Tokyo coronavirus cases top 30,000 for 1st time

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:45 JST, July 21, 2022

Tokyo logged more than 30,000 new cases of novel coronavirus infection on Thursday, the first time it has passed that level.

The daily tally in the capital hit an all-time high of 31,878, far exceeding its previous record of 21,562 logged on Feb. 2.

In response to the surge of infection cases, the Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday raised the alert level for the medical system to the most serious on its four-level scale. As the medical system is increasingly under pressure, the metropolitan government is accelerating efforts to secure hospital beds for COVID-19 patients. On July 12, it had asked medical institutions in Tokyo to increase the number of beds for such patients from 5,000 to 7,000.

A separate alert level for Tokyo’s overall coronavirus infection situation had already been raised to the highest level on July 14. Thursday is the first time since March 17 that both alert levels set by the metropolitan government have reached their most serious level.

In Osaka Prefecture, there were 22,047 new cases, marking a record high for the second consecutive day. The figure rose more than 12,000 from the same day in the previous week.

Other prefectures, such as Chiba, Hyogo and Okinawa, also saw their infection numbers hit record highs on Thursday.

According to a tally by The Yomiuri Shimbun, the nationwide number of new infection cases exceeded 158,000, setting a new record high for the second straight day.