Tokyo: The average number of new COVID-19 cases reported in Japan in the week through Sunday came to 15.91 per medical institution, up 1.14-fold from the previous week, the health ministry said Friday.

The average rose for the 11th straight week after COVID-19 was downgraded in May to the same legal category as common infectious diseases including seasonal flu.

The ministry said some 5,000 regularly monitored medical institutions reported 78,502 new cases in total and that new cases increased in 42 of the country’s 47 prefectures.

The average figure was higher than 10 in 43 prefectures. The three most severely infected prefectures were Saga, with 31.79 cases, Nagasaki, with 30.29 cases, and Miyazaki, with 27.21 cases. They are all in the Kyushu southwestern region.

At a meeting Friday, members of the ministry’s COVID-19 advisory board exchanged opinions on whether, as in the case of seasonal flu, criteria for issuing a warning and alert can be created for the novel coronavirus-caused diseases based on the outcome from the fixed-point survey.

Takaji Wakita, chair of the board and head of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, told a press conference that setting criteria for COVID-19 similar to those for flu would be difficult.

“We need to specify the purpose of the step, such as whether it is to give notice of the infection situation or to prevent health care systems from being strained,” Wakita pointed out.

The ministry plans to hear experts’ opinions to consider ways to somehow set standards for COVID-19, a ministry official said.

JIJI Press