The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced that six more people, five in Tokyo and one in Aichi Prefecture, tested positive for the new coronavirus Sunday.

According to officials at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, two of the five were male acquaintances of a Tokyo taxi driver who tested positive Thursday.

The driver attended a New Year party on a traditional “yakatabune” (traditional roofed party boat) which was held on Jan. 18 by a branch of an industry group.

The third person infected was a male doctor at a hospital in Ota Ward who had attended the same party as the taxi drivers and had close contact with a female medical worker at the same hospital.

The additional two cases were a man in his 30s, who lives in Tokyo and a man in his 60s living in Saitama. Both men have not travelled to China within two weeks of infection onset, and the infection routes of were not clarified.

In Aichi Prefecture, the newly infected person is a 60-year-old male who lives in the Owari district of the prefecture, the Aichi prefectural government said  Sunday.

He is an acquaintance of an infected woman living in Nagoya, the capital of the central Japan prefecture. She and her husband, both in their 60s, were found infected after returning to Japan on Feb. 7 from their trip to Hawaii.

The Owari man visited a medical institution in the prefecture on Saturday after developing a fever of 38 degrees and performed a genetic test at the Prefectural Institute of Health on Sunday, where his infection with the virus was confirmed. According to the Aichi government, he is hospitalized, but his condition is not serious.

JIJI Press