Two more people in Tokyo have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the metropolitan government said Friday.

The additional cases were discovered after the metropolitan government investigated people who had contact with a 72-year-old Tokyo taxi driver, whose infection was confirmed on Thursday.

One of the two people is a male employee of a houseboat used for a New Year party attended by the taxi driver. The other is a female branch worker of a taxi driver association. Neither of the two are in serious condition.

The houseboat employee in his 70s had contact with a traveler from China's Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, on Jan. 15 or 16.

Some 10 people who attended the party have fevers, according to the metropolitan government.

The party was held on Jan. 18 and attended by some 80 people, including taxi drivers for the branch and their family members. The infected branch worker in her 50s did not participate in the party.

Including those people, the taxi driver had contact with about 100 people. The taxi driver is a relative of a woman in her 80s, a resident in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, who died on Thursday in Japan's first fatal case of the virus.

Separately, the Okinawa prefectural government said that a female taxi driver in her 60s who lives in the southernmost Japan prefecture has tested positive for the virus

She drove passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise liner, currently quarantined for the virus at the port of Yokohama, Kanagawa, when the ship visited Okinawa on Feb. 1. She is in stable condition.

The health ministry and others said that a Yokohama fire official in his 30s who on Monday transported infected people from the Diamond Princess has tested positive for the virus.

The possibility is low that the transportation work was the cause of the infection because the fire official developed a fever only hours after the contact with patients, the ministry said.

The ministry and others said that a man in his 50s in Hokkaido, northern Japan, and a man in his 60s in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, have tested positive for the virus.

JIJI Press