak of the coronavirus, which saw 163 cases.
The outbreak has now infected more than 420,000 across 196 countries, with almost 19,000 deaths linked to the virus. The data was based on a Reuters tally.
