Japan's Daily COVID Cases Surge

Japan's daily total of COVID-19 cases topped 9,000 for the first time this week, with a surge in infections in Tokyo casting a pall over the Olympics and putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to take stronger countermeasures.

Photo Insert: The "Mask Panda Action Team" distributing face masks

Kyodo News reported that the capital confirmed 3,177 COVID-19 cases, hitting a record for the second straight day and pushing up the nationwide tally to exceed the previous all-time high of 7,958 set Jan. 8, as hospitals come under increasing strain.

The surge in infections comes as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads and people in Tokyo tire of restrictions under a state of emergency.

The record high was reported just a day after Tokyo logged 2,848 daily COVID-19 cases, exceeding the previous record of 2,520 cases on Jan. 7.

The virus has spread rapidly elsewhere, with the nationwide tally of daily infections that was below 2,000 in early July surpassing 4,000 one week ago, 5,000 on Thursday and 7,000 on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the daily count for the entire country reached 9,583, bringing the cumulative total to nearly 900,000, while Tokyo's neighboring prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba also all reported record single-day highs at 1,051, 870 and 577, respectively.

Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases has estimated that the Delta variant is now responsible for about 70 percent of infections in the metropolitan area.

Olympic organizers have pledged to implement adequate COVID-19 countermeasures for "safe and secure" games and stressed that the number of infections among athletes and others associated with the sporting extravaganza is very low.

Suga has denied the possibility of canceling the Olympics, which opened Friday without spectators at almost all venues, and said that "there is no worry" as people are expected to move around less.

But Takaji Wakita, head of the national institute, who also leads the health ministry's COVID-19 countermeasures advisory panel, warned at a press conference Wednesday that "the spread of infections (over this one week in the country) is something never experienced before."

The capital's seven-day rolling average of cases has risen to 1,954.7 per day, up 53 percent from the previous week.

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