Japan's New COVID-19 Cases Surpass 110,000... Highest Ever Recorded

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida
[Photo by Yonhap News]

Japan's daily new COVID-19 cases have surged to over 110,000, marking a record high.

According to Japan's public broadcaster NHK on the 17th, the number of new COVID-19 cases nationwide reached 110,675 the previous day.

This surpassed the previous record of daily cases, 104,169, set on February 4th, after about five months.

Japan is experiencing a steep increase in COVID-19 cases. The average daily cases over the past week (June 10-16) were 81,919, a 108% increase compared to the previous week (39,310).

By region, Tokyo had the highest number of cases (18,919), followed by Osaka Prefecture (12,351) and Kanagawa Prefecture (7,638).

The resurgence of COVID-19 in Japan is attributed to the spread of the Omicron subvariant 'BA.5,' which is known to be more infectious than the original Omicron variant. There are concerns that daily infections could exceed 200,000 next week.

Recently, Japan's daily COVID-19 deaths have been around 20 to 30, which is still low compared to the 100 to 300 daily deaths recorded in February. For this reason, the Japanese government is reportedly not considering measures such as restricting restaurant operating hours at this time.

However, experts warn that if the number of new cases continues to rise sharply, deaths and severe cases will inevitably increase, so caution is necessary.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.